A firework of the arts in Berlin at the beginning of the Bauhaus anniversary 2019. January 16th to 24th 2019, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Image above: The Triadic Ballet, Bavarian Junior Ballet Munich, Photo: Wilfried Hösl
The Bauhaus anniversary will be opened with fireworks of performative arts at the international opening festival from January 16th to 24th 2019 at the Akademie der Künste, Berlin. Concert, installation, theatre, dance, discourse, workshop and club: The nine-day festival under the artistic direction of Bettina Wagner-Bergelt offers new encounters with the Bauhaus stage in a variety of formats and draws a bow from the outstanding historical testimonies of the Bauhaus to today’s avant-garde and to the traces and impulses that the Bauhaus has carried into contemporary art. The opening festival is part of the extensive sponsorship of the Bauhaus anniversary by the Federal Cultural Foundation.
The densely packed programme features more than 25 productions, including ten world premieres or commissioned productions, and two German premieres by over 100 participating artists from all over the world.
On the opening evening the jazz pianist and composer Michael Wollny presents his concert creation “Bau.Haus.Klang. Eine Harmonielehre”, in which he turns with his colleagues Emile Parisien, Wolfgang Heisig, Leafcutter John and Max Stadtfeld to the musical experiments of the Bauhaus. Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who has assumed patronage of the festival, will ceremoniously open the evening with a speech.
The virtual reality installation “Das Totale Tanz Theater”, a collaboration between the Interactive Media Foundation and the world-renowned choreographer Richard Siegal and Artificial Rome, will be premiered. It explores the relationship between man and machine through dance, immersively immersing visitors in the virtual stage world. The 360° video Das Totale Tanz Theater offers an additional three-dimensional visual and audio experience with a specially composed music by Einstürzende Neubauten, which also celebrates its world premiere. Installation and video are complemented by film and exhibition (Kunst.Figur.Kostüm) and the audio course Audio.Space.Machine by wittmann/zeitblom created especially for the festival.
Language and meaning are also a central theme in Samuel Beckett’s play Krapp’s Last Tape. Robert Wilson, one of the world’s leading theatre makers, has shown this play in numerous countries around the world and is playing it for the first time in Germany during the opening festival.
With Txtorrent Richard Siegal contributes another premiere to the opening festival: Together with the exceptional actress Sandra Hüller and the sound artist Alva Noto, he explores the Bauhaus artists’ approach to language, theatre and reality.
In the tradition of the legendary Bauhaus festivals, Bauhaus.Club 2.019 stands for Hyper Culture, a festival for the 21st century: In addition to the American choreographer Trajal Harrell, who will present his performance exhibition from the London Barbican Centre in a new version for the first time with “Hoochie Koochie X Bauhaus”, pop icon Mykki Blanco, FAKA from South Africa, Aisha Devi feat. Tianzhuo Chen, DJ Haram and many other international artists will celebrate the plurality of the present with dance, show, rap, hip hop, costumes and role changes in a vibrating club night.
Another commissioned production brings Horst Konietzny to Berlin with Signalraum.Best Practice, in which he puts Walter Gropius´’s thesis of the positive changeability of the world through collaborative, aesthetic practice to the test with a programme of installations, concerts, performances, blind dates and conversations. The theme and basic motif of all performances is playing with UNICATES, specially developed musical instruments ranging from sewing machines to mini robots, which combine various disciplines of art, performance and craftsmanship.
The installation Light.Shadow.Traces juxtaposes László Moholy-Nagy’s works with the works of various contemporary artists who explore the secrets of light and shadow and see them as magical elements of theatre, film and photography. The works of the renowned artists Christian Boltanski (Théâtre d’ombre, 1989), Tim Lee (Licht-Raum-Modul 2007) and Jan Tichy (Installation no. 30 Lucia) are presented alongside commissioned works by newcomers, artists and scientists, Quadrature (Noise Signal Silence) and Tim Otto Roth (Sun on Stage).
One Million is a project by Viennese artist Uli Aigner, who since 2014 has brought people all over the world into contact with one million potted vessels as a social sculpture. For the 100 Years of bauhaus opening festival, she is launching a new world collection with which she reacts to Bauhaus forms – 206 vessels, one for each country on earth.
Anne Nguyen’s Compagnie Par Terre brings breakdance and hip hop from the street to the stage. In Autarcie (…) the dancers deconstruct hip hop moves and relate them to geometry and architecture.
The award-winning filmmaker Katrin Rothe creates a live animated film theatre about Johannes Itten’s Theory of Colours with Colour Nothing Goes Without. With the play Über den Klee, the theatre group United Puppets offers children and families access to the Bauhaus by telling the story of the artist’s life with perfect copies of Paul Klee’s original puppets.
The Bauhaus Agent Program shows a selection of documentations and results of their mediation work. An extensive range of workshops offers children, young people and families the opportunity to experimentally approach various aspects of the Bauhaus. And Torsten Blume from Bauhaus Dessau provides Bauhaus Selfies and Bauhaus-style photo gymnastics with costume parts and props to equip themselves as “Bauhaus dancers”.
The historical testimonies of the Bauhaus are performed with the Triadic Ballet by Oskar Schlemmer and pictures from an exhibition by Wassily Kandinsky. The Catalan dancer and choreographer Cesc Gelabert will present a further first performance in this context with the reconstruction of the Bauhaus dances “Stäbe und Reifen” (sticks and hoops) specially created for the opening festival.
The festival programme is complemented by the discursive format Experimentierfeld Bauhausbühne, in which renowned scientists and artists, moderated by Nicolas Flessa, deepen and discuss festival themes.
Tickets for the events of the opening festival are available from the advance ticket office of the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
All information can also be found online at www.bauhausfestival.de.
100 years of bauhaus. The opening festival is an initiative of the Bauhaus Kooperation Berlin Dessau Weimar and is sponsored by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes. Kindly supported by the Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. The festival takes place in cooperation with the Akademie der Künste, Berlin.
