Ice Collective reading with the help of the imagination in Gladbeck/Exhibition

Written by Russian novelist Vladimir Sorokin, Ice (Liod) tells the story of a mysterious sect in present-day Moscowhunting people with a "living heart." Of all the victims they have kidnapped, the only ones to survive are those whose hearts begin to "speak" on being struck with a hammer made of ice. After having undergone the ecstatic experience of this brutal "contact of the heart", the surviving victims of the attacks soon realize that they are no longer able to lead a normal life and that all their other feelings have suddenly become numbed. The victims who do respond to the "ice attack" find themselves part of a secret brotherhood whose collective spiritual strength is drawn from the primeval ice of the Siberian Tunguska meteorite. Members of Hitler's SS and Stalin's secret guard had once been among the followers of the sect, whose aim it was to do away with corrupt society and to return to an eternal state of existence.

Latvian director Alvis Hermanis, whose production of Gogol's Revizor caused a furore both at the Salzburg Festival in 2003 and internationally, staged the first part of the project in the spring at schauspielfrankfurt together with members of their ensemble.

At Gladbeck's Maschinenhalle Zweckel, the project will enter its second phase. Together with the actors from Frankfurt and the ensemble of the Jaunais Rigas teatris (New Theatre Riga), Hermanis will create a continuation of his production of Ice. The Gladbeck production will be accompanied by a newly-created installation, integrated into the performance.

The conclusion of this European project, phase 3 of Ice, will then take place at Alvis Hermanis' New Theatre Riga in October 2005.