Metzger / Zimmermann / de Perrot

In Zurich, the dancer Gregor Metzger, the musician Dimitri de Perrot and the circus artist Martin Zimmermann founded the trio and collective MZdP aka Metzger / Zimmermann / de Perrot in 1998. And already in 1999 their first creation GOPF brought them international success, followed by HOI and JANEI, which premiered in 2001 and 2004 respectively and also went on international tours.

So the repertoire was small, but the trio's virtuosity was great, which the Schauspielhaus Zurich honoured in 2004 by performing all three of the aforementioned plays during one month. In the same year, they were also performed over four weeks in Paris as part of the "Terre de cirques" festival at La Villette. This success was based on a rampant imagination and a rigorous interpretation that reined in critical, icy and humorous statements.

But what was MZdP about? Of the weaknesses and monstrosities of power, at least in JANEI. The ballet of appearances and disappearances, set to live music by Dimitri de Perrot and performed by Metzger and Zimmermann, dragged on from one creation to the next. The two were "in league with the devil". They came and went with the agility of goblins through slits, skylights and back doors. Likewise, they fought many open ambushes in wooden palisades. A Bauhaus-style set design set up a world on stage where traps and dreams lurked in the trio's lives.

In HOI, the trio roamed the mountains in an alpine epic in which the face of Switzerland emerged on the boards between two superbly executed ski runs.

JANEI was about power and its abuse. There the collective spent itself to its heart's content. No sympathy for any of the three who seemed to be enduring the tyranny of their fellow human beings here. Life is hard in this world where the law of the strongest is always the best.

After seven years of collaboration, 21 countries played in and over 450 performances together, the trio disbanded at the end of 2005.


CONTEXT
Dimitri de Perrot and Martin Zimmermann then founded the directing duo Zimmermann & de Perrot and continued to develop this unique theater form. More information about Zimmermann & de Perrot.