MYZEL (2024)
Performance walk into a speculative future of the fungocene in 5 Acts
Post-Anthropocentric Circus Part III
Fungi fiction
In collaboration with forest fungi, we create Fungi-Fiction. The audience communicates with the global mycelium. Together, we enter a symbiotic relationship with diverse fungi to survive the natural disasters of the coming centuries. On this walk, you can feel, taste, smell, and get a little spooked.
70 minutes, 1,5 km immersive performance
Open Air, forest walk
Dates
Sneak Preview: Friday, November 8, 2024 / 2:00 PM
Premiere: Saturday, November 9, 2024 / 2:00 PM
Sunday, November 10, 2024 / 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM
Location: Forstenrieder Park Meeting point at the entrance „Wildpark Forstenried Ludwigs Geräumt“, Buchenhain near Munich.
Tickets: Reservation via Eventbrite Donation: 1 -25 Euro
For further bookings:
This performance is newly created each time, depending on which mycelium networks cooperate with us and what the fungi enable for us. Preparation time is about 3 days on site. Performance duration is approximately 70 minutes in daylight.

Description of the Piece
The year is 2224. Earth has radically changed: After the environmental catastrophes of the 21st century, mycelia overgrow the ruins of the Anthropocene, feeding on the toxins left behind by capitalism and healing the wounds humanity has inflicted on the earth. Fungi have taken over the world and expanded their communicative abilities. From everything they find, they create unexpected life forms. The „Anthropocene“ has been replaced by the „Fungocene“. Fungi decide in their global mycelium networks what lives, who gets digested, and how it reconstitutes. Only mushroom allies will survive.
The few humans who survived climate chaos, species extinction, wars, and pandemics have become mycelium collaborators. They have revived the knowledge of forest sprites, mixed it with scientific insights from mycology, and learned to communicate with the fungi. Only in this way have they managed to survive the chaos of the upheaval.
In the forest, we meet some of these people and share in their knowledge, they introduce us to mushroom communication so that we can participate in the new Fungocene.
Staging
The performance begins with a transformation: Participants bite a piece of an (edible) mushroom and are transported to a speculative future of the year 2224. They are received by two individuals connected in symbiosis with the fungi. Their bodies are overgrown with mushroom-like structures. They wear lamellar mycorrhiza capes made of mushroom leather and communicate with the fungal networks in their environment.
The two lead us off the paths into the forest. The omnipresence of the fungi tells of the events of the past Anthropocene. The clicking of carried Geiger counters reminds us of the radioactive rains after the reactor accident in Chernobyl. The clicking of the measuring instruments connects the past with the future and, together with the sounds of the forest, becomes the soundtrack of the performance.
On our way through the undergrowth, poetic text passages alternate with interactive play scenes and physical experiences. The performers encourage the group to train their multisensory mindfulness in order to become survivable in the Fungocene.
Participants must learn to perceive the fungi with all their senses: we listen, smell, touch, and taste. Collectively, the participants sense the mycelia (fungal networks) in the ground, perceive the connecting network, and lose themselves in the earth.
Background
MYZEL is a post-anthropocentric circus production by Ella von der Haide and Nicola von Thurn, 2024. Following the successful development „Cirque du Soil“ (2022/23) and W.A.L.D. (2024) from the post-anthropocentric circus series, we turn to fungi.
A major inspiration for our performance is Donna Haraway and her feminist SF approach to speculative fiction. We follow her in opening up new realms of thought and action through our work.
The performance collective draws impulses from current neo-materialist/feminist and visionary publications on fungi:
- „Der Pilz am Ende der Welt: Über das Leben in den Ruinen des Kapitalismus“ (2019) by Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
- „Verwobenes Leben: Wie Pilze unsere Welt formen und unsere Zukunft beeinflussen“ (2020) by Merlin Sheldrake
- „Let’s Become Fungal! Mycelium Teachings and the Arts: Based on Conversations with Indigenous Wisdom Keepers, Artists, Curators, Feminists and Mycologists“ (2023) by Yasmine Ostendorf-Rodríguez
What is the Post-Anthropocentric Circus?
We decenter human perspectives, mix scientific insights from mycology with local traditional knowledge about mushroom gathering, and try to increase awareness of fungi. For our dramatic work, we address current diffuse fears of climate change and the uncertain future and play with the fantastic possibilities of new alliances with more-than-human beings. We take this form of fantastic interspecies-world-making very seriously.
Our goal is to develop a performance practice that reflects an alternative nature-culture relationship and offers new perspectives on the ecological and social problems of our time. We seek alternatives to anthropo- and eurocentric views and understand our work as an artistic contribution to queer-feminist ecology and decolonial botany. Our goal is to take these two fields out of universities and academic discourse and make them accessible to a broader audience through our artistic-creative work. This includes taking mushrooms seriously as actors and making them tangible without anthropomorphizing them.
Artistic Direction: Ella von der Haide und Nicola von Thurn
Performance: Ella von der Haide, Nicola von Thurn, Annette Kulp and Karin Weixler
AEquipment, Costume, and Stage Design: Pilze zusammen mit Nicola von Thurn
Music: Bäume, Wind, Regen und Geigerzähler
Mycological Research: Ella von der Haide
Design: Nicola von Thurn
Public Relations: Marina Rieger, Eva Weigell
Supported by the Verband freie Darstellende Künste Bayern e.V. within the framework of co-production funding of the „Förderpakets Freie Kunst 2024″ with funds from the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and Art.