Ayla Pierrot Arendt

The video opera Death in Peace took shape against the backdrop of the anti-government protests sweeping through the streets of Tbilisi in the spring of 2024. In Ayla Pierrot Arendt’s piece, embedded in the unsettling soundscape by composer duo Nika Pasuri and Ani Zakareishvili, the protagonists of three different nationalities meet on four screens: two Georgians, two Germans, and a Russian in exile in Georgia. With their respective ideas of peace and freedom, friend and foe, inseparable from their political biographies, they encounter one another in the story of the Georgian Natia and the Russian deserter Andrej. And it is not long before Andrej is dead, shot in the German embassy in Tbilisi, of all places, by the ambassador’s husband. His accidental death raises many questions: the price of freedom, the limits of diplomacy, the gaps and myths of collective identity and loyalties – fuelled by mounting fears in an uneasy, conflict-ridden Europe. 

Concept, Direction: Ayla Pierrot Arendt | Performance: Pia Epping, Tabea Gregory, Lucy-Jo Petermann, Carolina Saad Vasconcellos, Lara-Marie Weine | Dramaturgy: Kristina Roeder | Choreography: Annabelle Dvir | Composition: Nika Pasuri, Ani Zakareishvili | Vocal Performance: Choir of Opera Kutaisi, Davit Khorbaladze | Lyrics: Davit Khorbaladze | Costume: Clara Rosina Strasser | DOP: Maxim Pechersky | Montage: Ayla Pierrot Arendt, Paul Haas | Production manager: Diana Koschlakow | Light Design Stage: Matthias Rieker | Video Technician Stage: Nina Nadig Production: Ayla Pierrot Arendt | Co-produced by Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm (DE)

Content note: parts with stroboscopic lights and mentions/ depictions of death