Gastvortrag zu Diversität und Teilhabe am Gorki-Theater – Ulrike Garde (Sydney)

Herzliche Einladung zum Gastvortrag von
Ulrike Garde (MCCALL Department an der Macquarie University, Sydney)

“There is no such thing as one diversity” in contemporary (post)migrant Berlin theatre: Disentangling linguistic and cultural diversity from inclusion

Vortrag auf Englisch mit anschließender Diskussion auf Deutsch und Englisch

Over the past ten years, the Maxim Gorki Theater has developed a reputation among Berlin’s municipal and state theatres for playing a leading role in representing and addressing social and cultural diversity. The Gorki’s growing cultural diversity has been accompanied by an increased linguistic diversity to which the institution’s artistic teams responded with dramaturgies of multilingualism. On the Gorki’s website this development has been primarily communicated by referring to the theatre’s representative responsibilities and emphasizing its interlingual surtitling as an effective strategy for overcoming linguistic barriers.

This paper takes such self-perception as a “theatre for the whole city” (website 2019) as an opportunity for questioning the coupling of social participation and diversity. Unlike many academic and journalistic analyses of the Gorki’s work, this paper will focus on the potential frictions and contradictions between social diversity and inclusion. In brief case study analyses of selected productions, multilingualism functions as an amplifier of the challenges to the communicative function and ‘smooth’ communication that are inherent in all linguistic communication. The frictions and potential exclusions lead to the question of whether Barrie Kosky’s commentary on diversity in cultural institutions, quoted in the title, offers an alternative approach to the issue.

Prof. Dr. Ulrike Garde ist Associate Professor am Department of Media, Communications, Creative Arts, Language and Literature (MCCALL) der Macquarie University Sydney. Ihre Forschungs­interessen erstrecken sich auf interkulturelle Germanistik, insbesondere Theater, darstellende Kunst und Literatur. Ihr aktuelles Projekt untersucht „Mehrsprachigkeit auf der australischen und deutschen Bühne“. Ihre jüngsten Bücher sind Theatre and Internationalization: Perspectives from Australia, Germany, and Beyond (2021, gemeinsam mit John R. Severn) und Theatre of Real People: Diverse Encounters at Berlin’s Hebbel am Ufer and Beyond (2016, gemeinsam mit Meg Mumford). Sie ist zudem die Autorin von Brecht & Co. Deutschsprachige Dramatiker auf der australischen Bühne (2007).

Der Vortrag wird ermöglicht und findet statt im Rahmen des vom DAAD und Universities Australia ko-finanzierten Projektes „Theatre and Internationalisation in Australia and Germany: Transitional Stages, Artistic Practices and Institutional Frameworks“ zwischen Macquarie University und Universität Leipzig.