In the 1970s, Japanese Daisuke Inoue developed the world's first karaoke machine. Karaoke, which translates to "empty orchestra," turned out to be a multi-million dollar idea for the entertainment industry and went viral all over the world. In contrast to Daisuke Inoue: He did not patent his invention and hardly earned any money from it.

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POETRY OF FAILURE is an examination of failure in several parts. In changing artistic teams around the director Klemens Hegen, various aspects of a concept are worked out that is just as existentially threatening as it is neoliberally usable. The results of these works are fleeting and arise for the place and context of their performance.

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In the first part, the director Klemens Hegen tried to perform one of the most difficult ballet jumps, the Grand Jeté, in Vienna. In the second part, he, the actress Laura Eichten, the costume designer Josefin Kwon and the author Marcus Peter Tesch deal with a place in Munich where failure is celebrated just as much as success: the karaoke bar.

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Failure shows how privileged a person is who can afford to start over and over again. And is irreversible for another. But it always throws us back on ourselves, appears to us as a singular experience that isolates us from others.

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In a solo performance full of Schmonzetten, catchy tunes and disco hits, the actress Laura Eichten asks who is allowed to fail at which location and for whom. Or can. Or must. And finally, quite generally, after the representability of the failure. In this way, she and the audience go into situations in which it would – at least potentially – be possible to fail together.  

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