It`s Time to Get Old! (ab 12 Jahre) Theatre

40 years of city partnership Hamburg – Shanghai

"It's Time to Get Old!" is a transmedia theatre project that combines documentary theatre, live video game control, audience interaction, and improvised sports commentary. The project is aimed at a cross-generational audience, as well as football and gaming communities.
The starting point is football – a sport usually associated with youth, strength, and speed. At its heart is aging as a real, often overlooked experience. Dozens of football-loving seniors become virtual characters in a video game and compete against a "Galactic All-Star Team." The movements of aging bodies are translated into playful choreography. Stadium sounds, game audio, and live commentary merge into an immersive space. Through real-time control, audience participation, and improvised commentary, each performance becomes a unique narrative that makes the life experiences of older people visible. The project strengthens the social visibility of older people, challenges age stereotypes, and promotes intergenerational dialogue. Its artistic innovation lies in the real-time transfer of biometric data into digital avatars and the interplay between vulnerability and vitality, reality and virtuality. By combining biometric data and digital gameplay, a metaphor for generational conflicts emerges, along with new perspectives on aging, dignity, and humor.

Director/Ensemble: Guanghao Wang with Bread Trap Group (Shanghai) | Organizer: German Association for Asian Art | Cooperation partners: Hamburg Liaison Office China (Shanghai), YOUNG Theater Shanghai, CAISSA Touristic Group (Europe), fluxus² Hamburg

Funded by the Hamburg Authority for Culture and Media.