Ronny Horning knows his stunts. The avid climber and rescue diver has worked on Hollywood productions (Retribution, starring Liam Neeson), Netflix television shows (East German spy romp Kleo) and stage spectacle. Since 2022, he’s been collaborating with perhaps Berlin’s most celebrated living theatremaker, Florentina Holzinger. Horning took The Berliner behind the scenes and amidst the suspension cables to explain what he does to support the astounding aerial- and water-related feats in Ophelia’s Got Talent, Sancta, and – her latest – A Year Without Summer.
How different is it to work on film, as opposed to a live performance?
It’s not as if I can say one type of work is different from another – it’s always different. Yesterday I was in an old barn and an actor and stunt double, in a wild chase, had to break through the barn’s floor. And next week is an aerial acrobatics show where a violinist hangs by a rope and has to fly up and down in coordination with other artists on stage. And then there is Florentina in the Volksbühne, and she would like to hang in the air and fly. So it is always individual, always special, which is what I love about this job.
Yesterday I was in an old barn and an actor and stunt double, in a wild chase, had to break through the barn floor
How did you get into this?
Climbing – it all began for me with climbing in the mountains and in climbing gyms. I searched for a side job that had something to do with my hobbies, and I began at a ropes course. That was actually my first contact with rope technology, and I then trained as a ropes course trainer. And then I was at Jochen Schweizer’s [extreme sports] firm, which did a lot with bungee jumping, house running, base flying and vertical shows. I worked a lot as a technician there, and that’s where I first encountered aerial acrobatics. And then I somehow fell into the film industry as a stunt-rigger. I have always continued to learn and develop. And, through that, I came to specialise in stunts and aerial acrobatics.
Have you observed any kind of arc of development with Florentina’s stuntwork?
Florentina always wants to do new and different things. There is always a new challenge. Of course, sometimes we repeat things, but with this piercing thing, for example, I had nothing to do with something like that before. We were in Bergen, where we hung a pierced performer from a forklift. And that was something that I had never been involved with [either]. There are these elements that keep cropping up, and you get used to them. But then there’s the fact that they’re suddenly hanging on the forklift, when it’s strictly forbidden to hang people on the front of a forklift.
- A Year Without Summer, Jun 7-9, Volksbühne, details
