06.03. – 16.03.: BLICKWECHSEL – Publics and Policies of the Performing Arts

Culture is one of the most frequent targets of right-wing extremist forces. The ideological campaign against the arts has become increasingly open in recent years, with friend-foe demarcations being reintroduced: The local family theatre is denied further funding because it attended a demonstration against right-wing extremism. The youth theatre group, which deals with the Nazi era, has contemporary analogies removed from its text. The queer-feminist collective is threatened with violence on social media. All this and much more has happened in recent months. In ‘BLICKWECHSEL’, director Janina Möbius examines this development in dialogue with Rimini Protokoll, CHICKS*, Katharina Warda, Julia Wissert and many other figures from the worlds of art, culture and science.

Insights into performances and works from across the performing arts not only show how they counteract the increasing polarisation. When the queer-feminist play is discussed and selected by the citizens’ jury in the Harz Mountains, the chronology of the racist attacks of 2020 is retraced as a performative indictment in Hanau Town Hall and children talk about stereotypes and class differences in front of the theatre doors in East Berlin, it shows in a very concrete way how the performing arts invite people to reflect and think together on a daily basis. And thus strengthen democracy in the long term.

A film by Janina Möbius commissioned by the Fonds Darstellende Künste

The film can be viewed one hour before the start of HELLERAU events in Treppenauge West.

Duration: 1 h

Language: German with English subtitles