The Drone springs from an unanswered question: what happens when the buzzing becomes so constant that it stops being noise and turns into climate? The drone — the war drone, the bee drone, the drone as a sustained note with no beginning or end — as the permanent background of an era where violence has lost its scale.

The poem that shapes the piece tells of two hundred thousand litres of blood watering flowers. An image of a violence so massive it cannot be felt, only named in numbers. And yet the body freezes, the screen filters, eternal winter settles into our trusted device.

In the great hall of Room Service, twelve bodies — participants of the ni.butoh workshop held before the edition — occupy the room. An incessant buzzing fills the chest, prelude to the death of decency. The bodies dance blind, never fully meeting. A different death lurks in every layer of society.

The piece is also a statement about format; instead of a single performer in a room, a swarm. The audience that opens the door finds a human hive.

ROOM SERVICE

About Room Service: A scenic project founded in Cologne (Germany) in 2004 by Gregor Weber. Each edition takes over the Kunsthaus Rhenania with 10–12 simultaneous 8-minute performances in different rooms. The audience moves through the building choosing which doors to open. In recent editions, Matilde J. Ciria directs the ni.butoh workshop held before the event, whose participants join as performers, set designers, costume makers…
Each piece is performed 48 times during the event.
bodyincrisis.com/room-service