User:ArtAndLiterature/Hendrik Quast

Hendrik Quast (* 1985 in Celle) is a German performance artist.

Career
Quast grew up in Müden on the edge of the Lüneburg Heath as the son of a florist. He graduated from the Institute for Applied Theatre Studies at the Justus Liebig University Gießen, where he studied under Heiner Goebbels. He is a solo artist who collaborates regularly with Maika Knoblich, Les Truces (Charlotte Simon and Toben Piel) and Christina Neuss, among others.

Due to Quast's processual understanding of theater in the tradition of postdramatic theater, his work transcends not only established dramaturgies and temporalities, but also the genres performance and theater. For his performances, he learns performing techniques such as ventriloquism, mime and musical singing. He includes everyday practices, crafts and cultural techniques such as taxidermy, nail design and funeral floristry in his performances, which are performed on stage or in site-specific formats. His works draw on queer aesthetics, pop culture and everyday experiences of chronic conditions. Quast questions canonized theater and the distinction between entertainment and high culture. In his latest performances, Quast appears as an alter ego that adapts specific ways of speaking and acting depending on the context. For example, he plays the "Influcancer" named Hendrik with a "K" who is a mime coach for social media in the project "Dancer with Cancer“. In the project "Spill Your Guts“, Quast goes on stage as a ventriloquist with his puppet personifying his chronic condition.

Quast performs in independent theaters, such as Sophiensäle Berlin, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm in Frankfurt/Main, Gessnerallee Zürich, FFT Düsseldorf, Theater Rampe Stuttgart and Kampnagel in Hamburg. He also performs at art institutions such as GAK Bremen, M1 Hohenlockstedt and Fridericianum. His works are part of international art festivals such as Impulse, Steirischer Herbst, Festival a/d Werf and Summer Festival Kampnagel. As author and director, he adapted three of his theater works as radio plays for WDR Cologne.

From 2011 to 2015, he worked at the Graduate School of the Berlin University of the Arts in the field of aesthetic research. Since 2023, he is an artistic PhD candidate at Stockholm University of the Arts and is doing his PhD on humor and sickness in the performative art in cooperation with Zurich University of the Arts.

Solo performances

 * 2009: slipsight, Impulse Festival 2009, Cologne, Mülheim, Düsseldorf
 * 2009: Furnier, behandlungsraum, (en: Veneer. Treatment Room), Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel
 * 2012: Trauer tragen (en: Performing Mourning), Sophiensaele Berlin, Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, zeitraum exit Mannheim
 * 2014: Mohrle, Sophiensaele Berlin, Mousonturm Frankfurt /M., Gessnerallee Zurich, FFT Düsseldorf, brut Vienna
 * 2020: Dancer with Cancer, Festival "Die Irritierte Stadt", Musik der Jahrhunderte, Akademie Schloss Solitude, Theater Rampe Stuttgart

Radio plays in German

 * 2012: Trauer tragen (en: Performing Mourning), in cooperation with Maika Knoblich, composition: Katharina Stephan Ur-Sendung ARD-Themenwoche "Leben mit dem Tod“ (Theme week "Living with the death") (WDR)
 * 2015: Mohrle. Eine Fabel, (en: Mohrle: A fable) in cooperation with Maika Knoblich, composition: Katharina Stephan, production: the authors (WDR)
 * 2020: Nagelneu. (en: Nailed it), in cooperation with Maika Knoblich, composition: Katharina Stephan, production: the authors (WDR) - Hörspiel des Jahres 2021 (radio play of the year 2021)

Performances Hendrik Quast & Maika Knoblich

 * 2012: Heide, Huis a/ Werf Utrecht
 * 2013: Der Ur-Forst, Sophiensaele Berlin, Festival Impulse
 * 2016: Nagelneu (en: Nailed it), Sophiensaele Berlin, FFT Düsseldorf, Schwankhalle Bremen
 * 2018: Hundeplatz (en: Human–canine bonding), Sophiensaele Berlin
 * 2019: Casting Freischütz, Sophiensaele Berlin, Gessnerallee Zürich
 * 2020: PPtv, steirischer herbst Festival

Texts in German

 * 2014: Techniken des ‚falschen Wachstums’. Die ritualisierte Bindetechnik des Kränzens als geteilte Expertise, (en: Techniques of 'false growth'. The Ritualized Tying Technique of Wreathing as Shared Expertise) in: Susanne Stemmler (ed.): Wahrnehmung, Erfahrung, Experiment, Wissen. Objektivität und Subjektivität in den Künsten und den Wissenschaften. (en: Perception, Experience, Experiment, Knowledge. Objectivity and Subjectivity in the Arts and Sciences) Diaphanes, pp. 199–218.
 * 2015: German/English publication: Research Environments. Das Bewerten und Verwerten künstlerischer Prozesse. Reflections on the Value of Artistic Processes., publication and co-editing. UdK Verlag.
 * 2017: Aktion (en: Action), in: Florian Malzacher, Dominik Müller, Felizitas Stilleke (ed.): Stichworte. Impulse Theater Festival 2013-2017. Alexander Verlag, pp. 17.
 * 2021: Dramaturgien von unten (en: Dramaturgie from below), in: Franziska Werner, Joy Kristin Kalu, Alexander Kirchner (ed.): Openings. Sophiensaele 2011–2021. Alexander Verlag, pp. 262–264.
 * 2021: Daniela Dröscher, Paula Fürstenberg (ed.): Soll & Habitus. (en: Debit and Habitus) Sukultur, 2021. ISBN 9783955661397.

Awards

 * 2013: Finalist in the competition „Dörfer für Kunst – Kunst fürs Dorf“ (Villages for Art - Art for the Village) by Deutsche Stiftung Kulturlandschaft (German Foundation Kulturlandschaft) with ARTE / ZDF.
 * 2019/2021: Research grant of the Berlin Senat
 * 2019: Working grant radio play from the Film- and Media Foundation NRW
 * 2021: Fellow of the International Forum at the Berliner Theatertreffen
 * 2021: Hörspiel des Jahres (Radio play of the year) for Nagelneu (en: Nailed it) in cooperation with Maika Knoblich
 * 2022: Fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude
 * 2022: Fellow of the Villa Komagawa at the Goethe Institut Japan.

Websites

 * Hendrik Quast's Website
 * Quast & Knoblich Website