PRESS "MONO SUBJECTS" BY THOMAS LEHMEN

Without the aesthetic burden of the movement, the body expresses itself. In contemporary dance the body is no longer site of truth or beauty, but of the immediate, without hyperbole, at the most sensually reinforced. So: effect, yes, intention, non. That's why there is a reference to the Tourette syndrome, to this illness, where the patient is forced to give involuntary cries or obscene expressions, accompanied by violent convulsions. But it is not going as far as that. A possible subject of this night is: Show the zero, without being the zero. This is an exact description of the advanced dance events. A long time ago it changed from the indicative to the subjunctive - it should have been danced.
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung: Franz Anton Cramer

Thomas Lehmen likes playing and he also likes playing something. In the last years his path through the dance environment led straight upwards: In the German dance scene his last solo "distanzlos"(without distance) is one of the internationally most known pieces. This year, Lehmen is artist-in-residence in the Podewil in Berlin, an autonomous Place for performance. "Mono Subject" is the first piece made in this context. But wait, no- didn't we understand anything then? The end is a kind of joke, which prepares the following, namely performances about the performance about the performances. Mono Subject is probably the first performance that ends with reading its critique.
Kieler Nachrichten : Constanze Klementz

Lehmen has existential goals in his work. He is dealing with the question of the being of the performer, who exposes nothing but him self, free of roles or style dictation. What is true, what is staged, what is real in the theatrical context? In the beginning of his choreographies he approaches the question with a seducing simplicity. Then he develops a complex structure concentrating on issues like identity, original and faking.
But Lehmen is not playing. There is a lot of truth in his attitude, which is engaged. This is his quality as a choreograph and as a performer.
TAZ, Hamburg: Irmela Kästner