Frie Leysen

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Frie Leysen (born February 19, 1950 in Hasselt ) is a Belgian curator and director of theater festivals . She founded the cultural center deSingel in Antwerp and the Belgian KunstenFESTIVALdesArts , curated the Theater der Welt festival in 2010 and the drama program of the Wiener Festwochen in 2014 .

life and work

Her father Bert Leysen was the founding director of the then public Flemish broadcaster BRT , her twin brother Johan Leysen became a stage and film actor. In 2010, Leysen remarked about her education: “I studied art history with a focus on the Middle Ages . That doesn't exactly qualify for a career in contemporary performance art. "

Cultural center deSingel

From 1980 to 1991 she headed the deSingel art and culture center in Antwerp and established it as a four-branch house for architecture , dance , music and drama with three stages and a focus on contemporary productions. The project was significantly built up by Leysen and quickly found recognition beyond the Belgian borders.

Kunsten Festival des Arts

The term KunstenFESTIVALdesArts combines the Flemish and the French designation of an art festival and already includes the claim of the festival founder Leysen to conceive a festival for both language groups in her country. Leysen on the starting position in 1994, the first festival: "We were better informed about what was going on in Paris than about what was happening around the corner in the other language group." At the same time, Leysen regretted the inadequate cultural exchange with international theater makers in Belgium, especially with non-European cultures. Troubled by the nationalist wars in the former Yugoslavia and the separatist tendencies in her own homeland, she came to the conclusion that the new festival would open up new production opportunities for both language groups for cultural workers on the local level, as well as the meeting on the international level should promote with non-European cultures. “When I started I was really shocked at how little I knew. I consider myself open, interested and professional - but when I asked myself what I know about China, for example, I had to admit that it didn't go beyond the usual clichés: Peking Opera, acrobats, etc. […] So I decided to go out into the world and look at multidisciplinary and radically contemporary. "

Production by Bruno Beltrão
Dance theater by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker
The German band Kraftwerk

Further engagements

In 2007 she was succeeded by Christophe Slagmuylder as artistic director of the Kunstenfestivaldesarts. Leysen then took over the programming of Meeting Points 5, a pan-Arab festival in nine cities in Morocco , Egypt , Palestine , Lebanon and Syria , with the express mandate to open the festival to groups and artists outside the Arab region. Leysen invited u. a. the Japanese Hiroaki Umeda , the Belgian Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and the Brazilian Bruno Beltrão . The festival took place for the first time in two European cities, in 2007 in Berlin and in 2008 in Brussels.

The Theater der Welt festival, which takes place every three years, was brought forward to 2010, as the Ruhr area was named one of the European Capitals of Culture that year . Leysen presented a consistently post-colonial and imperialism-critical program, the focus of which was the opera Montezuma based on a libretto by Frederick the Great and the setting by Carl Heinrich Graun . It was staged by the Mexican director Claudio Valdés Kuri . Other important items on the program came from the Argentine Beatriz Catani , the American John Cale , the Italian Romeo Castellucci , the South African William Kentridge and the Hungarian Kornél Mundruczó . Leysen described her program in Essen and Mülheim an der Ruhr as “overwhelming”, even as “electric shock” , “and critics have attested to her that it was not a gimmicky PR language.”

At the Foreign Affairs 2012 festival organized by Leysen in Berlin, the Japanese Kyohei Sakaguchi built a house out of bulky waste , and the pianist Marino Formenti played in it for three weeks, daily from eleven to eleven. Other central figures at this festival were Federico León , Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Boris Charmatz .

“I advocate tolerance and diversity. If we become so dogmatic in the theater that there can only be one form that is true theater, then we really have a problem. "

- Frie Leysen :

As early as March 2014 - two months before the start of their first Wiener Festwochen - it became known that Leysen's theater management, originally scheduled for three years, would end after the first season. It was "agreed on by mutual agreement", reasons for the separation were not given. Her program was very well received by the audience and critics, especially the South African Macbeth version of Brett Bailey with the No Borders Orchestra , the Kraftwerk 3D concert series in the Burgtheater and the Chekhov revue Tararabumbia by Russian director Dmitry Krymov in the MuseumsQuartier . She has a different idea of ​​a festival, and art is not diplomacy, you shouldn't make any compromises , she said after the 2014 Festival, she was not in agreement with artistic, political and social, locally, nationally and worldwide with artistic director Markus Hinterhäuser become.

Style, focus

Leysen advocates internationality and interdisciplinarity and focuses on artists beyond Western culture: "For too long we Europeans have lived according to the pattern that we simply ignore cultures that we do not understand." Also post-colonialism , contemporaneity , heterogeneity and Deconstruction are important keywords in her selection of artists and troops.

“A festival has to think about how it relates to the cultural offerings of a city, to the socio-political problems of a country. It can complement what is already there or act in a complementary manner, point out gaps and try to close them selectively. "

- Frie Leysen :

Leysen also became known for her home visits, inspired by the Tupperware parties: "You invite your friends, offer them a glass of wine, then I'll come over and tell you about the festival and the background." also in Berlin and Vienna to the potential audience.

Recognition and criticism

Dramaturg Matthias Lilienthal 2010 about Leysen: “She starts working where others stop. She doesn't just watch the theater, she meets the directors. The conversation, the personal impression counts. ”Theater maker Tim Etchells :“ She has a very personal taste and a vision of what theater and performance can be. And she trusts this vision, which is very rare today. "

The Latvian theater maker Alvis Hermanis criticized Leysen immediately after her appointment to the Wiener Festwochen : “This obsession for multicultural theater from exotic countries with post-immigrant pathos reminds me of the Soviet era in communist countries, where politicians only supported proletarian ideology, art and Professionalism were sacrificed. ”In August 2012, in the run-up to the Berlin Festival Foreign Affairs, Die Welt wrote of a“ torture chamber for the theater inquisition ”and the“ surge of postcolonial arrogance ”.

Directorships

Awards

Web links

proof

  1. ↑ a b c Esther Boldt: She really believes in art , taz , January 7, 2010.
  2. ↑ Munzinger's archive , keyword Frie Leysen, accessed on June 11, 2014
  3. ↑ a b Daniel Mufson: Searching for the Next Generation: Frie Leysen & the Arts Festival , interview with Frie Leysen (s), accessed on May 31, 2014.
  4. ↑ orf.at: Slagmuylder's new head of the festival . Article dated June 25, 2018, accessed June 27, 2018.
  5. ↑ Claus Spahn: Edel, Prussisch, wild , Die Zeit , July 12, 2010
  6. ^ Die Presse : Wiener Festwochen: Frie Leysen becomes new director , August 16, 2012
  7. ↑ a b c Patrick Wildermann: "We need fresh blood" , interview with theater festival director Frie Leysen, Der Tagesspiegel , September 26, 2012
  8. ↑ Wolfgang Kralicek: Frie ist so frei , in: Süddeutsche Zeitung , June 18, 2014, p. 11
  9. ↑ a b Petra Paterno: "I love misunderstandings" , interview with Frie Leysen, May 1, 2014
  10. ↑ Der Standard : Hermanis criticizes Leysen's order , August 19, 2012
  11. ^ Matthias Heine: In the theater torture chambers of the Frie Leysen , Die Welt, August 28, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Leysen, Frie
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Belgian curator and director of theater festivals
DATE OF BIRTH February 19, 1950
PLACE OF BIRTH Hasselt (Belgium)