Impulse Theater Festival 2015
June 11–20
Ringlokschuppen Ruhr
Mülheim an der Ruhr
Germany
FFT Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
studiobühneköln
Cologne
T +49 (0) 202 698 27 206
info [at] festivalimpulse.de
With andcompany&Co., Armen Avanessian, Boris Buden, Phil Collins with Daniela Kinateder & students from KHM Cologne and Riwaq Biennale Ramallah, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, Gob Squad, Herbordt/Mohren, Chris Kondek & Christiane Kühl, Maiden Monsters, Oliver Marchart, Markus&Markus, Chantal Mouffe, Rabih Mroué, Ahmet Öğüt, Milo Rau, Gerald Raunig, Damian Rebgetz, Jonas Staal, The Silent University, Lotte van den Berg, Hendrik Quast & Maika Knoblich, raumlaborberlin, Vassilis Tsianos, Tirdad Zolghadr et al.
Artistic direction: Florian Malzacher
How are we represented? Who do we represent, by what right, and how? These questions aim at the core of every society as well as of theater: Who and what can and should be presented on stage, who talks about whom, instead of, for whom, and with whom? Impulse Theater Festival explores, how society performs itself, for whom it performs, and: Who is allowed to be part of the game. How can theater be a political, public space today?
In Mülheim/Ruhr, the Silent University Ruhr—originally initiated by the Kurdish artist Ahmet Öğüt in London—will be permanently established: an autonomous platform for exchange of knowledge for and by refugees, asylum seekers and migrants. With Building Conversation the Dutch director Lotte van den Berg implements theater as what remains when you strip it of everything unnecessary: a conversation with defined rules. The spaces of conversation created by British artist and filmmaker Phil Collins with Daniela Kinateder & students from KHM Cologne and the 5th Riwaq Bienale Ramallah are mobile: Two buses connect the venues in Cologne, Düsseldorf and Mülheim/Ruhr.
In Western Society the live-art masters of Gob Squad paint a glittery but nostalgic self-portrait: of a society that can’t exist anymore. Milo Rau in The Civil Wars focuses on western community as well: His actors no longer look for explanations why young European adults enter jihad by representing those others, but in their own biographies. Gintersdorfer/Klaßen in contrast have opened their stage to other forms of representation years ago: Chefferie is not only an old African principle of assembly of many equal chiefs, but also the vision of their artistic practice. andcompany&Co. in Sounds like war: Kriegserklärung too speak with many voices, when they—using beats, utopias and memory scraps—ask how to end wars that have never been declared. The young theater makers Markus&Markus evoke several dilemmas at the same time. Ibsen: Ghosts is a theatrical monument for a deceased person and the confrontation with their real suicide. When Rabih Mroué in Riding on a Cloud invites his brother to perform, it is as personal as it is political: After being severely wounded in the Lebanese civil war, Yasser lost the ability to recognize reality in words and on pictures: to him representation literally does not mean anything anymore.
Herbordt/Mohren’s The Performance is the performance of an institution: a representation and the thing itself at the same time. In Anonymous P. by Chris Kondek & Christiane Kühl, the freedom of choice has long been taken from us: Our data is sold by secret services and commercial companies. When we all gather around a German oak that will be restored carefully during the last long night of the festival together with Hendrik Quast & Maika Knoblich in Der Ur-Forst, one thing becomes clear: The utopia of a self-determined identity is fragile.
Impulse 2015 explores theater as agonistic space, in which social and political differences can be openly negotiated. Together with political theorist Chantal Mouffe—who personally accompanies this year’s edition of Impulse—its theoretical basis will be discussed during a conference, in lectures, and inputs by Armen Avanessian, Boris Buden, Oliver Marchart, Gerald Raunig, Jonas Staal, Vassilis Tsianos, Margarita Tsomou, Tirdad Zolghadr et al.
The Impulse Theater Festival 2015 is a project of the NRW KULTURsekretariat, in association with Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, FFT Düsseldorf and studiobühneköln. The festival is sponsored by the North Rhine-Westphalia Ministry for Families, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
