Cyrill Lachauer: Esel

The film Esel, in which Cyrill Lachauer examines a northern Alpine ritual, thematizes exoticism amongst others. On the one hand, the Esel dancers could descend from very different cultural regions and on the other hand Lachauer chooses to play with a custom that is close and familiar to him as he grew up in the Alps himself.

According to an old custom, young, terrifyingly masked men dressed as Esel (German for "donkey") march through the miners' village of Stelvio in early December. They wear archaic-looking masks, brightly colored rag costumes and straps adorned with large bells in front of their bodies. As they move, they swing their hips wildly, bray like donkeys and roll about on the ground. "Klosn" is the name of this exclusively male custom. In his film, Lachauer removes the dance from its traditional ritual context of the winter parade and situates the Esel in a northern Italian mountain landscape. For this occasion, Moritz Stumm composed a soundtrack of electronic music.

Esel joins a group of dance films, like that of Justin and The Rain Dancer. They all are characterized by the pursuit to establish a connection with the landscape through movement, music and ritual. (Text: Cornelia Gockel and Cyrill Lachauer)

Selected by Cornelius Ferber (HMKV)

 

Cyrill Lachauer

Cyrill Lachauer, who grew up in the Inn Valley near Rosenheim, lives and works in Berlin and occasionally in the USA. Lachauer studied directing, ethnology and fine arts in Munich and Berlin. He has received the Pollock-Krassner Foundation Scholarship, New York (2021), the Villa Aurora Scholarship, Los Angeles (2015) and the Stiftung Kunstfonds Arbeitsstipendium, Bonn (2012), among others. His works were most recently shown at Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020/21), during Foto Wien at Christine König Galerie, Vienna (2023) and Galeria Mario Ianelli in Rome (2019). Lachauer is also co-founder of the Berlin label Flipping the Coin. Since 2022 he has been working with US-photographer Mike Brodie on the feature film Slack.

Find out more about the artist:

Website: https://www.cyrilllachauer.net