The Nickelodeon

The Nickelodeon derives its title from the early type of motion picture theatre bearing the same name. Unlike its historical counterpart, C&H’s Nickelodeon does not offer its customers film screenings, but a selection of short live performances to choose from. The performances in The Nickelodeon are re-enactments on stage of the movements executed by cameras in movies. The very shots (travel shots, pans, zoom-ins, close-ups, etc.) making up the original footage are reproduced in an empty space by performers moving aluminium frames of different sizes and formats to the original soundtrack. Each one of these micro-performances exactly reproduces the camera movements and editing cuts of specific excerpts taken from a broad selection of feature films, television series, documentaries, talk shows, video clips or live broadcasts. The only thing remaining of the film set is the prescribed movement in space of what was being held in focus by the cameras. In other words, the spatial limits of what is being filmed, the framing operated by the cameras, is made visible as such.
C&H is: Christophe Meierhans, Heike Langsdorf, Christoph Ragg. With Ula Sickle. In co-production with de Rotterdamse Schouwburg.