2006
The Performance
The stage direction ‘Enter Ghost’ from Shakespeare’s Hamlet is the point of departure for this project. The instruction is paradoxical: how can we make a ghost – an invisible and undeterminable force – appear on stage? And what is a ghost? Sight has become the privileged sense for our empirical interpretation of the world. According to the logic of our ‘scientific eye’, that which is not directly or indirectly ‘visible’ does not exist. What if we included ghosts in our perceived material reality? What if we no longer assigned ghosts a place in our fictional fantasy world, but rather saw them as a concrete, material and sociological force? How real is our imagination? In Enter Ghost Nicole Beutler aims to create space for the unnameable, the poetic and the inexplicable.

The Book: The Sensation is Real

Parallel to the making of the performance Enter Ghost Nicole Beutler published the book The Sensation is Real. As independent artwork it was developed in close collaboration with typographer Connie Nijman. Connecting disciplines such as literature, philosophy, photography, theology and alchemy, it proposes a poetic journey through a personal archive of ghostly potential. Countless historical references to séances, spiritism and fairies stand alongside with thoughts on Noh theatre, as well as the Shakespearean proposals of the supernatural. On invitation of De Appel, Amsterdam, Nicole Beutler developed a hypnotic tour as an informal and performative presentation of the ideas that surround the book. This performance was adapted to the old office building of the Festival KAMMERmachen in Chemnitz and performed again with special guest DJ Alec Smart.

The book is available at the following locations in Amsterdam:
De Appel, Nieuwe Spiegelstraat 10, 1017 DE Amsterdam, 020 6255651, info@deappel.nl
Nijhof&Lee, Staalstraat 13a, 1011 JK Amsterdam 020-6393294 www.nijhoflee.nl
Athenaeum Boekhandel, Spui 14-16, 1012 XA Amsterdam 020-6242972 www.athenaeum.nl
Boekie Woekie, books by artists, Berenstraat 16, 1016 GH Amsterdam,  boewoe at xs4all.nl, www.xs4all.nl/~boewoe
ISBN 90-78632-01-1
ISBN 978-90-78632-01-6

The People Involved

Concept/Choreography Nicole Beutler
with Hester van Hasselt, Esther Snelder, Sanja Mitrovic
Music Gary Shepherd
Dramaturgy Igor Dobricic
Light/Stage Minna Tiikkainen
Clothes Jessica Helbach
Book Nicole Beutler and Connie Nijman (Typography)
Contributions André Lepecki, Bob Bishop, Laurens van der Heijden, Mark Poysden, Igor Dobricic
Production Klaartje Wouters
PR-photography Anja Beutler
Management Inge Koks
Produced by LISA
Co-produced by wpZimmer, Antwerpen and PACTZollverein, Essen
Supported by Fonds voor Amateurkunst en Podiumkunsten, Den Haag and Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst

List of Performances

The Sensation is Real

21, 22 August 2007 – Festival KAMMERmachen, Chemnitz

28+29 April 2007 - De Appel Amsterdam, in the frame of ‘Situations’

Enter Ghost

11 October 2007, Chassé Theater, Breda

25+26 April 2007 - Springdance Festival Utrecht, Theater Kikker

13+14 October 2006 - Theater Frascati in de [Brakke Grond], Amsterdam

12 October 2006 - Premiére

10+11 October 2006 - Try-Outs