For more than twenty years now, Impulse has been showing the most important independent theater productions in the German-speaking world, constantly redefining itself – much like the scene itself – in the process. For “independent” not only means that the works shown are produced outside the state theater system, but above all, that they develop aesthetic alternatives and continually seek out new approaches and challenges. Artists such as Rimini Protokoll or René Pollesch were introduced to a wider audience for the first time at Impulse.

Over the last few years, the independent theater scene has become part of a very international network and an extensive discourse within art. Impulse – as perhaps the most significant platform and at the same time the most powerful lobbyist for this scene in the German-speaking world – challenges the independent performative arts to use their principle freedom, the freedom of the theater as a medium to extend, to test, to strain, and to overstrain. The freedom of starting over from scratch over and over again. The freedom to invent structures, hierarchies, type castings, sequences, and collaborations in the way appropriate to each artistic undertaking – and not the other way around.

For the independent scene provides the impulse for what a theater might look like that is not caught in particular spaces of thinking and staging. It provides the impulse, not simply to accept the boundaries to other genres in the way that the logics of grant applications, markets, and marketing would have it. It provides the impulse to reclaim the theatrical in art, music, literature, film, and theory as theater. It provides the impulse to think differently about theater as art. For it is not the task of the independent scene simply to be the low-cost repertoire of the new blood. It is not any ‘special path,’ as the German-speaking theater and funding structures would suggest. Rather, it is a clear alternative. In its art as in its working structures.

Starting in 2013, the bi-annual festival will be curated by Florian Malzacher (artistic director) and Stefanie Wenner (dramaturgy). An advisory board consisting of people from academia and arts supports the thematic development. Alongside the program of selected visiting productions, an open call will broaden the horizons beyond the beaten path for entirely new concepts, as well as for already existing productions. The festival will also be accompanied by theoretical and socio-political engagement as well as by an online collection of material that will take up the specific questions of the independent theater scene and open them up to further discussion.

Impulse Theater Biennial 2013 is organized by NRW KULTURsekretariat in connection with the cities of Bochum, Düsseldorf, Cologne, and Mülheim an der Ruhr. Additional support comes from the Kunststiftung NRW [Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia], the Sparkasse KölnBonn, the Kulturministerium NRW, the Academy of the Arts of the World and the Goethe-Institut.

Impulse Theater Biennial 2013 shows outstanding works from the German-speaking independent theater scene. Or more precisely: the independent theater scene in the German-speaking world. But what does it mean if we take this task seriously? What are the reasons for this delimitation, what are the consequences? Do the cultural, social, or even just the financial conditions in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria really produce a different kind of art than, for instance, in France or Spain? And further: Who is German? Those who speak German? Those who live in Germany? Those who make their theater in Germany?

What belongs, where the borders lie, where the country starts and where it ends; for two centuries this has been considered “The German Question.” And what began with particularism, then burst into delusions of grandeur and coalesced once again in a different form has now merged into another question: the European one. And once again it is a matter of where the borders lie, where the area begins and where it ends. Of how to keep it cohesive. And of what remains of Germany. What should remain. And what not.

In 2013 Impulse takes off from these reflections in order to reassess our own conditions. The question of cultural identity, geopolitical inclusions and exclusions, the role of language and the social, but also financial, contexts is mostly a larger question: What is the local value of national identities – what value should they have in a Europe, in a world given over to rapid, seemingly uncontrollable developments? And: how are these identities formed, what use do they serve? What utopia and what answers can we ourselves develop? Actively and not just because we are pushed to do so?

German law is still based on biological origin above all; the parents’ passport is what primarily decides the citizenship of the child. Other models, for example in the USA, foreground the place of birth. In both cases, however, it is still clear that the word nation comes from the latin natio and is determined by birth. While post-national thinking was still in vogue a few years ago, the concept of nation – essentially an invention of the 18th and 19th centuries – has come back in full force.

Culture and language often find their boundaries at the official borders, and cultural politics is still also geopolitics, be it through cultural institutes affiliated with foreign ministries, be it through financial support structures, but also through national theaters and museums. For many, it seems that one’s own cultural identity is threatened by the cultural identity of others. Books such as Thilo Sarrazin’s ”Germany Is Abolishing Itself” – at nearly 1.5 million copies the best-selling non-fiction book since the end of the Second World War – testify to the fear that minorities might be able to define us. The possible demise of one’s own culture becomes a politically useful scenario of threat.

Nonetheless, there are ways of passing things down in a culture that go well beyond the relatively short history of national states. These show regional continuities at the level of language, which have identity-forming effects over generations. While on the one hand cultural identity is formed by emigration and immigration, by the most various influences, in examinations of the phylogenetics of language it has been shown that beneath the level of word modification, languages remain related to one another over extremely long periods of time, even though it may not be possible to hear the relation in them any more.

Alongside this runs the current claim of poets and thinkers: Some things can only be said in German, or in English, Turkish, Russian, or even in the dialect of a dead language. Do cultures have particular grammars, does cultural expression have its own meter, carved out of a particular cultural space – a structure that could also be detected in non-language-based artworks, in choreography, photos, paintings, installations, compositions? Do we take the side of threatened languages – or do we dream of a new Esperanto, even if it is only the limited international English that is being used in more and more theatrical works as a rudimentary lingua franca?


When Johann Gottlieb Ficchte held his ”Addresses to the German Nation” at the beginning of the 19th century, it was a challenge to the French occupation. Today the dependencies are more difficult to see through and real political change seems to be forestalled by a pan-European or even global clientelism. Perhaps what we need is not so much a narration of history as an archeology of clientelism in Germany. A meticulous laying bare of the layers of the obligations that stand in the way of a democratic solution, also to the financial problems of our time. In the end, everyone is under influence, or at least under suspicion.

Using the example of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, Impulse Theater Biennial 2013 will concretely discuss the influences that come from all sides, marking what will later be perceived as an authentic sense of Heimat. Bonds and obligations, narratives and nations, diaspora and land grabs – what do these concepts mean today? What influences contribute to the typical German (Austrian, Swiss) feeling, or more generally to the feeling of a cultural identity, belongingness, rootedness? Impulse Theater Biennial 2013 is posing the German question once again – and thus the question of one’s own territorial logic of selection. And the festival, which itself is influenced, will show theater, dance, art, and theory under the influence. Over ten days, in four cities, in various languages and aesthetics.

Florian Malzacher – Artistic Director
Dr. Stefanie Wenner – Curator / Dramaturg
Katrin Dod – Press and Public Relations
Dominik Müller – Artistic Assistant
Anne Schulz – Production Management
Ulrike Seybold – Production Assistant
Willi Brune – Technical Direction
Christian Seibel – Trainee Press and Public Relations
Dana Divis – Trainee Production

NRW KULTURsekretariat
Dr. Christian Esch – Direction
Dirk Fortmann – Head of Administration
Martin Maruschka – Press and Public Relations

BIOS

Florian Malzacher

Artistic Director

Florian Malzacher was co-curator of the interdisciplinary arts festival steirischer herbst in Graz/Austria from 2006 to 2012, and since 2009 has been an independent dramaturge and curator at the Burgtheater in Vienna. After his studies in Applied Theater Studies in Gießen, he worked mostly as a theater critic and cultural journalist for German-language daily newspapers and journals, as well as for international magazines. As a dramaturge, he has worked with Rimini Protokoll, Lola Arias, Mariano Pensotti (Buenos Aires) and the Nature Theater of Oklahoma (New York). He has taught at the universities of Vienna and Frankfurt and is on the advisory board of DasArts – Master of Theatre, Amsterdam (since 2009), and serves as advisor to the Schiller-Days in Mannheim (since 2010). He is the co-editor and author of books on the theater groups Forced Entertainment and Rimini Protokoll, as well as on the curating of performative arts.

Stefanie Wenner

Curator / Dramaturg

Stefanie Wenner, Dr. phil., studied philosophy, sociology, literary studies, and art history in Bologna, Cologne, and Berlin, and completed her doctorate in the department of philosophy at the FU Berlin. Alongside her work as lecturer at various universities and academies (FU Berlin, HMT Leipzig, and others), she works primarily as a curator of exhibitions, thematic weekends, and festivals in the area of the visual and performative arts. Starting in 2003 she worked at HAU (Hebbel am Ufer) in Berlin, first independently and then, from 2008 to 2012, as the head curator of theater. At HAU, she curated many festivals, including “Kunst und Verbrechen: Art without Crime,” “Your Nanny hates you! A Festival on the Topic of Family,” “CELLS,” and “Lunapark Berlin.”

For the first time Impulse has named an advisory board consisting of experts as well as from different academic fields as from arts. Çiçek Bacik, political scientist and spokesperson for the board of the Turkish Association in Berlin Brandenburg, Ellen Blumenstein, designated head curator at KW – Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin, ethnologist Thomas Hauschild, professor for theater studies Hans-Thies Lehmann, professor of general and comparative literary studies Winfried Menninghaus and Dutch director Lotte van den Berg support the thematic development of Impulse. Unlike in past editions of Impulse, there will not be a programming jury.

BIOS

Çiçek Bacik

immigrated to Berlin from Turkey in 1980 and studied modern German literature and French philology at the Free University in Berlin and at the Sorbonne III. After her studies, she has worked in the area of migration research at the Berlin Institute for Comparative Social Research and at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt/Oder. 2012 she received a doctorate from the political science department at Phillips University in Marburg with a thesis on “Turkish Television Channels in Germany between State, Market, and Mess”. She was a project assistant at the 7th Berlin Biennial and is currently working as project manager in the competence centre for education of the Foundation Mercator.

Ellen Blumenstein

is head curator of KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin. She was a member of the curators collective THE OFFICE and founder of the Salon Populaire. Along with Klaus Biesenbach and Felix Ensslin, she produced the exhibition project “Regarding Terror: The RAF Exhibition” (2005). This was followed by the exhibitions “Between Two Deaths” (2007) at the ZKM Karlsruhe (with Felix Ensslin) as well as the Summer Academy “Agulhas Negras – On the Necessity to Discuss Social Functions of Contemporary Art” in São Paulo / Campos do Jordão, Brasil (2008). In 2011 she curated the Icelandic Pavilion at the 54th Biennial in Venice, as well as the Graduate Show at the Piet Zwart Institute in Rotterdam. For documenta 13 in Kassel she cooperated with Dora García on her Talk Show “Klau Mich!” [“Steal Me!”] (2012).

Thomas Hauschild

is professor of ethnology at the University Halle-Wittenberg. He is a fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg of RUB Bochum and esearches there on religious dynamics. His research areas include: religious and aesthetic practice as cultural “reserve” in the Euro-Mediterranean region (especially southern Italy); theater-anthropology (for instance, in collaboration with Christoph Marthaler, Christoph Schlingensief, and Doris Dörrie). Hauschild is co-editor of the “Zeitschrift für Kulturwissenschaften” and of “Historische Anthropologie.” His publications include: “Inspecting Germany” (with Bernd Juergen Warneken, Berlin: LIT 2002); “Ritual und Gewalt” (Frankfurt an Main: Suhrkamp 2008). With his latest publication being „Weihnachtsmann. Die wahre Geschichte,” on Verlag S. Fischer. Hausschild is a full member of Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften.

Hans-Thies Lehmann

was professor for theater studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt am Main from 1988 until his retirement in 2010. His publications include “Bertolt Brechts ‘Hauspostille’ – Text und kollektives Lesen” (with Helmut Lethen, 1978); “Theater und Mythos. Die Konstitution des Subjekts im Diskurs der antiken Tragödie” (1991); “Postdramatisches Theater” (1999); “Heiner Müller Handbuch” (co-edited with Patrick Primavesi, 2003). After completing his doctorate, he was guest professor at the University of Amsterdam and assistant professor at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Gießen. As a university professor in theater studies at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, he played an important role in building up the program for theater, film, and media studies, as well as in founding the program for dramaturgy at the Hessian Theater Academy. Hans-Thies Lehmann lives in Berlin.

Winfried Menninghaus

is founding director of the Max-Planck institute for empiric esthetics in Frankfurt/Main. He served as professor of general and comparative literary studies at the FU Berlin, held guest professorships at the universities of Jerusalem, Berkeley, Yale, Princeton, Rice, and the EHESS Paris. At the beginning of the 1980s, he worked as an editor at Suhrkamp Verlag. Since 2002, Menninghaus is a full member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. The focal points of his work are ancient rhetoric and poetics; European literature since 1750; philosophical, evolutionary, and empirical-psychological aesthetics. Recent publications include the monographs “Hälfte des Lebens. Versuch über Hölderlins Poetik” (2005); “Kunst als ‘Beförderung des Lebens’. Perspektiven transzendentaler und evolutionärer Ästhetik” (2008) and “Wozu Kunst? Ästhetik nach Darwin” (2011).

Lotte van den Berg

is a Dutch director who has become one of the most important protagonists of her generation, making theatre that is radically entrenched in its social setting. Her productions include “Het Blauwe uur”, “Gerucht”, “Braakland” and “Les Specateurs”. Many of them are about looking, about real-life experiences and, often, about the difficulty of understanding. She gave up her position as a director at Toneelhuis Antwerp in Belgium to start OMSK, her own company in the small city of Dordrecht in the Netherlands, where she began by involving her immediate surroundings and at the same time, working for several months in Kinshasa, Congo. Now, Lotte is about to reinvent herself again in Utrecht as one of the resident artists at Huis aan de Werf. Her most recent work “Pleinvrees” will be created in the open: “‘Pleinvrees’ [agrophobia] will be performed on a big square in the centre of town. There’s no set, no lighting design, no amplified sound and no seating. Pleinvrees is a happening, a remarkable encounter between people.” lottevandenberg.nu

Application deadline was October 15th 2012.

What does it mean to live in Germany, in the German-speaking world? What are the cultural and social contexts, what conditions of production are formed by artistic works and personal identities? What lies between the poles of regional bonds and global networking? What is alien, and what is familiar? What consequences do the grammars of our native languages have on the way we think? What kinds of political representation and consequences are there, and what others might be possible? What utopian proposals lie beyond blood ties and territorial affiliations? What shores are we off to?

The Impulse Theater Biennial 2013 shows outstanding works from the German-speaking independent theater scene – looking into the sense and nonsense of such regional self-limitation. To do this, we are inviting theater-makers and other artists from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland to submit projects on this thematic focus, which can then be shown in the framework of the festival from June 27 – July 6, 2013: an evening in the theater, a choreography, a performance, a performative installation, a social sculpture, a site-specific intervention…

Assessment and discussion of the proposals submitted will be carried out with the support of the interdisciplinary advisory board of Impulse. We look forward to receiving surprising, provocative, decisive proposals.

GUIDELINES

Proposals submitted can be finished productions (as visiting productions), smaller new productions (as premieres), and possible co-productions with partners (not necessarily as premieres).

Please present your project on a maximum of three Din A4 pages in German or English. Include one page with a proposed budget and contact information as well as a CV and samples of previous work if applicable.

Please do not send originals or otherwise valuable documents – materials sent will not be returned. Proposals must be sent digitally by email, when indicated additional material can be send by post.