Brecht Festival
The Brecht Festival of the city of Augsburg is a multi-day festival in honor of the native in Augsburg poet Bertolt Brecht .
description
Since 2010, the Brecht Festival has been a meeting place for artists, experts and Brecht researchers who deal with Brecht's life, his aesthetics and his work. Readings, concerts, theater performances, workshops, projects with schools, round tables and competitions will take place during the festival. The aim is to address an audience across all generations.
history
The Brecht Festival is the follow-up project to the literature festival "abc" (augsburg brecht connected), which took place between 2006 and 2008 under the direction of Albert Ostermaier . Before that, there were Brecht days and other series of events in Brecht's honor, but without annual continuity.
abc 2006-2008
The author Albert Ostermaier worked in a team with the musician Hans Platzgumer as curator for the music program. The program area “Young Literature” lay with the poetry slammers Rayl Patzak and Ko Bylantzky . The curatorial team engaged nationally known authors, spoken word poets, actors, including many ensemble members of the Bavarian State Theater and the Münchner Kammerspiele, sound artists, musicians and bands. Well-known columnists moderated the program. Bayerischer Rundfunk accompanied the festival with live broadcasts. In 2007 the collaboration with the Augsburg Theater increased. In 2008 the festival hosted the playwright and dramaturge Evaristo Abreu from Mozambique as Writer in Residence. The program of the festival was a football tournament in which players from the FCA Augsburg competed against artists from the festival and the “Brecht Boys” team founded especially for the occasion.
Peter 111
In 2009, an interim project called "Brecht 111" took place, which paved the way for an annual follow-up project under the artistic direction of Joachim A. Long paved.
Brecht Festival 2010–2016
The first festival trilogy from 2010 to 2012 under the artistic direction of Joachim A. Lang focused on the subjects of film, music and politics, with each year covering a sub-area.
The 2010 festival with the focus on “film” lasted 13 days, during which around 8,000 people attended the almost 40 events. Well-known artists of the festival included the directors Erich Breloer and the Canadian Larry Weinstein, the actress and contemporary witness Regine Lutz, the actor Heino Ferch , the singer Annett Louisan and the Brecht granddaughter Johanna Schall . In 2011, the festival focused on the theme of “Brecht and Music”. Guests included the singer Ute Lemper, the poetry slammer Patrick Salmen and the actor Dominique Horwitz . “Brecht and politics” was the theme of the 2012 festival. The guests included the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and the pop artist PeterLicht , but also politicians who discussed Brecht's relationship to politics. The central venue of the festival was - in keeping with the thematic focus - the Augsburg town hall.
The second festival trilogy under the artistic direction of Joachim A. Lang, which began with the Brecht Festival 2013, dealt more intensively with the individual creative phases of Brecht. In 2013, the focus was on the “young Brecht”, with the premiere of the drama “The Bible”, a play that Brecht had already written in 1914 as a schoolboy in Augsburg. It was staged by Brecht's granddaughter Johanna Schall. Other guests were the actors Thomas Thieme , Dagmar Manzel and Christine Kaufmann as well as the indie band Slut. The Staatsschauspiel Dresden gave a guest performance of the “Threepenny Opera” with Christian Friedel in the leading role of Macheath. In 2013, the Augsburg Theater was a cooperation partner and main venue for the Brecht Festival for the first time . At the same time, the festival also took place at various locations such as the Brechthaus Augsburg . The 2014 Brecht Festival (January 30 - February 10, 2014) dealt with Brecht's work in the 1920s and his time in Berlin. The highlights of the 2014 festival included a. Concerts by Patti Smith , Nina Hagen and the Berlin rock band Bonaparte . Other prominent guests included a. Burghart Klaußner and Iris Berben . 2014 saw a record attendance with 14,000 visitors.
In 2015 (January 29 - February 10, 2015) the program dealt with the topic of “Exile”. Bertolt Brecht, persecuted by the National Socialists, fled into exile and lived in various countries on his escape, including a. in Scandinavia and the USA. The works he created in exile were treated in readings and plays, while the series “Exil heute” focused on the topicality of the topic of flight and displacement. For this purpose, readings were held by scholarship holders of the Writers-in Exile program in cooperation with the PEN Center Germany. Other prominent guests included a. the actors Katharina Schüttler , Angela Winkler , Max Hopp , Sebastian Koch , the writer Barbara Honigmann and the pop band MIA. and the musician PeterLicht . At the end of the festival, the Berliner Ensemble came to Augsburg with the guest performance “Mother Courage and Her Children”, staged by Claus Peymann , with Carmen-Maja Antoni in the leading role. The festival was attended by 13,000 spectators. In January 2016, Joachim A. Lang presented the last festival program under his direction. It was under the motto: "Brecht and Germany - The hometown, how does it welcome me?" And focused on Brecht's difficult time at the beginning of the Cold War and the German-German division. From February 28 to March 6, 2016, guest performances by the Berliner Ensemble , Ensemble Modern and the German National Theater Weimar were shown in the Great House in Augsburg . Prominent guests in the festival program were Thomas Thieme, Meret Becker , Dominique Horwitz, Element of Crime , Sophie Hunger , DOTA, Brecht's granddaughter Johanna Schall and Gregor Gysi .
Brecht Festival 2017-2018
With the first Brecht Festival under the artistic direction of Patrick Wengenroth , a programmatic turn in the festival design began. Wengenroth's artistic approach focuses on Brecht as a pioneer for experimental forms of play in contemporary theater and, alongside this, the socio-political review of the topicality of Brecht's work. In-house productions and theater productions by the independent scene played an important role in the first year.
The 2017 Brecht Festival had the festival motto "Change the world, it needs it". To this end, Wengenroth had the Turkish-born director Selcuk Cara Brecht's didactic play “The Measure” staged in the old gasworks and brought with him “The world is: bad! And I am: Brecht! ”A Brecht revue with actors from the Augsburg Theater ensemble on the stage. In cooperation with the Akademie der Künste Berlin and directed by Friederike Heller , the in-house production “Crisis is Always.” On the stage and in the literary focus, “Feminism” and “Inclusion” were the central aspects in the debate about equality in the Civil society picked up. Guests were u. a. the British author and feminist Laurie Penny , the writer Jack Urwin , the inclusive Theater Ramba Zamba with “The Good Man from Downtown”, the Theater Malpertuis from Belgium, the Berlin performance artist Simone Dede Avivi and the Hamburg collective Genderdungeon II. Patrick Wengenroth initiated one Writing workshop for schoolchildren with the award-winning writing duo Nolte-Decar. In addition, he continued the collaboration that had grown over the years with scientists from Augsburg, the Augsburg Brechtkreis, the Brechthaus and with artists from the Augsburg scene. The Sensemble Theater , the FaksTheater and Bluespot Productions were each represented with their own festival contributions. For the 25th anniversary of the Brecht Research Center, an international Brecht congress took place in the Brechthaus. For the seventh time in the history of the festival, the music program was curated by Girisha Fernando . It included concerts a. a. by Konstantin Wecker , Captain Peng, Erobique. Isolation Berlin and mine.
The 2018 Brecht Festival opened with a new production of Brecht's fragment "The Downfall of the Egoist Johann Fatzer" in the interim theater of the Augsburg Theater in Martini Park. The theater program featured a guest performance by the Bremen Theater - “The Good Man of Sezuan” (director: Alize Zandwijk), and two productions from the Maxim Gorki Theater in Berlin - “Dickicht” (director: Sebastian Baumgarten) and “Winterreise” (director: Yael Ronen ). The author Bonn Park was hired for the school writing workshop. Wengenroth worked for the first time with the Grandhotel Cosmopolis and invited the independent theter ensemble to develop their own chamber version of “Fatzer”. "Fatzernation" had on 28.2. Premiere at the City Club. In the literature section, Bazon Brock , Kathrin Röggla , Stefanie Sargnagel and Sasha Marianna Salzmann were guests. In the program of the Lange Brechnacht were u. a. Wallis Bird , Algiers and the Antelope Gang as guests.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Happy Birthday, BB . In: Augsburger Allgemeine , February 10, 2009.