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.  

Art to touch “The visits with the girls and boys in HELLERAU are always a special experience because they are always interactive. This goes beyond ‘watching’. Whether we are allowed to talk to the artists again after performances, hold workshops with them or look backstage – this ‘art to touch’ creates moments of sensual experience, in which children discover and understand their world anew.“ Alexandra Starosta Shelter of the 82. Grundschule, Dresden-Klotzsche Accepting the Unexpected “HELLERAU is a stimulating place. Tradition and avant-garde are tangibly linked here and can be felt with every visit. Performances of the Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company have completely changed our ideas of dance and ballet. We have been able to experience our own movement training, sharpened observation and completely new approaches to increasing expression in workshops with dancers and choreographers in HELLERAU or in our school. And the Geometric Ballet by Ursula Sax and Katja Erfurth has once again opened up a new dimension with its ingenious lighting and outstanding musical accompaniment, this justifies every effort to encourage students to continue to come to HELLERAU in the future despite the long distances involved.“ Gaby Bachmann Johann-Gottfried-Herder-Gymnasium Pirna-Copitz Creativity and Movement “In my work as a teacher at the Astrid Lindgren School with a focus on intellectual development, it is natural to address the pupils with all their senses. Everything here is as vivid and lifelike as possible. Creativity and body movement are independent of age and level of knowledge and offer many opportunities to support the development of children and young people. My colleagues and I were able to experience how well this can work for our students outside of school when we participated in the “home sweet home” project in HELLERAU (September 2019) with one of our classes. Here everyone could create their own house, make music requests on the radio and even open up a shop. Simple language, clarity and enough possibilities for everyone to create individually made everyone want to get started.“ Luise Matzat Astrid Lindgren school with focus on intellecutal development  

Since September 2019, HELLERAU has its first Teachers’ Club “Rediscovering Dance and Performance”. Under the guidance of various theatre artists and dancers, teachers set out to explore new aesthetics, ways of working and methods that they can use for their (artistic) work in school. This approach is new and rare in every aspect, because if one considers the reduction of artistic subjects at Saxony’s schools and the increasingly difficult conditions for interdisciplinary and project-oriented work, this is a special commitment that is based on different motivations. HELLERAU stands for interdisciplinary work, for current topics and diverse artistic teams. The teachers would like to discover and develop these new aesthetics and artistic contemporary forms, which may still be new and alien to the students and the young audience. Performance and dance of the independent scene can be relevant for school work, because they (can) build on an organisational structure that follows democratic principles, that listens to the stories of individuals and yet is created “live” in the collective, and that starts from the body and concrete action. All these are aspects that – independent of one’s own artistic production in school theatre – should become more relevant for the school of our time. The wholeness of learning is questioned in many learning settings in favour of knowledge that can be quickly retrieved and under the time pressure of bulging curriculum. In addition, the importance of democratic interaction, especially in schools, and the creation of shared experiences and results is also becoming apparent. The club offers the participating teachers new experiences and approaches, and conversely it tells the institution HELLERAU something about the diversity and starting position at schools. It describes the approaches needed for a theatre venue and the arts of dance and performance to challenge the designation as ivory tower and also to create a place for cultural education. As the KOST – Cooperation between Schools and Theatres in Saxony, we are pleased to think and create this dialogue and change of perspective together with a place as important and inspiring as HELLERAU in Dresden. KOST – Cooperation between School and Theatres is an initiative for cultural education at Saxon schools under the sponsorship of the Landesbühnen Sachsen. Its aims are the strengthening and qualitative development of school theatre, cooperation between schools and theatre professionals. KOST would like to expand, support and network existing school theatre structures and provide professional and organisational support to all participants such as teachers, pupils, theatre pedagogues and artists. We thank the state Office for School and Education for supporting the Teachers’ Club.

The fact that HELLERAU has a very special, very unique audience is proven practically every day. And it is also noticeable how it has been rejuvenating for some time know. One can certainly speak of a “growing” interest. But that does not yet give any guarantees. Especially since HELLERAU, although easily accessible, is still a bit “further out” and the Festspielhaus is far from being on everyone’s lips. Frauke Wetzel, as a multifaceted cultural scientist interested in history, stories and curious, with a gift for achieving the possible as well as the impossible, has been significantly involved in the tapering audience structure since October 2013. She is responsible for “Audience Development, Cultural Education and Networks” at HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts. Which sounds rather complicated and also appears to be a truly comprehensive and “borderless” field of activity. The fact is that change always requires a rethinking of circumstances, and success often comes late. But everyone who has been infected with the HELLERAU “virus” (which is not a question of age) will ultimately help to keep things moving, stay tuned and talk about it. This cannot be listed at all. On the other hand, the work with various “networks” and education costs an enormous amount of energy, patience and empathy for the initiators. “When I started in 2013 in HELLERAU,” Frauke Wetzel recounts, “there was nothing in my job description like: Take care of children and schools! I made that my own task and my own experience. Compared to other houses, the audience was halfway young. But there was still a lack of young visitors. And although the “Kids on Stage” festival always brought young performers and guests with continuity to HELLERAU, there was a general lack of schoolchildren among the audience. Habits had to be broken and educators had to be made curious about what happens at HELLERAU. And that all takes time. Today, there are connections to about 200 teachers and there are for example, project weeks, guided tours or talks about performances.“ Especially memorable was how Frauke Wetzel brought together a young group of critics at the “modul dance” festival in 2015, who discussed the various performances in front of the camera. Visitors were usually able to see this on screen a little later. A youth jury as one might wish for: cleverly describing, judging, knowledgeable. Lena was a member of the youth jury at that time, and continued to be actively involved with HELLERAU. Although she has been studying far away for a long time, she always uses visits to Dresden to “drop by” and is better informed than some people on site. “At Frauke’s suggestion we recently met as alumni, this time for a kind of ideas workshop for future projects. There, it was for example also about workshops. Right from the start we had excellent contacts with Jacobo Godani’s Dresden Frankfurt Dance Company. This is now continuing and the circle of participants is also changing. I absolutely appreciate what I have in HELLERAU. Here you simply belong, feel good, are informed further. And the entrance fees are very affordable. In addition, there are always familiar faces like Frauke.” The inspiring idea with the youth jury of that time soon continued with the HELLERAU blog of young commentators and critics at “Kulturgeflüster” Dresden, an online editorial office in cooperation with the Media Culture Centre Dresden. Whoever takes a look, listens in, will feel very clearly how attentive the participants (some of them have been with the project for three years) are in their perception, how they openly discuss what they have experienced with each other. This also encourages them to find their own positions and articulate them. Certainly, this does not yet cause a mass rush of younger visitors to HELLERAU, but constant dripping wars the stone. And what counts is the example. Others become aware of it, hear about it, some even apply to Frauke Wetzel as student intern. Who, as “alumni”, are already a whole group of people. Hardly anyone else at the house does that, which is of course a question of time. Which yo have to take for it. On both sides. The students are no less under time and performance pressure Whereby the experiences in HELLERAU are certainly also a good school. Frauke Wetzel sums it up when she says: “The place simply works. With a festival theatre, open-air grounds, visitor centre, with everyone who works here, including the very special technicians. Even for the youngest visitors there is always something to play, to watch, to participate in HELLERAU. Everyone is wanted here.”

Art is always a child of its time. Bach and Bruckner wrote out of divine certainty. Haydn created a counter world to the chaos and misfortune of the world. Beethoven composed in the hope of the new age of world brotherhood. But what about us? What does art have to say to our time? Our time is facing an unprecedented threat of global warming. Many people, and above all many powerful people, refuse to believe this. But our best scientists say that warming will lead to the self-immolation of the planet without any countermeasures. And the countermeasures taken so far are halfhearted and insufficient. the droughts, famines, state collapses and mass migrations that can already be observed are only a weak prelude to what is to be expected in the coming decades: Whole continents are threatened, resource wars will continue to spread, millions of people will set out on their travels, and perhaps there will be an end to civilization and the world as we knew it… How can musicians express their dismay at these conditions? Since the Middle Ages, the “Dies irae” has been the musical expression of the end times, of that “wrath of God” that is unleashed in the Last Judgment. Galina Ustwolkskaja composed a contemporary version the “Dies irae” in 1972/1973 while still in the old Soviet Union: The piano beats brutal, dissonant clusters, eight double bassists repeat suffocating phrases – they look like birds of the dead. At the centre is the wooden box invented by Ustwolskaja, which can be handled with a hammer. This hopeless and desperate music of fate is the centrepiece and the highlight of my program. It begins with Giacinto Scelsi’s ‘Okanagon’: monotonous, barren are interrupted by tam-tam rhythms, which, however, tire and die away again – the drought tolerates no more people. Can you hear the heartbeat of the earth? Is there anything else? These are your steps on earth – Jorge Sánchez-Chiong has turned them into soldiers’ steps. On the way to this Last Judgement, wars break out, symbolized in this program by Heinrich Ignaz Franz Bibers’ baroque battle painting “battalia”. Between the movements, two works are inserted that were created as a reaction to the Vietnam War: Georg Crumb’s string quartet “Black Angels” and, as a video, Jimi Hendrix’ guitar improvisation on “The Star-Spangled Banner”. All this hurts. The first movement of Michael Hersch’s violin concerto is an open wound, there is nothing to gloss over. Antonio Lotti’s Crucifixus stand for the path of suffering, on which redemption can no longer be expected from mankind. The improvisation on the 140th Psalm calls upon God as a last resort. To the climax, Ustwolskaja’s “Dies irae”, Scelsi’s “Anagamin” for thirteen instruments leads: a fearful, uncertain waiting to eerie, falsified, hardly changing sounds. How much time do we have left? Patricia Kopatchinskaja’s joy of discovery and repertoire as a violinist, chamber musician and soloist ranges from baroque, classical, romantic and modern to world premieres. Beginning with her first climate concert in Berlin in 2012, Kopatchinskaja continues to expand her concerts through context and staging. The Hamburg project “Bye-Bye Beethoven” with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra challenged the frozen concert schedule, and has since been repeated in the USA and England. The recording “Death and the Maiden” with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra won a Grammy in 2018. The project “”Dies irae” was first performed at the Lucerne Festival in 2017. With a tradition dating back to the 16th century, the Staatskapelle Berlin is one of the oldest orchestras in the world. In 2009, the musicians of the Staatskapelle Berlin founded the “Orchestra of Change” and the NaturTon Foundation, for which they regularly give concerts and whose proceeds benefit international environmental projects.

Die südafrikanische Tänzerin und Choreografin Dada Masilo sprach mit Shirley Ahura (Lucy Writers Platform, University of Cambridge) über ihre Neuentdeckung der Klassiker des Balletts, die Stärkung von Frauen und den Einsatz von Tanz zum Abbau kultureller Barrieren. Du hast einen Großteil deines eigenen Repertoires durch mutige und radikale Neuinterpretationen klassischer Ballette entwickelt, von „Schwanensee“ bis hin zu „Romeo und Julia“. Kannst du sagen, ob deine Stücke konkret an bestimmte Menschen gerichtet sind und würdest du sagen, dass sie konkret für bestimmte Menschen sprechen? Ein Großteil meiner Arbeit ist ein Spiegelbild meines eigenen Lebens. Ich sehe täglich Menschen darum kämpfen, sie selbst zu sein und ihren Platz im Leben zu finden. Sie werden diskriminiert, sind Rassismus, Homophobie und häuslichem Missbrauch ausgesetzt und erleben Vergewaltigung oder andere Formen von Gewalt. Für meine Arbeit spreche ich mit meiner Großmutter, meiner Mutter, meinen Schwestern und ich rede auch mit meinen schwulen Brüdern. Aber es geht mir nicht nur um eine subjektive Wahrnehmung. Ich möchte größere Fragen stellen, zum Beispiel wie wir in der Gesellschaft vorankommen. Das ist eine Lernerfahrung für mich und die Tänzer*innen, wir bilden uns nicht nur selbst, sondern vermitteln dies auch dem Publikum. In vielen deiner Arbeiten hinterfragst du die Repräsentation von Frauen im klassischen Repertoire und versuchst, sie neu zu definieren – insbesondere ihre Rollen, ihre Position und ihr Handeln in ihrer jeweiligen Gesellschaft. Würdest du sagen, dass deine Haltung feministisch ist und warum? Wenn ich meine Arbeit mache, denke ich nicht: „Ich mache dieses Stück mit einer feministischen Einstellung“, aber ich arbeite immer daran, Frauen zu stärken. Wir haben so viele Erwartungen an uns von der Gesellschaft – sich nicht zu beschweren, die Dinge einfach zu akzeptieren. Bei meiner Arbeit geht es mir vor allem darum, Respekt und Anerkennung für uns als Frauen zurückzugewinnen. Das Persönliche ist das Politische. Bist du in deiner Karriere als Tänzerin/Choreografin auf besondere Herausforderungen gestoßen? Wie hat das deine Arbeit beeinflusst? Wenn wir in Europa auftreten, wird mir oft die Frage gestellt: „Warum erzählst du europäische Geschichten? Warum erzählst du nicht „afrikanische“ Geschichten?“ Ich habe zum Glück eine Ausbildung, die mich auf die Welt aufmerksam gemacht hat. Ich stecke nicht nur in meiner „afrikanischen“ Schublade. Ich hasse Schubladen, das habe ich immer getan. Ich möchte die Verbindungen zwischen den Geschichten meiner Kultur und der Welt finden. Das Wichtigste für mich ist es, die Regeln des klassischen Balletts zu lernen und zu kennen. Wenn ich die Regeln lerne und kenne, bin ich in einer besseren Position, um sie zu brechen. Du hast einmal gesagt, „Tanzen bedeutet, Stellung zu beziehen“. Gibt es eine Verpflichtung des Künstlers/der Künstlerin, über die Zeit und die Welt um sich herum nachzudenken? Ich habe noch nie abstrakte Arbeiten gemocht. Ich möchte Geschichten erzählen. Es ist mir wichtig, nicht nur als Frau meinen Raum einzunehmen und in der Welt gleichberechtigt zu sein, sondern auch als Mensch. Als Gesellschaft neigen wir dazu, Dinge unter den Teppich zu kehren. Als ich in meinen Zwanzigern war, wollte ich nur tanzen. Aber jetzt bin ich in einem Alter, in dem ich Fragen stellen möchte: nicht nur an die Welt, sondern an meine eigene Kultur. Bei unseren Stammesältesten zum Beispiel ist so viel von dem, was sie in ihrer Tradition kennen und praktizieren, völlig unhinterfragt. Bei ihnen gibt es diese „shut up and do“-Mentalität, „denn so haben wir es immer gemacht“. Aber ich bin jetzt an einem Punkt meines Lebens angekommen, an dem ich respektvoll die Dinge hinterfragen möchte. Wie siehst du Tanz als Medium für das (Wieder-)Erzählen von Geschichten? Ich benutze meinen Körper, um mich auszudrücken. In letzter Zeit arbeite ich auch sehr mit meinem inneren Zustand, mit Emotionalität. Ich möchte meine Geschichte mit Ehrlichkeit erzählen, mit Verletzlichkeit, aber auch mit Freude. Ich möchte, dass die Betrachter*innen alles fühlen: das Glück, den Schmerz, die Trauer. Ich beginne immer bei mir – wenn ich nicht in der Lage bin, auf der Bühne verwundbar zu sein, dann überträgt sich auch nichts auf das Publikum. Ich muss akzeptieren, dass ich nicht nur ein Körper im Raum bin, sondern ein Mensch, der diesen Raum mit anderen teilt. Du arbeitest an einem neuen Stück. Könntest du uns ein wenig darüber erzählen und was du noch für die Zukunft geplant hast? Ich arbeite an einem Stück, das ich „The Sacrifice“ („Das Opfer“) genannt habe, und es ist inspiriert vom „Frühlingsopfer“ von Igor Strawinsky. Ich nenne es „Das Opfer“, weil ich hoffe, darin alles näher betrachten zu können, was wir täglich opfern. Bei den meisten Interpretationen lässt man die Tänzerin sich am Ende des Stückes einfach zu Tode tanzen. Ich interessiere mich aber für die verschiedenen Opfer, die im Laufe des Stückes dargebracht werden. Was ist überhaupt ein Opfer? Was opfern wir in unserem täglichen Leben? Die Handlung beim „Frühlingsopfer“ ist sehr einfach. Daher ist es eine Herausforderung für mich, eine größere Geschichte zu erzählen. Als Teil meiner Forschung habe ich mit Stammesältesten über ihre Praktiken gesprochen, insbesondere über das Thema „Reinigung“ – was mich mehr und mehr interessiert, weil ich das Gefühl habe, dass unsere Welt gerade jetzt eine Reinigung braucht. Die Stammesältesten waren wirklich offen für unsere Rituale rund um die Reinigung – wir reinigen uns, wenn wir krank sind, aber auch, wenn es Grund zum Feiern gibt. Ich lerne so viel, und der Prozess ist nach wie vor äußerst aufschlussreich. Die Produktion „The Sacrifice“ von Dada Masilo mit einer neuen Musik von Philipp Miller wird im Februar 2020 in Südafrika Weltpremiere feiern. Das vollständige Interview erschien im September 2019 auf www.lucywritersplatform.com. Das Interview übersetzte und bearbeitete André Schallenberg.

2020 setzen wir unsere Spurensuche im Feld der Traditionen und Erbstücke fort. Die Beschäftigung mit Erbe hat schon immer eine globale Dimension. Das zeigt nicht nur der flüchtige Blick in die mit „exotischen“ Schätzen gefüllte Wunderkammer Augusts des Starken oder auf das Yin-Yang-Zeichen am Giebel des Festspielhauses. Émile Jaques-Dalcroze und Heinrich Tessenow ließen es bekanntlich zu Beginn des letzten Jahrhunderts dort anbringen, als wohlmeinendes Symbol einer erhofften Heilung vom Gräuel der Industrialisierung durch ganzheitliche, ostasiatische Philosophie, Heilkunst und Körperpraxis. Auch Tanzkünstler*innen wurden damals davon erfasst – man denke nur an die „orientalischen“ Stücke von Nijinsky. Im Festival widmen sich gleich zwei Stücke dieser brisanten Periode der Tanz- und Weltgeschichte: Jérôme Bel und Elisabeth Schwartz sezieren in „Isadora Duncan“ den Werdegang einer der Pionierinnen des Ausdruckstanzes und des Feminismus, während die südafrikanische Choreografin Dada Masilo mit „The Sacrifice“ einen Grundstein der europäischen Moderne neu interpretiert, das Ballett „Sacre du Printemps“ von Strawinsky und Nijinsky. In Masilos Werk, das in HELLERAU als Europapremiere gezeigt wird, treten gleichzeitig auch die heftigen postkolonialen Verwerfungen der globalisierten Gesellschaft zutage. Auch Eisa Jocson aus Manila beschäftigt sich mit dieser Verbindung künstlerischen Erbes mit gesellschafts- und machtpolitischen Fragestellungen. Ihre „Prinzessinnen“, die den asiatischen Disneyland-Freizeitparks entlehnt sind, stehen sowohl für ein festgefügtes Comic-Rollenbild als auch für die oft einzige, kümmerliche Karrierechance ausgebildeter Balletttänzer*innen in Südostasien. In diesem Komplex der hybriden Formen und Fragen nach Identitäten und Herkünften bewegen sich auch die chinesischen Künstler*innen Xiao Ke und Zi Han, die in ihrem Chiname-Projekt Hunderte chinesisch-stämmige Menschen auf der ganzen Welt nach ihren Vorstellungen zu diesen Wurzeln gefragt haben. Wo beginnt die politisch motivierte Konstruktion einer eindeutigen Identität, wo beginnt die Fiktion? Simon Mayer hat eine eigene Form dieser fluiden Zustände gefunden: In seiner extrem unterhaltsamen Form des alpenländischen Folklore-Futurismus ebenso wie Gintersdorfer/Klaßen mit ihrer westafrikanisch gespiegelten Version der „Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald“ oder Joana Tischkau, die über zärtliche Karikaturen die Rollenbilder der Popgeschichte abtastet. Sogar DDR-Tanz wies erstaunlich komplexe internationale Einflüsse und Wechselbeziehungen auf, wie Saša Asentić und sein Team eindrücklich beweisen. Der Begriff der künstlerischen Auseinandersetzung ist uns hier besonders wichtig – die Relevanz von Traditionen und Erbe hängt von der ständigen Befragung und Neuauslegung ab. Die Kunst, speziell das Theater, scheinen uns genau der richtige Ort für diese weltweite Debatte zu sein.

Seit fast zwei Jahrzehnten gehört Sascha Ring zu den prägenden Protagonist*innen der elektronischen Musik in Deutschland. Unter dem Namen Apparat hat er wie nur wenige andere die Verschränkung zwischen programmierten Klängen und analogen Instrumenten erkundet und variiert. Neben zahlreichen Solo- und Kollektivprojekten schreibt er seit einiger Zeit auch erfolgreich Musik für Kino-, Fernseh- und Theaterproduktionen, erhielt 2018 für die Musik zu Mario Montes Film „Capri-Revolution“ einen Preis für den besten Soundtrack bei den Filmfestspielen in Venedig. Auf Netflix läuft die Serie „Dark“ mit seiner Titelmelodie, und im Londoner Barbican war kürzlich seine Zusammenarbeit mit den Installations- und Performancekünstler*innen von Transforma zu sehen. Wie viele zog es auch ihn, der 1978 im ostdeutschen Quedlinburg geboren wurde, in den 90ern nach Berlin, um in die wilde und kreative Szene einer damals einzigartigen Club- und Elektronikkultur einzutauchen. In seiner Heimat hielt ihn nichts mehr, vielmehr erinnert er vor allem die Zeit kurz nach dem Fall der Mauer als eine bedrückende Phase der Perspektivlosigkeit, begleitet von Arbeitslosigkeit, betäubenden Techno-Partys und ständiger Angst vor Nazis. Hier legte er Platten auf, begann in Berlin aber zunächst eine Ausbildung zum Grafiker. Doch als er seinen ersten großen Job als Art-Director angeboten bekam, entschied er sich konsequent dagegen – und für die Musik. Die Zusammenarbeit mit Freunden wie Marco Haas vom Label Shitkatapult, dem Designkollektiv Pfadfinderei, Ellen Alien oder schließlich Gernot Bronsert und Sebastian Szary bestärkten ihn in dieser Entscheidung. 2002 schloss sich Sascha Ring alias Apparat mit dem Duo Gernot Bronsert und Sebastian Szary alias Modeselektor zusammen: Als Moderat gehörten sie neben den Kalkbrenner-Brüdern bald zu den deutschen Produzent*innen, die im Ausland kommerziell am erfolgreichsten waren. Moderat wurden wahlweise als „Elektropop-Supergroup“ oder „Laptop-Boygroup“ bezeichnet. Sanfte elektronische Sounds bestimmten das Klangbild, dazu sang Ring in meist hoher Stimmlage, was manchmal an Radiohead-Mastermind Thom Yorke erinnerte – melancholische, verspielte und fricklige Popsongs, denen man aber immer auch den Clubhintergrund anhörte, Musik die „aus dem Technokeller kommt“ (Ring). „Wir sind alle Typen, die vor über 20 Jahren nach Berlin gekommen sind und angefangen haben rumzustümpern“, sagt Sascha Ring über die Prä-Laptop-Boygroup-Zeiten von Moderat. Damals gab es noch wahnsinnig viel zu entdecken, die ganze Computermusikwelt schien zu explodieren: „Ständig wurden neue Plugins entwickelt, die wiederum ganz neue Sounds generieren konnten. Wenn da noch nichts Passendes dabei war, hat man sich seine Sounds einfach selbst programmiert.“ Später sind für Ring elektronische Geräusche aber zunehmend langweilig geworden. „Ich habe immer seltener einen Aha-Effekt, wenn ich elektronische Musik höre – das Thema ist einfach etwas abgegessen. Für mich haben mittlerweile akustische Signale einen größeren Reiz, weil sie nie hundertprozentig perfekt sind.“ Konsequent erscheint vor diesem Hintergrund das neue Album, das Sascha Ring, wieder als Apparat, 2019 herausgebracht hat: „LP 5“ ist eine Art „back to the roots“, wie das Kürzel LP für Langspielplatte schon andeutet. Die Tracks wirken fragil, minimalistisch, feiern die Reduktion und lassen viel Raum für Stille, auch auf der Bühne stehen neben elektronischen Klängen vor allem analoge Instrumente und die menschliche Stimme im Vordergrund. Und vielleicht ist gerade auch diese filigrane Verbindung von digitaler und analoger Welt, diese stille und eher intime Musik und vor allem dieses Moment der Entschleunigung so richtig wie notwendig für neue Gedanken: in Zeiten, in denen die Menschheit überrollt zu werden scheint von digitalen Transformationsprozessen, von kaum noch erfassbaren Beschleunigungen und Überhitzungen der Systeme.