SANCTA

Based on Paul Hindemith’s 1922 short work Sancta Susanna – in which a nun confronts the violent punishment of sexual self-determination – Florentina Holzinger’s SANCTA bridges Bach and Rachmaninoff with metal, noise and contemporary compositions to reclaim the gore of Catholic mass and address the violent history of the Church. Countering the religious discipline and punishment of (female*) sexuality – abortion, homosexuality, sex work, pleasure – SANCTA stages sexual sensations and practices as a pathway to not-only-religious ecstasy. In a quest for magic and transcendence, body artists twist the religious topoi of scarification, penetration, transformation; show magicians propose their take on the Bible’s miracles; the Sistine Chapel turns into a climbing wall, opera into rock musical, God into robot, Jesus Christ into Jesus Christ Superstar. Mass turns into spectacle and, in Florentina Holzinger’s words, real magic needs to happen. Spiderlike and dark, loud and excessive, funny and redemptory, SANCTA is the trigger warning for mass.

Note

We recommend a minimum age of 18 to attend the performance.

Triggerwarning

Please note: Sancta contains

• self-injurious acts
• blood
• needles
• strobe lights
• explicit depiction or description of physical or sexual violence

A production by Florentina Holzinger/Spirit, neon lobster, Mecklenburgisches Staatstheater and Staatsoper Stuttgart in co-production with Wiener Festwochen | Freie Republik Wien, Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz (in cooperation with Komische Oper Berlin), Opera Ballet Vlaanderen, Julidans and Theater Rotterdam

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragte der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media), Ammodo, Kulturabteilung der Stadt Wien
With the support of Bundesministerium für Kunst, Kultur, öffentlichen Dienst und Sport, Anna und Manfred Wakolbinger
Support research phase: Goethe-Institut

Thank you to: Caritia Abell, Sebastian Eckermann, Linnea Vogel