A conversation about solidarity and the future of criticism on the occasion of the Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism From November 2019 to March 2020, the first Academy for Contemporary Theater Journalism took place on the initiative of the Alliance of International Production Houses. In Essen, Dresden and Hamburg, 20 critics* from all over Germany explored the possibilities and demands of journalism that does justice to the diverse productions and production methods of contemporary theater forms. Here, the organizers Esther Boldt (EB) and Philipp Schulte (PS) talk to two participants, the freelance author Theresa Luise Gindlstrasser (TLG) and the taz editor Jan-Paul Koopmann (JPK), about their experiences. EB: Why did you apply to participate in the academy? JPK: I never really have the opportunity to exchange texts with colleagues outside of a concrete assignment that are not created in a current production flow. Thinking and discussing about fundamental issues is simply not part of my everyday work. EB: How have you perceived the academy so far, have your expectations been met? TLG: I find the selection of participants very coherent, compliments to the jury. Very different people come together here, from different age groups and from different media – like television, radio or newspapers. The participants also hold various positions there, for example as editors, volunteers or freelancers. This is balanced on the one hand and diverse on the other – so we don’t run out of topics. JPK: And yet we always manage to find ourselves on the same level. The common denominator is our interest in contemporary forms, in contemporary theater. PS: Theater criticism, like writing in general, is a solitary activity. Conversations, moments of exchange are perhaps unusual beyond a certain media structure or hierarchy. Can one say so? TGL: Yes, there is a big difference between writing on the one hand and art, theater, on the other hand, where conversation, exchange and work-in-progress are always part of the work. The concentrated reviews of our texts without production pressure that we had at the academy also distinguish them from the Theatertreffen blog, for example. EB: There is certainly an exchange within editorial offices: at best, a discussion about the meaning and purpose of a text is held and one also receives feedback from the supervising editor. JPK: Yes, but this is a completely different level. In an editorial conference, we don’t talk about fundamental issues. In the Academy, on the other hand, a space is opened up where we can talk about key issues: What actually is contemporary theater, what forms are there, what topics are negotiated? And what does it mean to write about theater? Such debates cannot be held in an editorial conference. When can they be? EB: Is there a moment in the academy that you remember especially, that you perceived as special? JKP: For me the density was special, in which we worked, in which everyone was always present. You sit in the theater until late in the evening, and at breakfast the discussion already continues, not only over days, but also over several modules. TGL: I can think of two moments: From Essen, I remember a conversation about where the corrective sits. I believe that this question is one of the most pressing of our time – not only in terms of cultural criticism, but also very specifically politically in our democracy. And secondly, Lisa Lucassen of She She Pop, as an invited expert in Dresden, said: “What, you think that criticism is a dialogue? I have never heard that before!” I found this clash of ideas interesting! PS: Do you see a concrete benefit of the academy beyond the idealistic value? TLG: I think that a solidarization has taken place or an awareness of it has been awakened. If I want what I do to be perceived as an offer for dialogue, then perhaps I have to do more for it. EB: What do you wish for the future of theater journalism? JPK: I would like to read more about people who think about culture and who conduct a theater discourse in our newspaper without being trained journalists. So that there are other perspectives, other types of audience participating in the public discourse, besides the trained critics, who are still needed. TLG: There is so much ego, so much Amazon, so many star ratings. If I could make a wish, it would be that criticism would slow down. Not necessarily in terms of production processes, but in terms of manners and judgements. Then criticism would be something old-fashioned in the best sense, slow, groping, something that remains critical not only of the object but also of itself. Esther Boldt works as an author, dance and theater critic for nachtkritik.de, Theater heute and the taz, among others, as well as for Hessischer Rundfunk. Dr. Philipp Schulte is professor for performance theory at the Norwegian Theater Academy and managing director of the Hessian Theater Academy. The theater scholar publishes on contemporary theater forms and teaches at universities in Germany and abroad. Theresa Luise Gindlstrasser, born in 1989, lives in Vienna. She works as a freelance author and critic for nachtkritik.de, Falter, Wiener Zeitung and others. Jan-Paul Koopmann, born 1982, works as an editor for the taz in Bremen and writes freely for nachtkritik.de and other media about culture and violence.

Since when do you work in HELLERAU and what are your tasks? Since 2009 I have been responsible for the daily cleaning at the Festspielhaus Hellerau, i.e. sanitary facilities, floors, artists’ dressing rooms, dance floors, surfaces, ventilation, heating and much more. Every day is different. When I arrive early, I first look at the schedule to see what’s on that day. For example, when artists* rehearse in the morning, I have to organize my schedule so that the room is ready at the beginning of the rehearsal. Everything else must be subordinate. I keep my own cleaning book to keep track of everything. If the guest is satisfied, you have done everything right. It is important that I pay attention to the different materials in the house, for example the historical floor tiles, the stone stairs or the railings. These are not cleaned to make them shine, but to keep the historical appearance. How did you come to HELLERAU? I was assigned the Festspielhaus Hellerau by my former company Piepenbrock Dienstleistungen. I still remember my first week of work well. In the beginning I always got lost. Was there a special challenge that you mastered? We once had an extremely dirty white dance floor. I went to work with many different agents and found out that it could be cleaned easily with scouring milk. After cleaning, however, the dance floor is usually too smooth and must be blunted to prevent the dancers* from slipping. For a dark dance floor I work with Cola, for a light floor with Sprite. And there were artists here who used turmeric or soot and sun milk on stage. Last year on “Mystery Magnet” by Miet Warlop the artists* worked with a lot of color. The whole way from the stage over the staircase to the dressing rooms was affected. So I had to do a real basic cleaning with glitter sponge, scouring milk and single disc machine and get everything clean again. But before I say “That’s not possible”, it takes a long time. What do you find so special in HELLERAU? HELLERAU is the only place where I say: I enjoy working here. It’s a pleasant working atmosphere and the contact with the artists* is also nice. Since I started working here, I have a completely different relationship to art. Once the MDR Symphony Orchestra rehearsed here. I sneaked quietly into the hall via the south gallery and listened briefly. If you have music in the background when you’re cleaning, everything goes much faster. Others have to pay and I just get it delivered. In December 2020 HELLERAU will bid farewell to Werner Lange in retirement. We thank him very much for his many years of work.

Dancer and choreographer Gizem Aksu talks about her experiences during her residency in HELLERAU. “With the breath comes imagination, with the breath comes possibility.” (Sara Ahmed) How can dance and choreography make life more breathable? How can we, dancers and choreographers, cultivate the consciousness in the breath to fight against the crushing violence of neoliberalism, racism and militarism? These are the key questions that I am asking myself at the end of my residency in HELLERAU. I am happy that I spent the pandemic situation in HELLERAU, accompanied by birds, trees, colorful chemical reactions of the clouds, ghosts of generations of artists, activists and soldiers. I was in a place that reminded me every day that life is present. In this presence I understood very well that “self-isolation” is already a discursive human concept to control the situation. How can we isolate ourselves from the instantaneous, spontaneous, trans-physical life force that the universe offers us in every moment? Even when we are dead, the human body is still part of the biological, chemical, energetic life that is always present. The human body always points beyond itself. This transcorporality is what makes our body alive. The pandemic experience reminds me how the human body is connected to and dependent on its environment and its surroundings. Our flesh is not the border but the passage for this transcorporality, our breath is not only mechanical but also ecological. The relativity of the human body can be read through the breath. Nevertheless, it may be challenging to recognize this transcorporeal existence within the permeability of the breath, because it is difficult to perceive the transparent quality of “seemingly opaque bodies, including the human body”. Many sufferings, traumas, limitations and pandemics are written in the transparent presence of the breath. Transparent stories of suffocation, oppression, struggle, conflict and resistance. In this context I developed the projects “Archive of Feelings: HELLERAU”, “Self-isolation” and “A Breathing Poem” during my residency. I was not always so lucky: it was traumatic to “isolate myself” in 2016 while bomb explosions were taking place in Istanbul. Who can’t breathe? Whose life can breathe? Breathing is not only to be understood ecologically, but also sociologically, politically and economically. Rukeli Trollman became my spiritual friend during the isolation in Dresden. I often visited him in his memorial in the garden, created by BEWEGUNG NURR. It was absolutely breathtaking to learn boxing from him, as I once learned the folk dance of the Sinti and Roma. I wanted to create a physical, sweaty performance to remind us of his fighting history. In my perspective, body, spirituality and politics intertwine in movement. The body suffocates when the system reduces its potential only to physical labor to make profit and reproduce hegemonic or naked violence. This kind of spiritual encounter allows us to learn from each other’s history, to traverse the linear history of time and space, and to meet beyond the Cartesian understanding of the body. Bodies disappear, but transparent traces of our bodies can remain. My time in HELLERAU was characterized by the search for such traces. I would describe my method of research as microscopic attention that went in search of transparent traces: listening to the silence of history and witnessing the presence of architecture. Every morning I looked at the Yin-Yang symbol on the roof of the Festspielhaus. I remembered how much we are connected and interdependent, I tried to feel the non-dual presence of exhalation and inhalation. I tried to feel the non-duality in my trans-bodyhood. I tried to inhale hope, to push more for justice. I believe that dance and choreography can cultivate consciousness in the breath. Instead of surrendering to the flood of information in the global panic situation, I tried to feel my presence. The local space navigated my body, my mind and my soul in unexpected directions. The localization of myself gave me a concrete ground on which to begin my artistic research. I let myself be moved by the local conditions. Then I became transparent. Then I became breath. For all this, many thanks to the European Center of Arts HELLERAU, Center for Inspiration, Center of free speech, Home for self-isolation. Center for social community, Center for spiritual purification, Center for creative inhalation, Center for artistic exhalation. Gizem Aksu was in HELLERAU from March to June 2020 as part of the residency program “Be Mobile – Create Together” and worked here on her project “Archive of Emotions”, among other things. “Be mobile – Create Together” is supported by the Institut français de Turquie, Dutch Embassy in Turkey, Goethe-Institut Istanbul and Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (İKSV). More information at www.hellerau.org/residenzen www.hellerau.org/residenzen

Anna Till (AT) and Barbara Lubich (BL) are two of 21 artists* who are conducting a research residency at TANZPAKT Dresden this year. On the ships of the Sächsische Dampfschifffahrt they wanted to do research on the topic of “time”. Then Corona came and the ships stopped sailing for the time being. They talked about their research with Christoph Bovermann, artistic production coordination TANZPAKT Dresden, and Karin Hildebrand (KH), managing director of Sächsische Dampfschifffahrt. At the residencies of TANZPAKT Dresden, artists* meet partner institutions to conduct research on a specific topic. This was and is an experiment for all of us. What expectations did you start the project with? KH: I had no expectations at first, but when I heard about the project, I found it very exciting and wanted to know where it might lead. Under the changed conditions we had to find completely new ways and means. I thought this process was great. BL: We had expected to spend a lot of time on the ships. We wanted to experience the flow of time, the flow of water. Then everything came completely different and we had an experience of time that didn’t just affect the people on the boat – suddenly the whole society was sitting in a boat and sharing extreme experiences with time. Nobody could get out of it. How did the research topic “time” come about? KH: For me, the subject of time is very exciting because time on a ship is completely different from time on land, regardless of whether it’s a steamboat, hotel or container ship. Unfortunately, we have to lure people to the ship with additional programs, even though shipping is a very special experience in itself. This time on the ship can simply be taken away. BL: In our last work together (“parallel situation”, 2017) we dealt with capturing the moment and the possibility of remembering. Our new project “EXPERIENCING TIME or How to stand still?” focuses on the individual perception of time. Life span, impatience, aspects of efficiency, the relationship between working time and leisure time or the longing for a place outside of time measurement – the question of how to deal with time concerns everyone. We want to juxtapose everyday experiences of time with special experiences with time and give the audience the opportunity to enter a time hole. How was the residency time for you? KH: Originally I thought that I would be able to hand over the project to my staff* much faster. Due to the greatly changed circumstances, I suddenly had the capacity to deal with their artistic work and to accompany them a little bit. Together we could then improvise and find a new way for the project. I was really sucked into the project and I am grateful for that. This is also my life experience: You can plan a lot, but the plans usually never work out – you just have to stay flexible. AT: The residence was really a luxury for us. The need for artistic research is often present, but there is no time, no money for it. It’s more likely to take place on the spur of the moment or in preparation for a project application. Now we had time to get involved in the Saxon Steamship Company. A partner who is not primarily based in the artistic field and who has given us completely new perspectives on our research topic. What is the difference between artistic and scientific research? BL: Perhaps science and art are not so far apart, but we have greater freedom in dealing with the research material. Our interest was in researching the individual perception of time and how we can reproduce or change it. We had many conversations and asked our interview partners very personal, even absurd questions. In contrast to a scientific approach, these questions were allowed to give direction. AT: There is room for fantasy, for science fiction, for exaggeration and humor. Our research is not measured by scientific results, but follows our interest as artists. What do you take with you from this time? KH: The ships are a cultural asset, so I would like to see a lot more artistic activities taking place there. I hope that with this project we were able to stimulate reflection on the cultural use of the ships. Perhaps it will also open up new creative possibilities for some of our employees. However, the basis for this is that the ships are recognized as cultural assets. If I always have to generate income, I have neither the time nor the space to support such initiatives. But I find this question exciting: What else can we do with the ships? In January 2021, the TANZPAKT residents and other choreographers from Saxony will meet at the Winter Academy in HELLERAU to reflect on the results of their residencies and to exchange ideas about artistic work processes. In autumn 2021 TANZPAKT Dresden will present ten world premieres in a major festival in HELLERAU and at the Villa Wigman.

What do democracy and the explicit reference to origin have to do with musical avant-garde? EM and OEIN will provide information Democracy and artistic creativity are a difficult pair. On the one hand, the right to freedom of activity is indispensable for the development of ideas and concepts; on the other hand, their implementation often requires a trace of dictatorial stringency in order not to escalate into unintentional chaos. The right mix of these factors enlivens the art of every modern. And even the reference to original origins does not necessarily mean vain navel-gazing and tumb nationalistic self-reflection, but can preserve traditions in order to lead them into a future open to the world. Two at first sight (and at first hearing anyway) very different ensembles have been pursuing just this ambitious approach for forty years now and have developed their trademarks from it in their own unique form. The abbreviations EM and OEIN will probably only appeal to intimate connoisseurs of the scene. But when the Ensemble Modern is mentioned, it is not only experts who listen. Since its foundation in 1980, this unique ensemble has stood for an almost unbounded creativity that explores democratic principles, expands them and constantly calls for new and unlimited possibilities. Just in time for the anniversary, however, the ensemble, which has been based in Frankfurt am Main since the mid-1980s, was hampered by a completely amusic pandemic, had to cancel concerts and withdraw to the virtual, virus-free space. The Bolivian Ensemble OEIN was even more affected by the crisis, because this Orquestra Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos was surprised by concert cancellations and travel bans far from its home country. Together with the voice collective PHØNIX16 it was supposed to open the MaerzMusik in Berlin and perform in HELLERAU immediately afterwards, but instead was stuck in German quarantine for almost three months. Far away from family and friends*, but at least in Rheinsberg Castle, where the members of this project orchestra continued to work on and pre-produce their spectacular world premiere program. Some of the musicians* around Carlos Guttierez were even abroad for the first time, so they found themselves in an exceptional situation in several respects. OEIN unfolds its power of fascination above all through the combination of a traditional Andean instrumentarium with contemporary works. For four decades now, they have been saving indigenous music from oblivion by travelling the country and having traditional playing techniques demonstrated on a predominantly handmade instrumentarium, in order to expand this world of sound with new and experimental forms of expression. Beyond that – and this is again highly democratic! – this ensemble also pursues an educational mission by giving children and young people from the most diverse social backgrounds access to music. At the 4:3 festival in November (see also text on p. 22) the Rheinsberg OEIN recordings will be presented in audio installations. One can also hope for a repeat concert with Ensemble Modern. The Ensemble Modern, which has been a regular guest at HELLERAU in recent years, is a primary rock of an ensemble that combines open sound with playful perfection and explicit daring. It will return to the Festspielhaus in January 2021 for “Happy New Ear”. With its soloists* now coming from nine countries, EM was originally scheduled to celebrate its 40th anniversary in the spring of 2020, but then only the word pair “Cancelled” appeared on the bulging diary. But hope dies last. A truism that appears in a completely new light, especially in times of an absolutely undemocratic virus. Or isn’t the C-word an expression of perfect democracy, since it strikes independently of peoples, national borders and social status? Others may answer this question. The Ensemble Modern, at any rate, wants to make up for its project trilogy “riss” by Mark Andre, a cycle of works that will be worked on in the years after 2014, exploring tonal and compositional interstices. Are there cracks between the tones, perhaps even the unheard and overheard? Does an interval or a syncopation lead to the acid test of pieces, of piece and listening impressions? Or is there not even a transition between different sides, between opposing, even unbridgeable poles in a (material) crack? Mark Andre, born in Paris in 1964, has a thirst for research that involves questioning and searching, in which the given is less to be examined than its becoming, flourishing and passing away. The composer and sound artist rather falls back on original motifs, whose deformations and eternal values he preserves, processes and – puts to the acid test? Such a rupture goes through and through and is, if not separating, if not connecting, at least mediating. What mediators could the composer and his audience wish for more than experienced experts* like Ensemble Modern? Hopefully “Happy New Ear” will soon make people pay attention to what has been missed in spring 2020. Perhaps this rupture in the constant, the familiar is a gain in experience for democracy and artistic creativity?

Die ägyptische Regisseurin Laila Soliman zählt zur internationalen jungen Theater-Avantgarde und ist 2021 erstmalig in HELLERAU zu Gast. Im Gespräch mit Leonie Kusterer berichtet sie über ihre Arbeit und die aktuelle Lage des Produzierens in Ägypten. Die Arbeit „Wanaset Yodit“ ist eine Einladung an das Publikum, mit den beiden Protagonistinnen, Abir Omer und Yodit Akbalat, Kaffee zu trinken und über ihr Leben zu sprechen. Wie hast du die Protagonistinnen kennengelernt und wie entstand die Idee, sie zu portraitieren? In Hannover bin ich in Kontakt mit der selbst organisierten Aktivistinnengruppe „My Body Belongs to Me“ gekommen, die sich gegen weibliche Genitalverstümmelung engagiert. Um mehr Aufmerksamkeit für ihren Kampf zu bekommen, haben Ruud Gielens und ich gemeinsam mit sieben der Frauen das musikalische Dokumentartheaterstück „MY BODY BELONGS TO ME“ entwickelt. Aufgrund des musikalischen Talents der Frauen und der Musik als Teil ihres Alltags und ihrer Zeremonien, haben wir uns dazu entschieden, ein musikalisches Theaterstück zu machen. Während der regelmäßigen Kaffeetrinken in der Probenzeit habe ich Abir Omer und Yodit Akbalat besser kennengelernt. Speziell mit den beiden wollte ich ein weiteres Stück machen – sie leben in derselben Stadt, unterstützen sich gegenseitig und sind eng befreundet. In „MY BODY BELONGS TO ME“ werden thematische Ausschnitte ihres Lebens beleuchtet. Ich habe beschlossen, den beiden einen intimeren Abend zu widmen, in welchem sie während einer Kaffeezeremonie Raum haben, ihre Geschichte mit dem Publikum zu teilen. So ist „Wanaset Yodit“ entstanden. Für deine letzten Stücke sind Geschichten von und über Frauen zentral. Gibt es in deiner Arbeit eine Verbindung zu feministischen Diskursen oder ist das Zufall? Weder das eine noch das andere. Mich interessieren Themen der Marginalisierung oder Ungerechtigkeit, Unterdrückung und der Kampf gegen Unterdrückung. Leider sind Frauen noch immer eine Gruppe, die sehr stark unter Marginalisierung und Prekarisierung leidet. Würdest du deine Arbeit als aktivistisch bezeichnen? Das kommt auf die Perspektive an. Für mich muss es immer einen dringenden Grund geben, eine Arbeit zu machen, und politische Kämpfe sind noch immer dringende Gründe. Du bist geborene Ägypterin, lebst in Kairo und machst internationales Theater. Wie sind die Strukturen des freien Produzierens in Ägypten? Seit 2018 habe ich nicht mehr in Ägypten produziert. Seit 2010 weigere ich mich, meine Arbeiten der Zensur zu zeigen. Somit ist es nicht völlig legal, meine Arbeiten öffentlich zu präsentieren. Ich muss immer einen Weg finden, sie einem Publikum zugänglich zu machen. Seit den 1990er Jahren existiert eine unabhängige Theaterszene in Ägypten, die allerdings stark von internationaler Finanzierung abhängt. Während der Revolution haben alle auf eine Änderung gehofft, aber genau das Gegenteil ist passiert: Mehr und mehr versucht die Armee, absolute Kontrolle über die Kultur- und Medienbranche zu bekommen. Mittlerweile produziere ich nicht mehr in Ägypten, weil es nicht nur für mich gefährlich ist, sondern auch weil die Sicherheit der Menschen, mit denen ich zusammenarbeite, nicht gewährleistet ist. Seitdem vermehrt Leute aufgrund von Theaterstücken, Musikvideos, Karikaturen oder auch nur Witzen bei Facebook verhaftet wurden, habe ich die Entscheidung getroffen, momentan nicht mehr in Kairo zu produzieren.

In Germany it is still being debated, Rwanda has long since installed it: the women’s quota. Why this small African country is focusing on feminism and what the Western world could learn from it, the theater and performance group Flinn Works crystallized in long research for the production “Learning Feminism from Rwanda”. The journalist Matteo Baldi spoke with the artistic director and performer Lisa Stepf. In recent years, Rwanda has repeatedly made worldwide headlines on feminism. What distinguishes the success story of Rwandan feminism? The developments the country has made since 1994 in terms of gender equality are astonishing: Before 1994, women were not allowed to inherit, they were not allowed to own land or a bank account. They could only go to work with their husbands’ consent and were not allowed to speak in public when a man was around. Today, there are over 61% female members of parliament and women can start a medium-sized business within one day very unbureaucratically. There are empowerment trainings, state elite schools for girls and a new law against domestic violence, which many women make use of. In 2020, Rwanda was again ranked 9th in the Global Gender Gap Index, ahead of Germany (10th). Paul Kagame has served as President of Rwanda for 20 years. How can Kagame’s motives for the gender parity movement be classified? Kagame introduced gender equality as the basis of his policy. After the 1994 genocide Rwanda was completely destroyed and over 70% of the population was female. Kagame was aware that he could only rebuild the country with women. On the other hand, he grew up with a single mother in exile in Uganda and served there under Museveni in a rebel group in which equality also played a major role. How can the manners of an entire population be transformed in such a short time? Of course, deeply rooted values and role models cannot be changed top-down by law. NGOs in particular are working on cultural change in Rwanda. For example, there is the “Parents-Evening Forum” in the villages, and since 2006 there has been a “male feminist organization”, Men’s Resource Centre, which advocates gender equality. In training sessions, they work in nationwide workshops on a new image of men, away from violent men and away from “toxic masculinity” – towards an equal understanding of men and women. Are these new values really lived out? Yes and no. In Kigali, the capital city, one naturally finds many couples of the new middle class who live very equally. In the countryside it is more difficult, but there is progress. We have met many women in management positions who don’t know the glass ceiling and report that they have no problems with male employees, that their gender is not discussed in the professional context. We have spoken with students from a girls’ school who want to become a pilot, a doctor and a politician. They have female politicians and many female entrepreneurs under their noses.  

At ArtRose people over 60 years meet regularly to move and improvise together. Moritz Kotzerke, Head of Audience Development, Cultural Education and Networks in HELLERAU spoke with the initiator Jenny Coogan, Professor at the Palucca University of Dance. Ms. Coogan, who or what is ArtRose? ArtRose was born in January 2011. My mother just turned 80 and I wanted to give her a very special gift. As a dancer, choreographer and director of my own company I thought: Why not develop a dance piece with people who are close to her age? And so I approached a few acquaintances whose outward expression interested me. From this, a group was formed and in May 2012 we performed our first piece in HELLERAU. The group has some special features: Firstly, it is not about dancing skills. Most participants* have very little experience with dance. Most of them came to dance as pensioners. Secondly, the group has been in existence continuously without interruption since 2011 (six of the original ten people are still in the group today). And thirdly: I as a choreographer do not develop a ready-made dramaturgy, but the ideas arise from the weekly practice of the group. This also leads to a strong authenticity on stage, and the movement forms we work with are very diverse. How can one concretely imagine a meeting of the ArtRoses in HELLERAU? We have been meeting once a month in HELLERAU for about three years now. In the beginning it was always the solid core and it took a while until new people from Dresden joined us. I think the special thing about it is that people feel accepted and come to a room where everyone gets the recognition of everyone. The trainings are structured in a way that we start with small warm-up exercises. For example, we try to move with our hands and our breath like jellyfish and find forms for it. This sometimes goes so far that one has the feeling that the breath is striving from the inside out through the skin and is being pulled back again. These exercises for arriving and warming up are also done with professional dancers*, they might just be taken differently, because every*r does it differently. There are a lot of small group or partner exercises, it is about getting into contact – not through skin contact, but through the perception of exploring the space together. Thus, we mobilize, knead, explore levels, alone or with others. But never with a really given material to learn. There are tasks or ideas and then we find answers together in longer improvisations. You have known the participants* for quite a long time now. Can you describe what these experiences with dance mean to the participants and what they learn there? I think the atmosphere and the space to try things out very much support their own imagination and self-efficacy. Some people told me after a few years that they had great problems with self-criticism and were afraid of embarrassment. ArtRose has helped them to get rid of these fears. With others it is more about physical abilities. Many then think, “Wow, I didn’t think I could do that anymore.” And that doesn’t mean that you are incredibly virtuoso, but they feel their abilities of artistic expression through dance. Because even walking can be a dance if it is full of intention, expression, poetry. One of them is a professor*at the university and she said that she is no longer afraid of her lectures with 400 people. Do you think that the participants of ArtRose see and perceive contemporary dance differently? Many people say that their understanding of contemporary dance has developed greatly through ArtRose. They look at a greater variety of dance and find better ways to approach it for themselves. If you broaden your artistic view as a spectator*, then the possibility arises to open your own perceptive faculty and find access to different forms. The special thing about ArtRose HELLERAU is that the group is led mainly by the guest artists* who perform in HELLERAU. The meetings are usually only one hour before the performance begins, and then the pieces can usually still be experienced on stage. It makes the visit more communal, because you have already shared something with others before, and you might go to the restaurant or garden together before the performance. That way you get in contact with others and have exchange. For me, this is a much more complete experience of dance. Not only in the role of the spectators. How would ArtRose in HELLERAU develop if you were allowed to dream? And is there anything you would like to give us as a house? Of course I would love it if we could perform with ArtRose in HELLERAU again. There are always special events with different groups, but there has never been a festival for older people. Our society consists to a large extent of older people and at that age they have so much experience and artistic expression in their bodies. To me, old means: What a material! What experiences! Everything in a physical body. And I believe that there is an audience for that as well. Many of our performances are well attended. Many older people enjoy watching them. Personally, I see it as a social benefit when older dance ensembles not only do something in senior* homes or common rooms, but also become more visible in the rooms where art is shown.  

Shiva Feshareki ist eine am Experiment interessierte Komponistin, die in ihrer Praxis Aspekte von Akustik, Elektronik, Kontext und Perspektive erforscht. „Vielleicht hilft mir mein transnationaler und multikultureller Hintergrund, verschiedene Aspekte in meiner Musik mit Leichtigkeit und gleichzeitig Tiefe zu erforschen. In der Londoner Gegend, in der ich aufgewachsen bin, lebte ich in einer der sehr wenigen nicht-westlichen Familien. Wenn ich dies mit meiner multikulturellen Erziehung kombiniere, in der ich vielfältige Perspektiven erlebte, erinnere ich eine Vielzahl von Modellen des Denkens, kreativer Prozesse und kreativer Zusammenarbeit. Auch heute fühle ich mich besonders wohl, wenn ich mich zwischen verschiedenen künstlerischen und sozialen Szenen bewege oder eine Außenseiterin in einem Bereich oder einer Disziplin sein kann.“ Inzwischen besitzt Shiva Feshareki einen Doktortitel für Musik vom Royal College of Music (London) und zahlreiche Auszeichnungen wie den britischen Komponist*innenpreis für Innovation der Ivors Academy (2017). Seit einiger Zeit komponiert sie öfter und besonders gern für Orchester, wobei sie ihre Werke als Solistin z.B. mit dem BBC Concert Orchestra, London Contemporary Orchestra, den Düsseldorfer Symphonikern, Orchestra Nationale de Lyon oder Ensemble Modern aufführt. „In meinen elektroakustischen Kompositionen konzentriere ich mich auf Klangbewegungen, Raum und die Verbindung von Klang mit umfassenden physikalischen Phänomenen. Ich möchte besondere Hörerlebnisse schaffen und die Perspektive des Zuhörers mit physikalischen und räumlichen Mitteln erweitern. Dies ist z.B. in meinen Kompositionen „GABA-analog“ und „Opus Infinity“ vorherrschend: Die Zuhörenden treten buchstäblich in die Kompositionen ein und erhalten ihre eigene Version der Komposition, je nachdem, in welchem Winkel und in welcher Perspektive sie sich im Raum befinden. In meinen Live-Elektronik- und Plattenspieler-Performances recycle ich Klang als Material und interpretiere ihn neu, indem ich ihn mit taktilen Bewegungen – fast wie in einer Choreografie – zwischen mir und sich drehenden Kreisen manipuliere. Damit verwandle ich Klangmaterial in neue Dimensionen und Perspektiven von unendlichen Proportionen. Mit „Opus Infinity”, meiner Raumkomposition für Live-Elektronik, Plattenspieler, verstärktes Ensemble und Soundsystem (Uraufführung mit dem Ensemble Modern am 29. Februar 2020 in Frankfurt), habe ich ebenfalls eine Vielzahl von Praktiken in einen multidimensionalen Prozess einbezogen – und auch hier war das Publikum frei in der Wahl seiner Perspektiven.“

„Ich möchte besondere Hörerlebnisse schaffen und die Perspektive des Zuhörers mit physikalischen und räumlichen Mitteln erweitern.“

Am 6. November 2020 wird in HELLERAU das Festival „4:3“ mit BLACKBOX eröffnet, einem Konzertprogramm in drei Teilen: Enno Poppes Komposition „Rundfunk“ (2018) für neun Synthesizer, Robert Henkes Projekt „CBM 8032 AV“ (2019) für 5 Computer und die Uraufführung einer neuen Spatial-Komposition von Shiva Feshareki. Alle Projekte verbindet eine besondere Neugierde auf aktuelle wie „historische“ Techniken der elektronischen Musik, auf die Besonderheiten faszinierender „Blackboxes wie Synthesizer oder Computer. Enno Poppe verwendet Klänge der sechziger und siebziger Jahre wie FM-Synthese oder Minimoog, die er dekonstruiert und neu zusammensetzt. Robert Henke erforscht die Schönheit einfacher Grafiken und Töne unter Verwendung von Computern aus den frühen 1980er Jahren, befragt die Ambivalenz zwischen zeitgenössischer Ästhetik und der Verwendung inzwischen veralteter und beschränkter Technologien. Weitere Programmpunkte bei „4:3“ sind aktuelle Arbeiten von Charlotte Triebus, OEIN/PHOENIX16 (siehe dazu den Text von Michael Ernst in diesem Magazin auf S. 28), Konzerte zum 85. Geburtstag von Helmut Lachenmann sowie Uraufführungen der „Nächsten Generationen“: mit der Komponistenklasse Dresden und dem Ensemble Contemporary Insights

“I think experienced reality is a hallucination. It is real not because it is physically true, but because we believe the experience. Dreams, for example, are capable of generating such a convincing hallucination of reality that it is experienced as real, independent of physics. It seems as if the generation of reality-similar puzzle patterns, with ever more discrete pixels, ever faster image sequences, in ever greater differentiation, is the one goal in which aesthetic and technological research agree: the approximation of the virtual to the credibility of the dream. When the granularity of the generated patterns is no longer recognizable as such at the system boundaries of the human senses, when a VR environment has finally overwhelmed the human capacity for disappointment and the hallucination convinces as a reality never experienced before, then I call out to myself in delight: I am only dreaming.” (Ulf Langheinrich) Ulf Langheinrich is probably more of an obsessed researcher than a dreamer; his gaze is sharp, but also enraptured: “I am interested in the creation of very specific aesthetic states or acoustic fields that can be described by properties such as temperature, consistency or viscosity. Working with dancers* and the presentation of images of human emotion in face and body raise additional and different questions, this was already the case in the days of MODEL 5 (GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS 1994). Since then, I have always been concerned with identification and projection, sexuality and mortality, and this is certainly true of my work. In pictures, everything that was supposed to become immortal is dead, extinguished in the moment the picture is created. Their generation is a vampiristic act. An insolence. I try to distill, to refine an image behind the images by a kind of dissolution of what is meant. This attempt is always a futile one! In this respect, precisely those works that operate with a human image are also works about desire and failure. If in the works of Ulf Langheinrich the interest is directed primarily at the materiality of media, at their physics, at questions of consistencies and changes in consistencies, then contexts, social settings and gestures are also of central importance to him: “The various phenomena of dissolution that are being negotiated in the context of VORTEX reflect contemporary social processes. It seems as if at the beginning an iconization of the exotic Other is problematized, presented as a collective (female) multitude. But the overcoming of the human and then the physical evokes completely different themes. It is actually about isolation and isolation. About loss as a central experience of being in the world. Above all, it is about the loss of trust in the correctness of the known. And it is about not-understanding, about not wanting to understand as an act of emancipation from the loquaciousness of being. The premiere of VORTEX is an interdisciplinary, international project: a collaboration between the cities of Le Havre, Maubeuge, Dresden and Bochum. VORTEX takes place as a hybrid stage event that allows different arts to react with each other to generate new aesthetic forms. Transcoding the mesmerizing effect of Ulf Langheinrich’s worlds of light and image into a danceable live choreography is the achievement of the young Italian artist Maria Chiara de’Nobili, who is currently preparing her master’s degree in choreography at the Palucca Hochschule in Dresden. Ulf Langheinrich, born in Wolfen in 1960, left the former GDR in 1984. In Vienna he founded GRANULAR-SYNTHESIS in 1991 together with Kurt Hentschläger. The duo created pioneering monumental multimedia installations and performances. Afterwards internationally successful as a solo artist, he lived for a long time in Ghana and Hong Kong, his works are presented worldwide. Since 2016 he is Artistic Director of the festival CYNETART in HELLERAU. CYNETART 2020 is an event of the Trans-Media-Academy Hellerau as part of the activities of the Network | Media | Art Dresden in cooperation with HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts and the SHAPE Platform.

Carena Schlewitt in conversation with Lina Majdalanie, Rabih Mroué, Marta Keil and Grzegorz Reske about the research process for “Last but not last Marta and Grzegorz, you initiated this long-term research project on history and transformation processes with reference to Poland. And you invited Lina Majdalanie and Rabih Mroué, two well-known artists from Beirut who live in Berlin. What was your impulse, your interest in this theme and this constellation? For us, the radical populist turn that took place in Poland in 2015 came as a surprise. We have been observing and reflecting on significant social changes in Poland for some time now and see how economic and social inequalities are increasing, but we did not expect such a rapid and radical political turnaround. Partly also because we ourselves were in the middle of it and took part in the strenuous cultural struggle. For this reason, we decided to invite artists* who can view the complex political and social situation of Poland from their own, external perspective and who most likely see mechanisms and interdependencies that remain invisible to us. The choice of Lina and Rabih was obvious for us: we have worked with them before and admire their longstanding artistic research on memory and representation and their unique interweaving of the personal and the political. The decisive factor for us was above all Lina and Rabih’s method of using fiction as a political tool to understand reality. Lina and Rabih, as part of the working process you visited Warsaw and Dresden many times – how did you perceive the societies, the cities, the historical aspects, the people from your social and artistic perspective? During our stays in Dresden, Warsaw and also Leipzig we wanted to try to understand the specificity of each city today in connection with its past. These three cities have a long communist regime past. Of course, the modern history of each city is multi-layered and complex, especially for two artists* who come from a different context. But we have found ourselves creating associations between the three cities and our city Beirut, in addition to our personal experiences. Both differences and similarities between the four cities have helped us in our working process. Populism, nationalism, the interference of religion in politics, historical myths and national heroes etc. are unfortunately on the rise again all over the world today. But in every country or society this development manifests itself differently, there are different roots, a different visual language, a different imagination … We wanted to understand how this development is articulated in relation to the own, special experience and history in every city. And here too it was very helpful to examine both differences and similarities and to be prepared to see everything as surprising or even strange. We wanted to approach the topic ignorantly and without condescension and ask, like a child, quite naively why and how something happens. What finally became the common working approach for you, from which the theater evening emerged? An important point was Linas and Rabih’s observation of what has recently become a Polish obsession: historical (and fictional!) reconstructions. A wave of reenactments of past or imagined events that have recently been seen all over the country. As if we had to constantly retell our story, as if its present version was not heroic or attractive enough. We then selected a very “banal and insignificant” event from 2016, combed through it and analyzed it until, surprisingly, a whole world was revealed before our eyes, a world that is related to the discourse of today’s ruling class in Poland, a discourse that is based on fiction and reality and that has spread astonishingly from the ancient history of Poland until today. Research process and production: HELLERAU – European Center of Arts and Performing Arts Institute Warsaw, supported by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. Co-production: Residence, Schauspiel Leipzig.

NEUN, the two-part cooperation between the Berlin soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop, HELLERAU – European Center for the Arts and the State Opera Hanover, takes two monuments of orchestral literature as its starting point: The 9th symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven and Gustav Mahler. Both works, premiered in 1824 and 1912 respectively, mark the beginning and end of the great romantic form. Beethoven’s “Ninth”, hardly surpassed in popularity to this day, was to remain his last symphony. As a key work of symphonic music, however, it prepared the ground for future composers of the Romantic period. Some 90 years later, Mahler initially shied away from working on his Ninth Symphony, fearing that he would not be able to go beyond this number, alongside Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner and Dvořák, and compose his own death with it. In fact, Mahler then used the 9th Symphony, written shortly before his death and performed for the first time only afterwards, to describe the farewell to life and the transition to death – and at the same time the transition to a new epoch. These two works are brought to the stage as “Farewell” and “Beginning”, newly arranged by the soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop. The well-known musical material will be played in a small ensemble and reinterpreted performatively, sonically and spatially. Through this appropriation, the compositions are freed from the overwhelming pathos of the great orchestral work and the potential of the works is revealed. The Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop and the musicians of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra create a musical theater that shifts listening habits and focuses on the physicality of the music and the musicians themselves. They do not form a uniform, homogeneous body of sound that plays together as the playing of symphonies in a classical orchestra would suggest. Rather, the heterogeneity of the players and their individual involvement with the work is taken seriously and made visible and audible on stage. The musicians become active storytellers of and with their music

Farewell

The last movement “Adagio. Sehr langsam und noch zurückhaltend” from Gustav Mahler’s 9th Symphony forms the starting point for the music theater “Abschied”. The first part of the two-year cooperation poses the question of how to find a new beginning after an end. From the current crisis situation, the Finnish choreographer Milla Koistinen, the artist Ladislav Zajac, musicians of the Hanover State Orchestra, and the director and composer Michael Rauter with the soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop explore the time span between a closed before, to which there is no return, and a still uncertain after. The “Adagio”, a slow and sublime swan song of the monumental work, is transformed for “Abschied” into a newly arranged and choreographed version for eleven strings* inside and one dancer. Played extremely slowed down, the romantic gesture disappears behind standing sounds. Ever quieter, the music moves towards its disappearance. At the same time, a choreography unfolds out of inconspicuous routines and trivialities that only rarely come into focus of our attention. The second part of the piece is determined by repetitions and the overlapping of heterogeneous sound material. A breath choir overlaps with vocal, gestural and musical fragments to form an almost humorous collage. Inspired, among other things, by Orlando di Lasso’s choral works of the Renaissance, new music is created for it in collaboration with the American composer Ethan Braun. The result is a coexistence of individual voices and individual rhythms; a hopeful outlook on the beginning after the end.

The cooperation

The Doppelpass program of the German Federal Cultural Foundation brings together the soloist ensemble Kaleidoskop and the two institutions HELLERAU and the Hanover State Opera on different levels. Since (new) forms of music theater are developed by all three partners in very different ways, with different means and working structures, this cooperation aims to provide new impulses. The Festspielhaus Hellerau, which was built in the 1910s at the same time as Mahler’s last work, paved the way for interdisciplinary work in the German-speaking world of theater and dance with its open stage space and the idea of the rhythmically trained human being. The structures of this experimental stage meet those of the Staatsoper and thus set each other in motion. At the same time, musicians* of the Lower Saxony State Orchestra, who normally play the great works of opera and concert literature in the opera house, will be on stage together with members of the soloist ensemble. Together, new forms of music and music theater will be tested and presented with the products of the orchestra.

The artist* couple Antje Ehmann and Harun Farocki conducted workshops on the theme of work in fifteen cities worldwide from 2011 to 2014. Since 2017 Ehmann has continued the project together with Eva Stotz and Luis Feduchi. “An attitude towards work” explores the current meanings, conditions and visibility of work in a global comparison. It is about the production of short films, which is carried out in cooperation with local filmmakers* inside and video artists* in workshops. An important point of reference is the film classic of the Lumière brothers, who filmed women workers leaving their own Lumière factory at the end of the 19th century. The search for this motif in the respective workshop cities and the production of remakes called “Workers Leaving Their Workplaces” is part of the project. The following applies to all films: they are videos of a maximum length of 2 minutes; with a moving or static camera, with original sound or a sound design; almost all options are given, only there is no cutting. The film is shot in one shot. These means are intended to enable a precise examination of the respective work process, its choreography and the special nature of the activity. The resulting archive of meanwhile more than 400 films on the subject of work takes on an encyclopedic character, as it documents the manifold working realities of a global capitalism. Ehmann and Feduchi want to continue “An Attitude to Work” in cooperation with filmmakers* and artists* in Warsaw and Berlin until October 2020. Due to the pandemic conditions, the collaboration will initially be mainly digital. Of course, the question of how the Corona crisis has affected working conditions in Warsaw and Berlin will also play a major role. At the end of the year or in the spring of 2021, an exhibition in Warsaw is planned, showing selected films produced before and during the crisis. All films can be seen on the project homepage www.labour-in-a-single-shot.net. The project is a collaboration between the Goethe-Institut Warsaw and Harun Farocki GbR

Leonie Kusterer, artistic adviser in HELLERAU, spoke with choreographer Irina Pauls about her new piece “shift change. SHIFT CHANGE. Your choreographies “Labora” and “shift change. SCHICHTWECHSEL” deal with the movement field of serial work processes in the factories of industrialization. How did this group of works come about? I am interested in anthropological aspects. As a choreographer I observe dancers in the working process. In this way I have learned to recognize the finest differences in their movements. And places inspire me to create artistic works. It was the same with the site of the Leipzig cotton spinning mill “Spinne”, the largest spinning mill in continental Europe at the beginning of the 20th century. Machines, energies, sounds, materials – it is the working conditions to which the body must submit. It is the work cycle that forces people into physical processes. It influences not only our bodies, but also our relationships with each other. How did you transfer your research results to the choreographic level? I have been working on the energy transfer in transmission machines. The resulting clocking of the working movements creates a continuous fine resonance in the body through their constant repetition. With this resonance on certain parts of the body, I have worked with dancers* down to the smallest physical ramifications. In addition, the timing creates an inner pulsation to which the body adjusts itself. Our body does not react mechanically. Can a movement be exactly repeated? Of course not. So it was interesting for us to see what happens to bodies that are forced into long repetitions and do not relate to their partner*. As an artist, how do you think about working worlds in the future? We should ask ourselves how we want to shape our human coexistence in the future. I’m concerned with what body knowledge we want to draw on in future technologies and to what extent this distances us from the product. We are still subject to the clock. The computer gives us the working rhythm. This work, too, will soon be a museum piece. Our understanding of the body will change in this process of mechanization. What consequences does this have for our living environments?

The performance parkour “Gold & Coal” by Daniel Kötter, Sarah Israel and Elisa Limberg deals with the local and global influences of raw material mining on landscapes and the coexistence of people. Two massive, widely visible interventions from different times are examined in a parallel montage: Timika, currently the world’s largest copper and gold mine in West Papua, Indonesia, and the disused open-cast lignite mining area around Leipzig. Together with the experimental musician Ikbal Lubys, the performer Darlane Litaay, the activist Agustina Helena Kobogau, the visual artist Anna Zett and the choreographer and dancer Hermann Heisig, the audience* will embark on an immersive journey through past and present energy landscapes. The artist Daniel Kötter reports about two formative encounters in the research process

Timika

We had spent two days with Mangun in the tailings, watched him and his colleagues panning for gold and listened to his stories in the evening. Together with local documentary filmmaker Yonri Revolt and our 360° camera, we spent two days documenting the overburden landscape – a 6 km wide and 60 km long strip that connects the world’s largest copper and gold mine at the Nemangkawi Peak (4884 m, colonial name: Carstensz Pyramid) with the rainforest around the mining town of Timika and the mangrove forests on the south coast of Papua, Indonesia. Grass literally no longer grows in the grey opaque, mercury-containing overburden, but the golden shimmer on the sandbanks points to the actual destination of the dreams of the gold panners who have settled here in temporary camps. There is no electricity, no drinking water, no protection against constant rain and mosquitoes – they are working for a promise for the future. Mangun had offered to lead the way and show us the safest footpath through the riverbeds back to Timika. Because it is not the chemicals in the water that are the real danger here, but the deadly currents of the river. Mangun wanted to visit his family again after two weeks in the gold panning camp. Like many of his colleagues, he had moved with them from other parts of Indonesia to Timika 10 years ago, in order to gild his future as an illegal gold panner. After a two-hour walk through the Tailings, back on the road, we climb into the first materialized symbol of the future: Mangun’s brand new compact SUV, lined with orange imitation leather and 16 loudspeaker boxes that fill us with techno as we drive through Timika. We stop in front of the small store of the only local gold dealer. On the letter scale on the counter Mangun puts his small plastic bag with the gold dust, result of two weeks of work and capitalizable geological distillate of a destroyedLandschaft.

Leipzig

For a moment there is an embarrassed silence during the research interview and all you hear is the roar of the nearby A38 freeway. We are sitting in the Bergbau-Technik Park near Leipzig between Markleeberger and Störmthaler See. From the driver’s cabs of the lignite excavators exhibited here, one could see the sailboats on the sulfate-containing water in the landscape holes of the former Espenhain opencast mine. For several weeks we were on the road with 360° camera and microphone in the idyllic mining succession landscapes. The white steam plume of the Lippendorf lignite power plant was our constant companion. And now we sit embarrassed between the discarded rusting witnesses of a disappearing industry opposite an older man and remain silent. Wolf-Dietrich Chmieleski, a former miner and now a tourist guide for the Verein Bergbau-Technik-Park e.V., wipes a tear from his cheek and apologizes before he continues. For an hour he had been throwing big numbers at our heads in a firm voice, which we could not really imagine: Cubic meters of spoil, cubic meters of coal, square kilometers and ton loads, lack of alternatives in the energy sector of the GDR. Then he came to talk about that moment which he recounts and experiences again on every tour of the Technology Park: the blowing up of the overburden conveyor bridge of the Espenhain open-cast mine on May 7, 1997 – the symbolic dismantling of a historical work, now disposed of on the dump of history. Chmieleski stood there with his mining buddies, only a few years after the state system break, and thus experienced the rupture in the system of his professional and individual identity. And 22 years later, in the recurring moment of memory, Wolf-Dietrich Chmieleski still has this tear running down his cheek, the result of a social devaluation of work and distillation of an individual, never officially sanctioned mourning work in supposedly flourishing landscapes.

New horizons for historical fabrics

The educationalist Eva Renvert in conversation with the theater collective andcompany&Co. about her current play “New Horizons: Eternity for All! You are dealing with the “Horizonte” production, a play that has written GDR theater history and is related to topics such as worker theater or cybernetics. How did the idea come about and what interests you about the material? In the beginning there was an interest in cybernetics. Today, almost all that has remained of this proud new leading science is the term “cyber attack”. But there are good reasons to deal with the history of cybernetics: Cybernetics was a forerunner of today’s network and system theories. In this respect, it has, so to speak, been part of Web 2.0 from the very beginning. It is about the connection between communication and control. Heiner Müller predicted this in an astonishing way: “To each his own informer! The piece exists in two adaptations: by Gerhard Winterlich, who wrote it for the Arbeitertheater des Petrolchemischen Werkes in Schwedt in 1968, and by Benno Besson and Heiner Müller, who adapted it for the Volksbühne Berlin in 1969. How do you deal with these two models? For once, Müller has worked here in the way we always do – as an “embedded writer” in a play development collective: “Everybody writes poetry with us! Although the play was not a success, it had a real impact: it still shapes the Volksbühne today. There will also be two versions of our play: one that will be developed in Schwedt with former participants of the Arbeitertheater, and a later version with actors*. The play is based on Shakespeare’s “Midsummer Night’s Dream” and plays with several levels. To what extent does this moment flow into your production? We are interested in collaborating with former members of the Arbeitertheater Schwedt, who played themselves as workers. The author Gerhard Winterlich was inspired by Georg Klaus, the “Godfather of GDR cybernetics”. In 1968, his game theory was published, which assumes that all spectators play in the theater because they have an “inner model of the outside world. Ultimately, it is about the current debate on the fusion of man and machine. The “new horizon” of our time is a kind of “digital immortality” – in a society that is characterized by blatant inequality. Hence the title: “Eternity for all! This could be a real political demand in the not too distant future. However, Heiner Müller has foreseen another possible development – the disappearance of the human being. Shortly before his death, he told Alexander Kluge: “What is important in the universe is not organic life, but information. If it turns out that computers – that machines – can transport information better than humans, if humans are no longer sufficient as vehicles, then the computer researcher or specialist must contribute to the destruction of mankind so that computers can take over the transport of information”. Will you be documenting again in this production and how do you proceed? We first conducted interviews – in keeping with the times via zoom – with the people involved at the time as experts* in their own history. This digital interview form fitted the topic well, because according to Müller, the issue is “the introduction of cybernetics into social relationships. We are particularly interested in the theories of Georg Klaus, who is celebrated as the “perfect synthesis of Marx and Luhmann”. He had suggested installing buttons on the television set so that the population could vote directly to “perfect democracy”. It never came to that. A small update of democracy – not only technically – could certainly not hurt here today. To what extent are you going to deal with the history of the GDR? We’ve always been interested in the moments in history when a door opened that was closed again shortly afterwards. Journalist Klaus Taubert witnessed Walter Ulbricht’s proposals for a more effective national economy, including educational reform, technical innovation and comprehensive computerization, at the “Ostseewoche” (Baltic Sea Week) in Rostock in 1970. Taubert’s article was prevented at the time and shortly afterwards it was announced that Ulbricht would hand over power to Honecker, who buried these radical plans. What challenges were there in your work process? To develop a piece without physical contact – that fits the theme. We spent weeks on an immense effort to get all the seniors* fit with video for rehearsals via video conferencing. Our employees* spent hours on the phone with some of them to help install the software remotely. In order to make the individual interviews in a higher quality, we

We remember – permanently. Sometimes they are good memories, sometimes bad, some memories fade, others seem long forgotten and are suddenly back. We already carry within us all the personalities we once were and perhaps will be in old age. “All moments – past, present and future – were always there, will always be there,” says Kurt Vonnegut’s novel “Schlachthof 5”. In his text he has found a congenial translation for this phenomenon of remembering different phases of a life. It is not just any memories that Vonnegut processes, but memories of one of the most terrible chapters of the 20th century. Vonnegut experienced the bombing of Dresden as a young American soldier in German captivity. He recounts the horrors of the war and at the same time makes memory itself a subject. His novel is collage, satire, biography, science fiction, and everything at the same time. The novel’s narrative wanders through different time levels in fragments and excerpts, allowing personal experience and lessons learned to merge with fiction. The team around the Russian theater director Maxim Didenko has developed a new stage version of “Schlachthof 5”, which will premiere in September in HELLERAU. Johannes Kirsten, dramaturge and author of the libretto of the musical stage version spoke with the artistic team of the production. Maxim Didenko – Director When the HELLERAU team contacted me and offered me to develop a joint project, I started to become more involved with the history of Dresden and read books with a reference to the city. I had heard about Kurt Vonnegut’s “Schlachthof 5” before, but I didn’t know anymore that it was actually a book about the bombing of Dresden. While reading it, I realized that it is about much more – about violence, about processing a trauma, but above all about memory. I like the idea of the book that past, present and future take place in the same moment. This thought is very close to how I perceive reality. I find it a wonderful challenge to look for a way to tell or make the simultaneity of time tangible through the means of theater – that our birth, our childhood and our death take place in the same moment and that past and future do not really exist, but that we only have the here and now, in which everything is contained. 75 years after the end of the war, “Schlachthof 5” is the best material for a project in Dresden. The Second World War is a theme that connects all the nations of Europe – in my case Russia and Germany. I then had the idea of working with the American AJ Weissbard as a stage designer and thus connecting three nations of the Second World War in the project. The way we now realize the material has its starting point in my roots in HELLERAU. I was a performer here with the group DEREVO. That still shapes me today. My theater is a very physical theater. Because we developed “Schlachthof 5” as a free project from the beginning as we wanted it to be, we did not hire actors* inside, but singers* and dancers* for the realization. When I work in Russia, I usually have to work with theater actors who are not really good dancers. The idea of realizing “Schlachthof 5” as a mixture of music, dance and theater also arose from the context of the performance location, the Festspielhaus and its history. Here dance and contemporary music play a major role. This is perhaps not the easiest way to tell the story of the book, but this difficulty inspires me more than it deters me. Because of the Corona situation, we have completely changed the spatial concept once again in order to be able to deal with the rules of distance. So it became more and more complicated in the preparation process and I realized that this made me all the more excited.

Vladimir Rannev – Composition

“Schlachthof 5” is the novel by an American author about his experiences in World War II, about the bombing of Dresden, which he witnessed, and about the difficulty of remembering. We are now realizing the material as a Russian-American-German team. Ultimately, however, the nationalities then and now are not important. The real boundaries between the enemies in both world wars and numerous local wars that followed were not between peoples, but between criminal governments whose selfish interests demanded blood and people who let these criminals rule with the consequence of shedding blood for their interests. The former had learned well how to manipulate the latter, and how hate can be produced casually and indifferently like weapons. Vonnegut’s novel is important because it exposes the criminal nature of war as an activity of criminal governments – whether German, American or Russian. Unfortunately, this has not lost any of its topicality. How can such material be translated into music? In this opera, composed for a vocal ensemble, there are no heroic choirs and exciting arias. Rather, it is a concentrated, introverted narrative, a monologue that is counterpointed between the eight voices of the ensemble. The musical director of the production, Olaf Katzer, once compared the method of presenting a verbal text in this score with that of Heinrich Schütz. Stylistically, of course, it is about completely different things, but I unexpectedly noticed for myself that Olaf was right with regard to the structure of the text. Even though the novel jumps a lot through time and space, I try to keep the musical development continuous. There are no epoch portraits or places of action, because for Billy Pilgrim, the novel’s hero, war is not an adventure, but an experience of painful reflection and introspection.

AJ Weissbard – Stage and costumes

When I read “Schlachthof 5” in my youth, I tried very hard to find the common thread in this novel. Now, while rereading in preparation for this project, the narration was no longer important to me at all. Instead, I followed the hints and associations of the novel and rediscovered the book once again completely. How one perceives a story is strongly influenced by the context of the reader*. A thought that is all the more important in theater. If we adapt this novel for the stage now, our interpretation must work for an audience of today. But just as the novel’s thread jumps unpredictably, our approach to the material has changed as our own context and perception of the world has been radically transformed in recent months. In our first approach to the project, we tried to combine the architectural character of the Festspielhaus with the fluid thought space of our narrator and his universe. It was an excursion through traditional presentations in the Festspielhaus, but it went beyond the scope of the project. A later approach led to a more classical and modest interpretation. Then came the Corona tragedy. The challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken life all over the world and in every industry. In art, we are preparing for new challenges in terms of working together and realizing projects, meeting the audience and many other challenges. This unique situation has prompted us to rethink the concept for “Schlachthof 5” in HELLERAU in order to ensure the safety of the audience and performers* while still allowing for artistic work. In our interpretation of “Schlachthof 5” everything will be visible at every moment; it will be a theater installation that gathers audience* and performers* in a common space. The audience* inside will create their own personal journey through the material by choosing their own focus and curating their own experiences. The impossibility of getting a complete picture corresponds to the questions that are currently predominant: What is certain, what has happened to us and what can the future bring?

Olaf Katzer – Musical direction

I have been in Dresden since 2005 and live in the same street where my great-grandparents lived before the war until they moved to a suburb. In Dresden it is impossible not to notice the significance of February 13, 1945 for the city. Two different moments remained in my memory. Once a big neo-Nazi march a few years ago. The deserted city and the large police force were spooky. More positive is a memory of the commemorative event at the Heide Cemetery two or three years ago, which I was allowed to frame together with the Junge Ensemble. I read Vonnegut’s novel only now in preparation for the project. It was hard for me to imagine how such a heterogeneous narrative could turn into an evening of theater. The multi-dimensionality that is already emerging exerts a great fascination. The word-sound relationship is of course the most exciting thing for me, i.e. how the contents of the novel can also be made tangible or sensually perceptible through music. What has been composed so far and how Vladimir deals with the structure of time in order to make the novel’s idea of the simultaneity of past, present and future tangible, I like very much. Vladimir has given the parameter pitch its own substance. He has wrested pitch from its Western European function. We have a tone spectrum, and the respective pitch is partly left to chance. The rhythmic structure is immediately noticeable. The pitches have their basis in the narrative and are extremely suggestive. At best, a state is created in which we forget normality and experience what the novel tells us in words. The greatest challenge for us as AuditivVokal is to immerse ourselves in Vladimir’s cosmos and his desire to follow it, to surrender completely to natural singing despite the gripping rhythms.

Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Schlachthof 5, in which he wrote about the heavy bombing raids of 13 and 14 February 1945, is a collage, satire, biography, science fiction and everything at the same time: the novel’s narrative wanders through different time levels in fragments and excerpts, allowing personal experience and lessons learned to merge with fiction. On the one hand, the fragmented and heterogeneous nature of the novel is what makes it so fascinating and, on the other hand, makes it difficult to adapt it for the stage. The first step was to create a scenario, a kind of timetable or path through the novel. What remained were 16 scenes arranged according to situations or places and times. In a second step, these scenes were then filled with texts from the novel. It first had to function as a complete narrative in this passageway through the novel before the condensation of the text could begin in a third step. The first version of the libretto was still far too long. What can be a normal length for an adaptation for drama is still too long for music theatre. Music has its own laws and makes very specific demands on the text. The first version was shortened and condensed more and more in several stages. In spite of all this condensation, it is always important to weigh up how much one is guided by the plot of a novel when adapting for the stage, or whether side strands, atmospheric moments, philosophical digressions which are not directly related to the plot of the novel but which ultimately make up its class are taken into account in the adaptation. I have tried to follow the plot of the novel as well as to convey moments that are not decisive for the plot but which convey the overriding theme of “remembering” and how traumatic experiences can be remembered and told. The leaps in time, which are an important element of the novel, are a great challenge both in the construction of the libretto and later for the events on stage. All scenes in the adaptation are provided with dates and locations. Video will also play a role in the staging. In addition to images that comment on the events on stage or accompany them associatively, faded-in writing will also be an element that is played with. In the best case scenario, a network of sung text, words, sentences and year dates will be created, which will be inserted via video and the images and processes that are formed with the dancers and singers. Schlachthof 5 (premiere) based on the novel by Kurt Vonnegut 24 – 27.09.2020 with Maxim Didenko, Vladimir Rannev, Johannes Kirsten, AJ Weissbard, AuditivVokal Dresden (RU/DE) HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Great Hall

Dear visitors and friends of HELLERAU, Unfortunately, due to the cancellation of events and the closure of our event rooms, we have not been able to welcome you in HELLERAU in the last few weeks, nor have we been able to exchange ideas and information before and after the events, in workshops and discussions, as usual. We – the team of HELLERAU, but especially the artists – miss this direct encounter and exchange with you very much. At this point I would like to take you along and tell you a little bit about what has happened here in the last weeks and how we assess the situation for the future of art and culture. Like almost all areas of society, the artistic and creative sector has to struggle very hard with the corona measures. Much has already been reported about the first phase – closing of the houses, cancellation of events, postponement of projects, development of various scenarios for further cooperation with the artists, groups and partners. Despite the cancellation of the events, we in HELLERAU – the team, the artists*, the partners – have been active in dealing with the consequences of the pandemic and are now in demand with scenarios for the future. From the perspective of a house like HELLERAU, measures to support and maintain the artistic work of the freelance artists* and groups, but also of all those working in the creative sector on a freelance basis, are of absolute importance. In this sense, we expressly welcome the state, federal and municipal aid and support measures and their necessary expansion! This is a large area of cultural and social life, which seems to be taken for granted in the “normal case”, is gladly used by many citizens and will be missed by many in the future, if exactly this area is not preserved. From club to opera house, from cabaret to contemporary dance, from theatre to cinema, from exhibitions to concerts and much more – a cultural landscape is only entitled to this title if it is not riddled with holes. It is about the cultural needs of an entire society. Dresden did not make it to the next round with its application for the title of Capital of Culture, but the – also critical – deliberations on what a process to obtain this title means have set a lot in motion. This should definitely be carried forward and not be forgotten. Especially with Corona and with the processing and coming to terms with the Corona crisis, the question of the future of our society remains virulent – this urgency is all the more apparent in the current situation. It remains important for Dresden to maintain its supra-regional, international image as a city of art and culture – in all its forms! Even in a precarious present marked by crises, the future must play a role – for the urban society, but also as a tourist attraction, which Dresden has always been and wants to remain. And Dresden should be a city of the future, uniting all generations and offering young people in particular the opportunity to stay here and to see the city as their city of the future. This will not be possible without a strong participation of all creative people. HELLERAU can make a contribution here – with the freelance artists, with its regional, national and international partners, with its curious audience, with its committed team and with the aim of making a contribution to this task for society as a whole. At the moment, the overall social framework, the concrete corona situation, the question of the future, the significance of a diverse and multifaceted cultural landscape also include for us very concrete tasks and works. On the one hand, we are developing several scenarios in constant exchange with the artists* on how and when we can make up for the cancelled projects – always according to the specifications updated every 14 days as to when we could possibly start again. This process is time-consuming and exhausting. It also includes the questions of whether and how the originally developed artistic form has to and can be adapted under the new conditions, how far we have to postpone major international productions until next year, how we can still maintain questions of thematic focuses and festivals that cannot take place in this density at the moment. Like so many other cultural and art institutions, we also present current artistic works on our website, which both recapitulate the past programme and present new works and background material on the artistic work. Many thanks to the artists* for providing their material! It is important to us to collect some of the measures to support people who are particularly in need of help. Here individual people can also get involved for others. Within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses, voices of artists* worldwide on their work situation are collected – it is worthwhile to take a look at these “VOICES” ! Regardless of the current situation and the permanent restlessness to react to it artistically and practically, I would like to point out that – as always – we are also working intensively into the future, developing projects, planning the next season again. Projects such as our EU project “Moving Borders” or TANZPAKT Dresden are being further developed, co-productions, thematic focuses, digital formats play a role. This means that behind the scenes we continue to work on the artistic diversity that you have been able to experience in HELLERAU over the last few months and we very much hope for the first return to the programme. The opening of the theatres is possible with the current new Saxon ordinance and I can assure you that we are working flat out to be present again before the summer with a small programme. As we are dependent on several components for the implementation of this programme, I am unfortunately unable to give a date at the moment. My hope is that we will know more in the next few days and then we will be able to become concrete – we are in the starting blocks!  

From now on, we will introduce people who ensure that everything in the house runs smoothly and that our guests feel comfortable here, either in front of or behind the scenes in our new series “Faces”.

Sybille Grießbach Facility Manager of POWER PERSONEN-OBJEKT-WERKSCHUTZ GmbH

Since when do you work in HELLERAU and what are your tasks? I’ve been working here since 2011, so for eight years. On behalf of POWER PERSONEN-OBJEKT-WERKSCHUTZ GmbH, I am the person responsible for HELLERAU. I create the schedules for all the staff of the visitor centre and take care of the training. I regularly sell tickets in the visitor centre and am responsible for the cash desk procedures. In addition, I am responsible for the front office, box office and admission – I can be deployed practically anywhere. What do you find so special in HELLERAU? There is a pleasant atmosphere in HELLERAu. With the team at HELLERAU I can communicate quickly and through short offical channels on all questions. I especially like the varied program, which is unique in Dresden. I also find the personal contact to the customers exciting. How do you experience the audience in HELLERAU? We used to have a lot of regular guests in HELLERAU. Since Carena Schlewitt has been the artistic director, we have noticed that in addition to the regular audience, many younger, new and interested people come to HELLERAU. What was your impressive experience here? I found Nik Bärtsch’s Mobile (2016) impressive, for example. Bandstand is also an experience every year. This year, “Masse”, the dance piece of the dance classes and the youth symphony orchestra of the Heinrich-Schütz-Conservatory was a real highlight. I found the combination of music in dance great. And the piece showed particularly well that HELLERAU is a living house.