Theater family Bille
The Bille family is a German puppet dynasty. The roots of their theater go back to the 1790s (the year 1638 rumored by some family members is based on an incorrect reference to the source). The founders of the theater tradition were Johann Bernhard Bille (1748–1822) and Johann Georg Bille (died after 1812), the sons of a military doctor in a hussar regiment. Both settled first in Böhlen near Grimma / Saxony , later in villages ( e.g. Saathain ) near Elsterwerda (then Saxony, after 1815 Prussia). In addition to their puppet stages, both also ran some farming. In the 19th century, the family's numerous puppet stages traveled through central Germany. By marriage, the Billes were related to and related by marriage to all other puppeteer families in the region. Otto Bille (deceased 2012), who fled the GDR in the late 1950s, played in the seventh to eighth generation, as did Fred and Andreas Bille. Otto Bille ran a permanent marionette stage in Munich. His son Karl-Heinz Bille and his colleague Albert Maly-Motta run the Bad Tölz Marionette Theater and son Florian and his wife Wlada run the Unterschleißheim Marionette Theater near Munich. The puppets of the Bille family can be seen in various museums, including the Dresden State Art Collection ( Puppentheater Museum Dresden ) and the Lübeck Theater Figure Museum .
literature
- Kurt Bille: Chronicle of the marionette players from Saxony with a historical overview. Bille, Hameln 1994.