Presentation ‘Bulk’ by Wunderbaum is a repetitive performance about things in the port of Rotterdam

Around the Rotterdam Waalhaven it is mainly passengers that are transported over the water. A water taxi shoots past and a cruise ship passes the quay – wildly lit by colorful light bundles, majestic and frightening at the same time. But in theater performance Bulk It’s not about these kinds of canals; Wunderbaum dives specifically into the transport of products over the water.

During music, theater and opera festival O. Bulk In a beautiful location on the Nieuwe Maas. A grandstand has been built under an old harbor crane. On the other hand is a container, where musicians Moritz Bosmann and Quartus plane have entrenched themselves, surrounded by their instruments. Meeuwen shave above the heads of the audience, the water is shot against the quay. While the evening falls over Rotterdam, buildings around Waterweg light up one by one. The sky changes from blue to pink, to increasingly darker.

Chorus

In this beautiful decor (perhaps Rotterdam at its best), the five actors of Wunderbaum are reviewed for an hour and a half of things. They mention endless lists, associative bouncing from one product to another. This goes from frozen food to all kinds of cooling machines, from baking products to bicycles, from Chinese toys to garbage that is shipped from country to land. Stuff falls into categories, categories hooks on product groups, tumbling over each other. As a chorus, the words are repeated, once again and again until they lose their meaning, as sounds on Bossman’s experimental electronic compositions.

Of Bulk Want Wunderbaum wants to say something about the goods flows over water. The promotion text hints on a statement, slightly anti -capitalist, but that message must distil the audience themselves from the infinite lists, from the word flow that changes from rhythm and sometimes evokes a smile, but starts to bore after some time. The most important thing that can be deduced from the lists is that it is a lot of what is being shipped – a lot of, absurd a lot. Do we really need all of that? And does that have to come from the other side of the world? A comment is that not everything the actors call is actually transported on board ships. That stagnates the imaging concept: if part of that excess is fictional, the whole makes less impression. You ask yourself for every next statement, whether you should take it seriously.

Climax

Visually, the word flow takes shape with an act, where the actors change costume several times, from urban outfits to gymage suits. In choreographies they walk rhythmically over the playing field or make movements from which port processes can be deduced: dragged with the boxes and containers, the ships that are brought in and leave again. At a different time, the performers lug together over the quay, while the list continues.

An hour and a half is a long seat with so much repetition. Certainly because the lists do not work towards anything, except to make clear the multitude of products shipped. The list becomes a gimmick, from structure to a climax there is no question. Bulk Gives an impetus for thoughts about capitalism and globalization, but requires too much from the public.

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