The piece is based on the text “Europeana”, a 20th century story by Patrik Ouředníks, the anti-opera “Europeras 1 & 2” by John Cage and the European news broadcaster Euronews: No Comment. Goebbels combines these sources into rich visual compositions, accompanied by a score of classical, jazz and contemporary music.
Everything That Happened and Would Happen spans a hundred years of European history: its giddy contradictions, false promises and consuming crises. Taking World War I as a starting point, the performance proposes a landscape of fragmented incident without differentiating between the trivial and the supposedly meaningful. Together with musicians, dancers and performers, Heiner Goebbels leads us to a storage depot filled with the props of the past, the burden of the present and the key to possible futures. Part performance, part construction site, Everything That Happened and Would Happen is an invitation to imagine an alternative history of the 20th century through the poetry of collaboration and chance. Patrik Ouředník’s novel Europeana. A Brief History of the 20th Century, John Cage’s anti-opera Europeras 1 & 2 and the European TV channel Euronews – No Comment are three interlinked sources of inspiration. Everything That Happened and Would Happen is an open invitation to reflect on what constitutes European identity, where its origins lie and what its future might look like; to imagine different versions of our past, present and future.
German composer and director Heiner Goebbels is one of the most important figures in the contemporary music and theatre scene. He has created internationally celebrated compositions for ensemble and large orchestra (Surrogate Cities, A House of Call), music-theatre pieces (Max Black, Eraritjaritjaka), staged concerts (Songs of Wars I Have Seen), radio plays and sound and video installations (Documenta, Centre Pompidou, Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá).
