MAMA DADA Theater a/d Rijn / Ludwig Bindervoet

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, aka 'the Dada Baroness', is the mother of modern art, the very first performance artist. A woman who led a wild life from Berlin to New York in the early 20th century, who turned herself into a living queer work of art, shaved her head and painted it vermilion red. A woman who walked around with a plaster phallus as an accessory, and who, in passing, turned a urinal into a work of art. Elsa ended up on the fringes of society. With her provocative poetry and her debauched presence, she opposed the fixed idea of the male genius.

With MAMA DADA, Ludwig brings this anarchic and unsurpassed pioneer to where she belongs for the first time: the stage. Together with actress and theater maker Ellen Goemans, Ludwig delves into the musicality and physicality of the Dada language. They prove once and for all that Dada is not only playful but also moving, and not only witty but deeply political. Ludwig brings Elsa to life out of admiration, but also as an exploration of pure creative autonomy. He battles his hypocrisy and that of his generation, and confronts his artistry and privilege with Elsa's radical art as an act of self-sacrifice. MAMA DADA is a theatrical attack on the norm.