Theater total
Theater Total is an off-theater project in Bochum. It maintains its own venue, the former St. Albertus Magnus Church. The performers are young lay people between the ages of 18 and 28 who work together under professional guidance for a period of eleven months. There is no permanent ensemble.
concept
From an annual number of applicants of 100 to 150 young people, 30 young people between the ages of 18 and 25 are selected for the project in a workshop. Selection criteria are artistic and performance talent, openness and group behavior. For eleven months, a performance will be developed and a freely chosen classic will be staged together with dancers and choreographers from the dance theater Pina Bausch and teachers from the Folkwang University in the Ruhr area of Essen. The developed performance is performed sixteen times, the developed theater piece forty to fifty times on a total of around thirty theater stages of all kinds. The participants market this production themselves and organize a tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland. The class works together in all areas of a professional theater production, from staging to stage technology and sales to the implementation of the performances. In addition, the participants receive daily lessons in acting, dance and bodywork. In addition, individual workshops and seminars in painting, singing, fundraising, stage technology and nutrition are held.
The initiator Barbara Wollrath-Kramer named the aim of the project to educate people through art to become self-reliant and responsible personalities. The project can be understood as a future workshop in the sense of Robert Jungk . It is an attempt to look for new forms of education in the field of art and to implement the idea of “youth learns from youth”. That is why the participants on the tour give workshops in schools to pass on what they have learned and at the same time gain practical experience in leading groups.
history
TheaterTotal was initiated in 1995 as a model test by the actress and director Barbara Wollrath-Kramer. In her acting courses she had previously been confronted with young people with no prospects and resigned themselves, and so she designed a concept that should help young people to recognize fears about the future and to take initiative. The concept was implemented in the form of a training facility that prepares for professional, social and private life and was the first TheaterTotal project.
The company has been based at am Eickhoff 7 (previously: Hunscheidtstrasse 154) in the Bochum district of Wiemelhausen in the former administration rooms of Gebr . Later performances took place in rented tents and in the theater of a school until the city of Bochum made the former city archive available to the project. In the meantime, TheaterTotal has won the former St. Albertus Magnus Church as a permanent venue.
Productions
TheaterTotal mainly works on productions of classics from European drama literature. The following fabrics have been staged in the individual years since 1996:
- 96/97 vongralswegen - In-house production according to Tankred Dorst / performance "to break out wherever he wants"
- 97/98 Faust. A tragedy - images from the first and second part, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe / performance "It is time for the stone to be comfortable"
- 98/99 A Midsummer Night's Dream , William Shakespeare | Performance "life"
- 99/00 The Master and Margarita , Michail Afanassjewitsch Bulgakow | Performance "Pappe-la-papp"
- 00/01 exokarp - in-house production / collage based on Jean Tardieu | Performance "give, weave, animate"
- 01/02 Crime and Punishment , Fyodor Dostoyevsky | Performance "qué es amor"
- 02/03 The misanthrope , Jean Baptiste Molière | "Warmth" performance
- 03/04 The cherry orchard , Anton Chekhov | Performance "FORE"
- 04/05 Judgment Day , Ödön von Horváth | Performance "ATONNAL_rhythm in blue"
- 05/06 Peer Gynt , Henrik Ibsen | Performance "Wild Crossing"
- 06/07 A lot of noise in Chiozza , Carlo Goldoni | Performance "KiöR"
- 07/08 The Threepenny Opera , Bertolt Brecht | Performance "all the way"
- 08/09 Don Karlos , Friedrich Schiller | Performance "flapping sides"
- 09/10 The Dragon , Evgeny Lwowitsch Schwarz (in his own translation) | Performance "Paradise given away - on the rungs of the ladder into the promised land" at the invitation of the Ruhrtriennale
- 10/11 As you like it , William Shakespeare | Performance "The Conference of Birds"
- 11/12 Platonow, Anton Chekhov | Performance "In Search"
- 12/13 FAUSTeins, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe | Performance "Nocturne - jacket like pants"
- 13/14 Much Ado About Nothing , William Shakespeare | Performance "BlattrauSCH"
- 14/15 Evil Spirits , Fyodor Dostojewski | Performance "Animalie"
- 15/16 The Winter's Tale , William Shakespeare | Performance "Sturm und Strand"
- 16/17 Pericles - King of Tire , William Shakespeare | Performance "Above and beyond"
- 17/18 Romeo and Juliet , William Shakespeare | Performance "ICHSODUSO"
- 18/19 What you want , William Shakespeare | Performance "black on white"
- 19/20 A Midsummer Night's Dream , William Shakespeare | Performance "I must be alone"
The project deals with the industrial culture of the Ruhr area in the context of performances in former factory halls and industrial production facilities. TheaterTotal's venues included the coking plant at Zeche Zollverein , the German Mining Museum in Bochum , the Jahrhunderthalle , the Ewald colliery , and the Friedlicher Nachbar machine hall ( route of industrial culture ). Art in public spaces and in private galleries is at the center of numerous performances ( Museum Folkwang in Essen, Galerie M in Bochum)
Financing, partners, awards
The project is sponsored by the non-profit association Theater Macht Mut eV TheaterTotal is mainly financed by private foundations, donors and only to a small extent by public funds. Participants pay a one-time admission fee at the start of the project. The patron is the former Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, Wolfgang Clement .
TheaterTotal was invited in 1997 by Ariane Mnouchkine to meet the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris. The project won the Robert Jungk Prize in 1999 and has since been the sponsor of a special prize for cultural commitment. With the invitation to the 22nd, 23rd and 25th Theatertreffen der Jugend at the Berliner Festspiele , TheaterTotal received three awards. In 2009 TheaterTotal cooperated with the Ruhrtriennale for the first time and on September 20, 2009 in front of the Jahrhunderthalle Bochum performed the performance "Paradise given away - on the rungs of the ladder into the promised land".
Lecturers
The teachers at Theater Total are predominantly members of the ensemble of Pina Bausch's Wuppertal dance theater or lecturers from the Folkwang University in Essen's Ruhr area (Faculty of Performing Arts ). Meetings and workshops with outstanding personalities from art, culture, business, education and politics take place, including Johannes Stüttgen , Ariane Mnouchkine , Ottilie Scholz , Johannes Dinnebier ( Center for International Light Art ), Jakob Jenisch, Dr. Manfred Günther ( GLS community bank ), Swetlana Geier , Erdmann Linde, Albert Fink (GLS community bank), Paco Gonzáles ( family Flöz ), Rosani Reis , Klaus Figge, Jeff Beer , Paul Lux (actors) .
Acting and speech formation is mainly taught by Barbara Wollrath-Kramer.
Alumni and graduates
One third of the 450 former participants (as of 2014) work after studying at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts in Berlin , the Scuola Teatro Dimitri , the Max Reinhardt Seminar , in the German, European and international area in the field of theater and film. Some of the graduates are Eve Kolb ( Nationaltheater Weimar ), Cathérine Seifert ( Thalia Theater (Hamburg) , Max Reinhardt Prize winner ), David Bösch ( Schauspielhaus Bochum ), Laurens Walter ( Blue Man Group Stuttgart), Lina Beckmann ( Der Tatortreiniger , Schauspiel Hamburg , Max Reinhardt Prize Winner), Alexander Königsmann, ( Oli's Wilde Welt ), Georg Jungermann (Berlin, Max Reinhardt Prize Winner), Sina-Maria Gerhardt , Joel Harmsen ( Münchner Kammerspiele ), Eva Meckbach (Schaubühne Berlin), Anna Keil (Leipzig Theater).
Media coverage
The annual tour through Germany, Austria and Switzerland made TheaterTotal known nationwide. Since 2008 the national press, radio and television have reported on the project several times, including on ARD, Deutschlandradio Kultur, WDR and the opera network.