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The Performing Arts in the Federal Republic of Germany

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The Performing Arts in the Federal Republic of Germany IETM MAPPING www.ietm.org THE PERFORMING ARTS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY By Esther Slevogt Dido & Aeneas by Sasha Waltz © Sasha Waltz & Guests/Sebastian Bolesch IETM - International network for contemporary performing arts October 2018 ISBN: 978-2-93087-38-7 IETM is supported by: The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsi ble for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. IETM MAPPING www.ietm.org The Performing Arts in the Federal Republic of Germany IETM Mapping by Esther Slevogt Esther Slevogt is an author and theatre critic living in Berlin. She is the editor and managing director of the theatre portal nachtkritik.de, which she co-founded in 2007, and architect of the Berlin conference Theater und Netz. Published by IETM - International network for contemporary performing arts, Brussels October 2018 Editing and general coordination: Nan van Houte (IETM) Graphic layout: Milton Pereira on a template by JosWorld This publication is distributed free of charge and follows the Creative Commons agreement Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives (CC BY-NC-ND). You are free to reuse and share this publication or parts of it as long as you mention the original source. This publication should be mentioned as follows: E. Slevogt, ‘The performing arts in the Federal Republic of Germany’, IETM, October 2018. Link: https://www.ietm.org/en/publications For further information please contact [email protected] The publishers have made every effort to secure permission to reproduce pictures protected by copyright. Any omission brought to their attention will be solved in future editions of this publications. THE PERFORMING ARTS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY IETM MAPPING www.ietm.org Contents 03 1. INTRODUCTION 03 2. STRUCTURE 04 3. SUPPORT 05 4. HISTORICAL FOUNDATIONS 06 5. AFTER 1945 06 6. IN THE WEST 07 7. IN THE EAST 08 8. WOMEN IN THE THEATRE 09 9. EXCURSUS ON DANCE 10 10. EDUCATION 11 11. THE BERLIN VOLKSBÜHNE CONTROVERSY 13 12. CITY THEATRE VERSUS PRODUCTION HOUSE 15 13. RIGHT-WING POPULIST CLIMATE CHANGE 16 14. THEATRE AND DIGITALISATION 2 THE PERFORMING ARTS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY IETM MAPPING www.ietm.org 01. INTRODUCTION The Federal Republic of Germany has the largest and densest network of institutional and independent theatres in the world. This range includes city, state and national theatres run by states and municipalities and commercially-run musical and entertainment stages, as well as a high density of independent theatres, dance companies and performance groups, which generally finance their work with funds from various state funding programs. The city and state theatres are the ideational Theater Freiburg (photo: © Marcel Korbel) and structural backbone of the German theatrical landscape, and their budgets are fixed items in the budgets of their respective cities or municipalities. These theatres are characterized by standing buildings, 02. permanent ensembles, and the permanent STRUCTURE presentation of artistic works, as well as by their employees who produce stage This city and state theatre system also these distribution circles. In addition, there sets and costumes for the productions. includes the well-known venues and are firmly established festivals in individual The repertoire of the respective theatre production houses of the independent venues, such as the International Summer exclusively contains these in house theatres (Freie Theater) which are Festival at Kampnagel in Hamburg or produced works. A special role is played by operated with public funds. These the international festival Tanz im August the state theatres, whose cultural-political programming institutions manage without in Berlin, which presents international mission also includes to perform in the standing ensembles but have permanent productions at the intersection of dance surrounding regions that do not have their technicians and an administration. and performance. In addition, the various own public theatre. As a rule, therefore, Independent groups and artists who want production houses organize smaller fewer than half of the performances take to work here must raise their project funds theme-oriented festivals again and again. place at the actual location of the respective themselves. Normally, however, they are This serves above all to bundle various state stage. The operation of theatres in the supported in this by the production houses. independent productions in order to give ensemble and repertoire system within Works produced in these houses also tour them more attention as a package, as well the dense network in this country is an through other houses of the network, as to enrich them with discursive and pop- internationally unique selling point for the which is not restricted to Germany but cultural events and to contextualize them German-speaking theatre landscape. also associated with – in between others once again in a differentiated way. – Gessnerallee in Zürich. In addition, there are a number of institutionalized festivals in the independent scene, such as the Dortmund festival Favoriten, the Berlin Performing Arts Festival, the dance and theatre festival Rodeo in Munich or the festival Hauptsache Frei in Hamburg. These festivals are important structural pillars in the overall structure of the independent scene and ensure high visibility of productions, as long as they have reached 3 THE PERFORMING ARTS IN THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY IETM PUBLICATION www.ietm.org The most important production German and international context of the houses of the independent scene: performing arts, including production • https://www.hebbel-am-ufer.de manager, creative producer, company 03. • http://www.kampnagel.de manager, producer and others. There are • https://www.pact-zollverein.de many designations for a job description SUPPORT • http://fft-duesseldorf.de that has become increasingly important for • http://www.mousonturm.de the independent scene in recent years, but Project funding can be applied for at the • https://www.hellerau.org for which there has been no training so far. Cultural Foundation of the Federation • https://tanzhaus-nrw.de (Kulturstiftung des Bundes, KSB). Above • https://www.sophiensaele.com The umbrella organisation of the individual all, the KSB supports major projects with • http://theatrerampe.de independent groups and artists working innovation potential that also have an • https://www.gessnerallee.ch in Germany is the Federal Association international impact or are co-produced of Independent Performing Artists internationally. State cultural institutions Independent scene festivals (Bundesverband Freie Darstellende such as museums or theatres also apply • https://www.performingarts- Künste, BDFK), founded in 1990, which is here with special projects that they cannot festival.de one of the largest theatre associations in finance from their regular budgets. • http://www.hauptsachefrei.de the country: whether theatre and dance • http://rodeomuenchen.de houses, collectives or individual actors, the For the performing arts, the KSB has • http://www.favoriten-festival.de BDFK represents the interests of around launched the “Double Pass” (Doppelpass) • https://www.made-festival.de 20,000 theatre and dance professionals in programme (until 2021), which promotes • http://www.kampnagel.de/ the country at the federal level, organised cooperation projects and partnerships internationales-sommerfestival in a total of 16 regional associations and between institutional and independent • https://www.tanzimaugust.de three other associated organisations. An theatres. The aim of the fund is to example of these is the Berlin Federal State encourage the independent scene and Seven international co-producing houses Association of Independent Performing theatre institutions in Germany to try out in Germany have been united in an alliance Artists.(Berliner Landesverband Freie new, tour-ready forms of cooperation and since 2015. This association, which in the Darstellende Künste, LAFT), which was artistic production. last three years has received €12 million founded in 2008 to support Berlin’s in funding from the Ministry for Culture independent performing artists with According to the last published report, and Media, consists of the Künstlerhaus increased networking, training and lobbying the KSB distributed a total of around Mousonturm (Frankfurt am Main), the through representation, generating public €18 million in project funds in 2015, with Forum Freies Theater (Düsseldorf), Hebbel interest and offering services. The LAFT projects in the performing arts accounting am Ufer (HAU, Berlin), the European advocates, among other things, for lower for almost 24 percent. (Source: KSB Annual Centre of the Arts Hellerau (Dresden), limits on fixed payment in the assessment Report 2015) Kampnagel (Hamburg), PACT Zollverein of project funding. (Essen) and Tanzhaus NRW (Düsseldorf). The alliance thus unites the most important and largest production centres of the independent dance, theatre, and performance scene in Germany. The aim of this association is a more sustainable and substantial cooperation across states by independent artists and their productions, joint publications, and further development. In 2018, for example, the alliance of international production houses offered further training for producers for the first time.
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