Noise. Das Rauschen der Menge

The English word “noise” is derived from the Latin “nausea” meaning seasickness. In contemporary usage it usually applies to a disturbing or disruptive sound but it also has broader associations of dissent and quarrelsomeness. Noise is more than a purely acoustic phenomenon. It consists of layers of vibrations at varying volume, it is a sound made up of many sounds. It can include shouting slogans and people’s screams, the beating of pans with wooden spoons, of hands banging on walls or feet kicking bus shelters. We might also call these “rumblings”.

The playwright and director Manuela Infante considers Noise to be the art of expressing political dissent. This could be heard in 2019 in the rumblings in the streets of Santiago de Chile, where she lives, that were triggered by sudden increases in prices for public transport. The demonstrations escalated into nationwide protests against social injustice and in favour of constitutional reforms that have since been achieved – all without naming any individual leaders. For Manuela Infante, this noise is the sound of the voices of the many, loud in their own defence. It can be compared with the Fridays For Future protest movement that connects people around the world without being directed centrally but enables a crowd of individuals with many voices to make themselves heard in protest. In her play Noise. The Sound of the Crowd Manuela Infante seeks to examine the question of whether societies can trust themselves to respond to this polyphonous unrest with a pluralist politics of the many, with new ideas for co-determination instead of stifling them with a single voice of power.

The Chilean Manuela Infante is currently one of the most exciting theatre-makers working internationally. Her work is notable for articulating philosophical questions in scenic terms. In 2019 her play Estado Vegetal, in which she uses the perspective of plants to critique contemporary social systems, won the Stückemarkt Commisison at the Berlin Theatertreffen. The world premiere of her new play is now presented at Schauspielhaus Bochum, the Stückemarkt’s partner theatre. It has been written for and with the voice of a member of the Bochum ensemble and creates a poetic-political exploration of noise as a new polyphonic language of the crowd.