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INTERVIEWS

Artbox. TV Reportage 

Sandy: In collaboration with the German sound, light and video artist Krischan Kriesten, the artist Sascha Ley has created an interdisciplinary performance that deals with both personal and universal themes. Her solo "Cosmos (Not Enough)" for the TNL (Théâtre National Luxembourg) combines video, music, text and movement and is based on lyrical prose, illustrations and word collages. 
Sascha: The text deals strongly with the topic of communication and above all perception, with the question of what words mean, because we communicate a lot with words, but do we really communicate? We want to know our friends, our partners as well as possible, but do we ever really get to know them? Do do we know ourselves?" 
Sandy: It's a story with different strands. One follows a love story, the other investigates in a pseudo-scientific way how the female body is constructed and functions. 
Sascha: We know a lot more about the masculine principle than we do about women, and I find it very interesting that many women don't know themselves. And that could be one of the reasons why there are often misunderstandings between the sexes. Because we don't know ourselves properly, because we have a different perception. We have a different perception in our experience, everyone has their own life, and their definition arises from what they have experienced and therefore from their memories. How to find the common language? 
Sandy: Sascha Ley plays with symbols, clichés and gender roles in her project, both visually and in terms of content. 
Sascha: It's not just about gender, about male-female, but about its principle, which we find everywhere. I was simply interested in how you come to understand the way the other person thinks. 
Sandy: With Krischan Kriesten she creates a cosmos on stage in which new doors are constantly opening, taking the audience on a journey into the subconscious. 
Sascha: Questions also arose because a lot happens on stage, there’s a lot of information – well, the subconscious is rarely tidy. In other words, you also work a lot associatively, and these are topics that inspired me. 
by Sandy Elsen (2024) 
 
 

RTL ARTBOX Reloaded  

A lot of things happened the last 10 years and time flies. I don’t think there has been much change in my universe, as I've been following the idea of the solo for a while now. Over the last few years, this has resulted in a complete program and the recently released solo album. (“In Between”)

I'm concentrating more on free improvisation and also working more often with colleagues from abroad, as we don't really have a scene for free improvisation here in Luxembourg.

The solo is a wonderful challenge, [...] you must be wide awake to stay in control. I like to get into a kind of trance and flow when I start improvising, where everything runs smoothly while I'm just playing.

"In Between" is a project about the time of experiences. I am in the middle of life, in my second half, and many things have touched me deeply in recent years. I have dealt a lot with the subject of death, and in parallel, of course, with the subject of life.

I don't neglect acting at all, I only stepped back a little in favor of music and performing arts projects.

The Visit of the Old Lady", the classic by Mr Dürrenmatt, for example, was an exciting task. We did a lot of research, including movement with a Butoh dancer (Sayoko Onishi). And the whole story was moved to modern times, staged in a cheekier and more unconventional way. Our cast - my role of Claire Zachanassian, for example - was younger, and I made her more of an anti-heroine.

I have often played strong and sometimes romantic characters, which has basically remained the same. Women who have a cause to defend, like in "Papercut" (by Larisa Faber).

As I get older, things change of course. I'm more interested in playing something I don't know or haven't experienced yet. I want to explore. I'm no longer interested in playing young heroines.

I think the work has become more exciting, more interesting; it's just getting better.

And I really can't complain about too little work, more about too little holiday.

My wish for the next ten years is to be able to continue working on my projects with all my strength and concentration. I hope that I can deal with work in a more sustainable way, having fewer projects that I can carry out and present for longer. That my artistic development continues and to see that things are simply getting more exciting; exciting things that broaden my horizons. 

If I can incorporate that into my work, then it will be reflected in it in a beautiful way.

by Jenny Fischbach 2023  

“I am and will always be an explorer” Le Quotidien

You have always navigated between theater, film, dance and music. Which artist are you?
by Grégory Cimatti 2022 The entire interview in English 

"Sot emol" (Tell Me) on Radio 100,7

Sascha Ley: feeling at home in free improvised music 

by Natasha Ehrmann 2022 The entire interview in English

"Papercut" Mierscher Kulturhaus

I would describe myself as a kind of story teller who uses different and altered forms of expression and who likes to read between the lines and to play with perception as well – with both my own and that of the audience – to find open spaces of thought processes, feelings, opinions and habits and possibly turn them upside down in order to experience new considerations. I always try to find a universality that appeals to both the intellect and the senses in order to transmit this. As a passionate observer of the human genius and drama, of creation, art, nature and the world, my creations as well as my life have become a permanent research.
by Sarah Rock 2022 The entire interview in English