EVER GIVEN is focusing on collapse. What if a person, an organism, an entire system can no longer continue as before? What if everything that previously seemed self-evident is suddenly disrupted? What happens during a standstill? The protagonists on stage are people who have experienced or sought a radical rupture - were confronted with a message, a stroke of fate, a diagnosis. With a nothing-goes-anymore! And yet the wheel keeps turning and turning: The narrative structure of EVER GIVEN is an experiment: This revue is not told with a clear beginning and end, but in a circular way. It is not a line - it is a circle. After a prologue, the piece threads itself into this ‘loop’ and returns to the beginning. The next evening threads itself into the following scene. The following evening into the one that comes after. We simply get on board. Into the merry-go-round. Each evening is threaded anew - at a different point. All sequences must be designed in such a way that they can be repeated in themselves. Everything goes round in circles and after the end it just goes on? What does it sound like when the world gets out of rhythm, what if the rhythm escalates and loops until the music piles up into a wall of sound and tips over into a new situation.

With: Hana Hazem Arabi, Adham El Said, Michaela Groch-Fischer, LED and Marianne Vlaschits

Concept, text, direction: Helgard Haug
Composition: Barbara Morgenstern
Live music: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz
Live electronics: Peter Breitenbach
Stage design and Costume: Evi Bauer
Video art and Lighting design: Marc Jungreithmeier
Dramaturgy: Maria Nübling, Henning Nass
Research: Maria Nübling
Assistant director: Birgit Allesch
Assistant stage designer: Laura Schroeder
Assistant costume designer: Olivia Lottersberger
Artistic assistance: Lisa Homburger
Intership: Jule Bischoff, Noémi Juniki, Oriana Mucha, Güde Nissen
Production management: Maitén Arns, Eva Luzia Preindl
Touring management: Chloé Ferro
Technical director Rimini Protokoll: Patrick Tucholski
Container ship video-footage: Christoph Schwarz
(„Supercargo“ www.christophschwarz.net/supercargo)
The Sea Beats: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz, Adham Elsaid, Peter Breitenbach

A production of Volkstheater Wien and Rimini Apparat in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Theater Magdeburg.
Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

With: Hana Hazem Arabi, Adham El Said, Michaela Groch-Fischer, LED and Marianne Vlaschits

Concept, text, direction: Helgard Haug
Composition: Barbara Morgenstern
Live music: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz
Live electronics: Peter Breitenbach
Stage design and Costume: Evi Bauer
Video art and Lighting design: Marc Jungreithmeier
Dramaturgy: Maria Nübling, Henning Nass
Research: Maria Nübling
Assistant director: Birgit Allesch
Assistant stage designer: Laura Schroeder
Assistant costume designer: Olivia Lottersberger
Artistic assistance: Lisa Homburger
Intership: Jule Bischoff, Noémi Juniki, Oriana Mucha, Güde Nissen
Production management: Maitén Arns, Eva Luzia Preindl
Touring management: Chloé Ferro
Technical director Rimini Protokoll: Patrick Tucholski
Container ship video-footage: Christoph Schwarz
(„Supercargo“ www.christophschwarz.net/supercargo)
The Sea Beats: Barbara Morgenstern, Daniel Eichholz, Adham Elsaid, Peter Breitenbach

A production of Volkstheater Wien and Rimini Apparat in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer and Theater Magdeburg.
Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

With:
Hana Hazem Arabi
Adham Elsaid
Bettina Grahs
Hao Yang Sun
Marianne Vlaschits

Drums: Daniel Eichholz
Vocals: Adham Elsaid
Keyboard and vocals: Barbara Morgenstern
Sound design: Peter Breitenbach
Recording: Michael Kube
Music recording: Alex Paulick
Technical realization: Sebastian Nohl and Peter Hamacher

Idea, text, direction: Helgard Haug
Dramaturgy: Christina Hänsel
A production of Westdeutscher Rundfunk 2025

First broadcast: November 8, 2025
Length: 53:30 Many thanks to the Volkstheater Wien, the HAU Hebbel am Ufer, the Theater Magdeburg, and the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, which made the play EVER GIVEN possible, from whose material the radio play was developed.

One technology of surveillance of electronic devices is the inductive recording of electromagnetic fields. The extent of such intrusions was documented in the Snowden leaks and again in the “CIA Hacking Tools” released by Wikileaks in March 2017. These invisible techniques of accessing private data can be experienced in the installation Surveillance Music as sound. The installation consists of four parts: Polygon, hard drive, pedestal and inductional coil microphones. The white smooth polygon is floating two meters above ground, attached to three thin metal strings. It features speakers on the sides and black cables hanging down from three openings. Connected to the end of the cables are inductional coil microphones. These move vertically in the electromagnetic field of the hard drive, controlled by a computer and motors hidden in the polygon. The microphones transform the electromagnetic field into our range of perception and makes it audible through the speakers. In the process of making the electromagnetic field of the hard drive audible, the data on it is part of the sonic fingerprint and of the composition. The programmed movements of the inductional coil microphones form the music. The installation is looped.