Artistic Programme

Theatre / Opera

Scene from Brechtseller staged by Japanese theatre group CHITEN.
Direction: Motoi Miura
photo credits: Hisaki Matsumoto

WED, 19.06.2019, 8:30—9:45 p.m.
Schauspiel Leipzig, Diskothek

Tickets 17€ / reduced 12,50€ / students 11€

Brechtseller
staged by Japanese theatre group CHITEN

Chiten’s Brecht-productions are among the most exciting appropiations of Brecht’s texts in contemporary theatre. They focus on Brecht’s idea of a „separation of the elements“ as well as the tradition of Japanese puppet theatre, „Bunraku“. Outstanding is the handling of the voice: The voices in the theater of Motoi Miura and Chiten are physical, material and stirring. They are foreign voices. Their strangeness rises from the empty space between the elements of language, gesture and movement. It rises from an art of interspace.

 

Funded by the Agency of Cultural Affairs — Government of Japan.

Agency of Cultural Affairs

Turandot
based loosely on Carlo Gozzi
staged by Compania Sincara

We play Turandot! Come and see, dear audience! Here, the Emperor of China and his daughter appear as ‚little people‘. Instead, five strange birds are made big. Once these stupids had jobs at the court of Zhōngguó, the Middle Kingdom. One being chief of the eunuchs, the other head of the service staff. Three sat on ministerial posts: Finance, Justice and Defense. Now they are like migratory birds, returning after winter, chirping about matters of quizzes and beheading. But also other things—because just as in a foreign land, they study people, sometimes here, sometimes there, again and again. Come and see what they have found out!

Compania Sincara, founded in 2016 and based in Leipzig.
Direction: Rico Dietzmeyer
photo credits: Christoph Püngel, Ruslan Hrushchak

FRI, 21.06.2019, 8:30—9:40 p.m.
Schauspiel Leipzig

Tickets 17€ / reduced 12,50€ / students 11€

Tickets at the Web-shop of Schauspiel Leipzig

Erscheinungen
staged by Diederik Peeters

Belgian performance artist Diederik Peeters dusts off mankind‘s age-old desire for immortality. In “Erscheinungen”, he takes another shot at finally and irrefutably proving the existence of ghosts. Navigating between history and science fiction, between skepticism and confidence, Peeters sets out on a ghost hunt that will lead him through dark and damp tunnels. Science blends with magic, technology with horror. And if he manages to complete his training as a medium in time, he promises to raise some historical characters from the dead and to send them on an expedition together with the audience.

Scene from Erscheinungen staged by Belgian performance artist Diederik Peeters.

photo credits: Henri Emmanuel Doublier

FRI, 21.06.2019
Schauspiel Leipzig, Residenz

Tickets 17€ / reduced 12,50€ / students 9€

Tickets at the Web-shop of Schauspiel Leipzig

Scenes from Die Maßnahme / Die Perser, 2017.
Direction: Enrico Lübbe
photo credits: Bettina Stöß/Schauspiel Leipzig

SUN, 23.06.2019, 6:00—8:00 p.m.
with simultaneous translation ENG
Schauspiel Leipzig, Große Bühne
Tickets per category
1: 42€ / reduced 29€ / students 16€
2: 34€ / reduced 24€ / students 16€
3: 27€ / reduced 19€ / students 16€
unfortunately, no reduction for retirees/emeriti

Die Maßnahme / Die Perser
by Bertolt Brecht/Hanns Eisler und Aischylos
staged by Schauspiel Leipzig

A double exploration of two cornerstones of theatre history, both of them created during and shaped by extreme times. Two plays specific to their eras and two teaching plays, each in in its own particular way: Die Perser (The Persians), the oldest remaining drama of humankind and one of the few ancient tragedies that dealt with real events – and Die Maßnahme, the renowned co-operation between Bertolt Brecht and Hanns Eisler which served as a model for Brecht’s theory of “Lehrstücke” (teaching plays). Their common ground lies in the topics of hubris and delusion. But between conflicting priorities of humanism and ideology, the weight of an idea and the value of an individual, they each develop quite a different way of examining the effects of political ideas and the awareness of individual suffering.

Performances & Scenic Presentations

Zu Hause schmeckt's am besten (At Home It Tastes Best)

Theatre with locals and refugees

by Michelle Bray and actors of the Thespis-Zentrum, Bautzen

WED, 19.06.2019, 4:00-5:00 p.m.
Leibniz-Forum

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What’s foreign to you, is normal for me. What’s different for you, makes us allies. Where you are normal, I have no space.

As they are eating together, the groups are confronted with issues of visibility and read attributions, expectations and normalities.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

With: Ely Almeida, Hameda Tamari, Yara Ibrahim, Naireen XXX, Sidra Halaly, Samar Halaly, Shirin Halaly, Binan Almugharbel and Thanaa Albaba

Lass Dich / Mich verführen! (Let me seduce you!)
Brecht’s Hauspostille haunts the city of Leipzig

Walk Performance and Audiotrack

by Günther Heeg, Sophia-Charlotte Reiser, Henrike Schmidt, Dana Soubh, Helena Wölfl (all CCT) and students of Leipzig Theatre Studies

WED, 19.06.2019, 5:30-7:00 p.m.
FRI, 21.06.2019; 4:00-5:30 p.m.
starting point: Institut für Theaterwissenschaft

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The Reenactment Walk LASS DICH / ME VERFÜHREN combines auditory traces of memories of the history of Leipzig and Brecht’s poems from the HAUSPOSTILLE. The 50 poems of HAUSPOSTILLE were written between 1916 and 1925. They are among the most famous poems by Brecht. Among them are i.a. the poems »Erinnerung an die Marie A.«, »Gegen Verführung«, Großer Dankchoral«, »Apfelböck oder die Lilie auf dem Felde«, »Von der Kindsmörderin Marie Farrar«, »Ballade von den Seeräubern«, »Von der Freundlichkeit der Welt«, »Historie vom verliebten Schwein Malchus«. Starting from these, the Reenactment Walk historicizes and alienates the presence of specific places in the inner city of Leipzig: through the contrasting splinters of the memory of their prehistory and their afterlife as well as through the performance of poems from the HAUSPOSTILLE. After Brecht’s texts could be read in a small space in the Institute for Theater Studies, real places can be discovered differently during a joint city walk.

With: Aileen Berninger, Leon Bischinger, Marlene Fachet, Anton Fuchs, Lea Fucks, Salya Föhr, Maria Gassenmeier, Christina Hilkemeier, Shu Ishimi, Josephine Kanditt, Leonie Kramp, André Lerou Katharina Morawe, Jan Müller, Titus Offhaus, Johanna Rheinländer, Felix Rusch, Lea Stöcker, Meera Theßen, Timon Wallianos and guests

Der Jasager und Der Neinsager

Work with didactic play in cooperation with Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gymnasium Leipzig

by Anja-Christin Winkler, Antje Schindler, Jascha Riesselmann and students

THU, 20.06.2019, 8:30—9:30 p.m.

Schauspiel Leipzig, Großer Saal

Liberté de circulation, toujours

Lecture Performance

by Kevin Rittberger

SAT, 22.06.2019, 4:30-5:30 p.m.
Schauspiel Leipzig, Diskothek

STÄDTEBEWOHNER (Urban Residents)

Musical Poems during the Gala Dinner

by Hans-Martin Ritter

SAT, 22.06.2019, from 8:00 p.m.
Kirow-Kantine

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Brecht’s „Reading Book for Urban Residents“ was written around 1926. It shows portraits of people in social constraints. Analogous to Brecht’s characterization of the sequence of scenes „Furcht und Elend des dritten Reiches“, I speak of a table of gestures, a „Gestarium“: from sketches to the social gesture of a place. For my stage practice, the theoretical investigations and the work with students these were key texts for the discovery of the gestural moment and social and emotional contradictions – not least in the syncopations and fractures of this »reimlose Lyrik in unregelmäßigen Rhythmen (rhyming lyrics in irregular rhythms)«.

The program, supplemented by a few early texts and songs by Brecht, shows a strangulation – to itself and others – through power structures, social pressure, aggression, contempt and ideological infection, through complacent poses, self-deception, self-loss and speechlessness and selective approaches to overcome them. Shown is a male and – starting from the note: „Das habe ich eine Frau sagen hören (I heard a woman say that)“ – a female „Gestarium“. One thing that strikes the eye is that on the male side, the social debate between men is in the foreground whereas on the female side the sexual moment plays an essential role – also as a shadow of self-alienation. In addition to Brecht’s texts, here and there, there is an attempt to conduct a kind of dialogue with Brecht through his own texts.

AMONG US / UNTER UNS: INITIALS BB

Scenic Interventions during the Gala Dinner

by friendly fire, free theatre and performance group from Leipzig

SAT, 22.06.2019, from 8:00 p.m.
Kirow-Kantine

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Let’s call this a night: We are the night and we are among us. And among us are those who are among us, about 2 feet lower in the ground. Down in the ground where Brecht is gonna be found, as we ourselves are – in the not too distant future. Or he is already gone, fleeting, long since among us, a stranger among strangers with the initials BB, which is in the door: Tableau.

The night of the world dreams and fevers the present and we, together with the Brecht Society, rejoice in THE BIG SLEEP, THE LARGE FEAST, THE DREAM OF REASON, OF SOCIETY AND OF THEATER. For among us are already those who come after us: the spirits of the future among whom we will be. Wherever you look: Stranger things. Because: People are strange when you’re strangers. This party is weird and great at the same time. It’s a celebration.

With AMONG US / UNDER US: INITIALS BB, the Leipzig theater and performance group friendly fire does not invite to a performance, but instead attends the Gala Dinner of the Brecht Society. Between audio installation and photo shoot, collective improvisation, social choreography and separation of the elements, we ask what it means and how it (not) works under itself. So, put your headphones on and off at the same time. Because every place is always several places and we, we are the night. Celebrate good times, come on!

Das beste Theater der Welt™

Performance Installation

by Michael von zur Mühlen, Halle Opera, and students of Leipzig Theatre Studies

DAILY
Schauspiel Leipzig, Diskothek

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A theater after Brecht is only conceivable as the best theater in the world ™! Given the continuing debate over governance and work structures, representation and diversity, and a much-discussed crisis of classical theater institutions, it is time for a revival of the Best Theater of the World ™. But how is this theater arranged? What are its themes, ways of working and aesthetic forms?

The Bertolt Brecht Guest Professorship is about research, theoretical formulation and practical simulation of a vision for The Best Theater of the World ™. The project may be presumptuous, but urgently necessary. One thing is for sure: The Best Theater World ™ is different from anything that has been thought possible so far and will only be found in collaborative ways of working by bringing each others specific skills to the „Agency for developing and implementing the Best Theater in the World ™“.

During the summer semester of 2019, students of theater studies develop an artistic format between theory and practice. The results are i.a. presented during the meeting of the International Brecht Society Brecht among strangers.

over the top

by Dana Soubh und Daniel Kovalenko

DAILY
Schauspiel Leipzig, Foyer

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What does landscape actually mean? What is the landscape like in Bethlehem and how do people relate to it? What kind of freedom does it offer? What limits it?

Over a period of three months the team of over the top has addressed these questions; they talked to people in and from Bethlehem and worked with their answers artistically.

The completion was an exhibition and performance on three different roofs of the old town Bethlehem with works of photographic, topographical, textual and performative nature. The audience was invited to step on the roofs of Bethlehem, to listen to the answers and to confront the questions that the artistic process has revealed. The central theme throughout the project is fragmentation. On the one hand fragmentation describes the actual state of Bethlehem’s landscape, on the other hand it was used as an artistic method at the different exhibition venues within the city. This motif continues in the exhibition in Leipzig. During the conference it will be possible to meet the project’s questions and answers again and again.

About over the topover the top is a research and arts project initiated by the German-Palestinian Dana Soubh and conceptualised and realised with the Austrian artist Daniel Kovalenko.

Gala Dinner

A particularly special event awaits you on the congresses last evening. The festive Gala Dinner offers an opportunity to let yourself be indulged by a four-course menu and an artistic programme.

In addition to Caribbean-Asian delicacies, you can expect an exciting artistic programme: Theatre educator and stage speaker Hans-Martin Ritter will accompany the evening with musical poems by Brecht in the course of his reading STÄDTEBEWOHNER. In addition, friendly fire — a free theatre and performance group from Leipzig — will present their newest artistic installation AMONG US / UNTER UNS: INITIALS BB.

Enjoy with us an exciting and culinary evening that by music and performances until late night provides a befitting finale to our symposium!

SAT, 22.06.2019, 8:00 p.m.—1:00 a.m.
Kirow-Kantine

Tickets 55€
(including a 4-course-menu and accompanying wine)