Theory
Talks, Discussions & Workshops
In talks, discussions and workshops, artists, theorists, activists that have widely been connected to the festival in different ways for some time meet the interested audience.
All theory events will take place at the festival center in studiobühneköln and are free admission.
Reclaim the Words
A working meeting
Language is also a tool in the political struggle. It is currently easy to observe how effective repurposing concepts can be: left and right are spinning in confusion and one wonders how language can be defended.
Literature, theater and visual arts are confronted with a particular problem here – after all other truths were always their domain. But what can be done when alternative facts influence political reality?
Reclaim the Words’ brings together artists, theoreticians, activists and journalists who will tackle this question incisively – to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the birth of Heinrich Böll, who decided to “look for a language we can live in in a country we can live in” after years of National Socialist rhetoric.
Language GER
Please register up-front
reclaim@festivalimpulse.de
Sunday, 25 June, noon-5 PM
With Jörg Albrecht & Gerhild Steinbuch (Nazis & Goldmund), Arne Vogelgesang (internier), Alexander Karschnia (andcompany&co), Christine Gaigg (2ndnature), Ulf Aminde u. a.
A production of Impulse Theater Festival and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung within the framework of the programm „100 Jahre Heinrich Böll – Die öffentliche Rolle der Kunst”.
Exchange for Change
Discussion and workshop
Experiences are now chiefly exchanged digitally and often at high speed. In such a context the desire grows for intensive, continuous and above all direct contact. But when it comes to live experiences the performative arts have the best expertise. ‘Exchange for Change’ is an invitation to exchange about exchange. It introduces familiar and less familiar communications formats from speed dating to pecha kucha alongside specific concepts for an intensified exchange between artists in North Rhine-Westphalia. The public workshop that follows will serve as a reality check and test our spontaneous capacities to recognize the creativity of others without envy.
Language GER
Monday, 26 June, 6:30-9:30 PM
Subsequent, open end at the bar
Kick-off to a series by NRW Landesbüro Freie Darstellende Künste und Teil von „On the Road – Eine Akademie des Bundesverbands Freie Darstellende Künste“. With support of the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
Showing the Invisible
Conversation
The flood of images has increased rapidly in the last 20 years. Frequently they determine what becomes news and what doesn’t, what is seen as true and what is seen as false. The photographer Christoph Bangert uses a camera to document war and crisis zones – thereby taking part in decisions about what we get to see and what we don’t. A conversation about what can be shown, what should be shown – and what can only be seen indirectly.
Language GER
Tuesday, 27 June, 5:30 PM
With Christoph Bangert
Moderation Hannah Neumann
A conjoint performance of Impulse Theater Festival and the theme week of the Institute for Medienkultur und Theater.
New Spaces for a New Theater
WDR 3 Forum
Theater is proud of only existing in the here and now, of being ephemeral, fleeting. But can constant change be combined with the need for continuity, and in one place? Together with the WDR 3 Forum Impulse invites you to a discussion about flexible spaces, stable structures and utopias for a transient.
Language GER
Tuesday, 27 June, 7:30 PM
Moderation Peter Grabowski
Recording for WDR 3 Forum
Date of broadcast:
Sunday, 2 July, 7:04 PM
And what is Art? (Und was soll Kunst sein?)
Conversation
Making decisions requires criteria. But what aesthetic and political rules are valid in a globalized world? Which (pre-)judgements are determined by western hegemonic discourse and demand scrutiny? Who is trying to insist on what? Theater-makers, curators, theoreticians and journalists from different parts of the world accompany this year’s Impulse in order to investigate art and society’s scope for aesthetic and political action – and to contextualize the festival, which traditionally invites works from German-speaking countries, through their experiences.
Language ENG
Thursday, 29 June, 7:30 PM
With Ifeoma Fafunwa, Malik Gaines, Keng Yi-Wei, Florian Malzacher, Hely Minarti
Moderation Anne Breure
It is possible to follow the discussion via Live-Stream.
Within the framework of the guest programm of Impulse Theater Festival in coproduction with the “Be My Guest“ programm of Goethe-Instituts and the International Visitor Programm of NRW KULTURsekretariat.
