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

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

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.

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!

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.

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 top: over 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.