Opening Festival

The Bauhaus Verbund presented the programme of the international opening festival at the press conference for the nationwide Bauhaus anniversary in 2019. The festival from 16 to 24 January in the Academy of the Arts Berlin opens with a spectacular display of the performing arts. Concerts, installations, theatre, dance, discussion, workshops and clubs – the nine-day festival under the artistic direction of Bettina Wagner-Bergelt enables new encounters with the Bauhaus Theatre in a multitude of formats, and forges an arc ranging from notable historical Bauhaus testimonies to today’s avant-garde, through to the landmark changes and stimuli that the Bauhaus has contributed to contemporary art. The opening festival is part of the Federal Cultural Foundation’s extensive promotion of the Bauhaus anniversary.

The packed programme presents more than 25 productions, including ten world premières and commissioned pieces, and two German début performances by some 150 participating artists and performers from all over the world.

On opening night, jazz pianist and composer Michael Wollny presents his concert creation, “Bau.Haus.Klang. Harmony”, in which he turns to the musical experiments of the Bauhaus with his colleagues Emile Parisien, Wolfgang Heisig, Leafcutter John and Max Stadtfeld.
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier is the festival’s patron and will open the evening with a ceremonial address.

Also celebrating its world première is the “Das totale Tanztheater” (Total Dance Theatre) virtual reality installation, a cooperation by Interactive Media Foundation with internationally acclaimed choreographer Richard Siegal and Artificial Rome, which explores the relationship between humans and machines using dance, and allows visitors to immerse themselves in the virtual stage world to do so.
The installation is enhanced by film and exhibits (Kunst.Figur.Kostüm) and the Audio.Space.Machine audio parcours created by wittmann/zeitblom especially for the festival.

Richard Siegal contributes another world première to the opening festival with Txtorrent.
Together with the remarkable actor Sandra Hüller and sound artist Alva Noto he investigates the Bauhaus artists’ handling of language, theatre and reality.

Language and its significance are also a key theme in Samuel Beckett’s piece, Krapp’s Last Tape. Robert Wilson, one of the world’s leading theatre makers, has shown the work in numerous countries around the world, and will now stage it for the first time in Germany as part of the opening festival.

In the tradition of the legendary Bauhaus parties, Bauhaus.Club 2.019: Hyper Culture is a party for the 21st century. Along with American choreographer Trajal Harrell, who presents his performance exhibition from London’s Barbican Centre in a new version with “Hoochie Koochie X Bauhaus”, pop icons Mykki Blanco, FAKA from South Africa, Aisha Devi feat. Asian Dope Boys, DJ Haram and many more international performers will celebrate the plurality of the present in a vibrating club night with dance, show, rap, hip-hop, costumes and role changes.

With Signalraum.Best Practice Horst Konietzny brings another commissioned production to Berlin, where he explores Walter Gropius’ thesis of the positive changeability of the world through collaborative, aesthetic practice with a programme of installations, concerts, performances, blind dates and discussions. The theme and basic motif of all performances is playing with UNIKATEN (UNICA), musical instruments the performers have developed themselves, from a sewing machine to a mini-robot, and which incorporate the connection of different disciplines of art, performance and craftwork.

The Licht.Schatten.Spuren installation presents the works of László Moholy-Nagy by contrasting them with those of various contemporary artists, which explore the secrets of light and shadow, and recognise them as magical elements of the theatre, film and photography.
The works of renowned artists Christian Boltanski (Théâtre d’ombre, 1989), Tim Lee (Light-Space-Module 2007) and Jan Tichy (installation no. 30 – Lucia) are presented along with commissioned pieces of newcomers, artists and scientists, such as Quadrature (Noise Signal Silence) and Tim Otto Roth (Sun on Stage).

One Million is a project by Viennese artist Uli Aigner, who has been connecting people all over the world since 2014 with one million pottery receptacles as a social sculpture. For the 100 jahre bauhaus. Das Eröffnungsfestival she presents a new world collection, with which she reacts to the various Bauhaus forms – 206 receptacles, one for each country on the planet.

Anne Nguyen’sCompagnie Par Terre takes breakdancing and hip-hop from the street to the stage. In Autarcie (….) the dancers deconstruct hip-hop moves and put them in relation to geometry and architecture.
Award-winning film maker Katrin Rothe produces a live animated film theatre on Johannes Itten’s theory of colour with Ohne Farbe geht nichts (Nothing works without colour!).
With its Über den Klee piece, the United Puppets theatre group offers children and families access to the Bauhaus, where it relates events from Paul Klee’s life with perfect copies of his original puppets. The Bauhaus Agents Programme presents a selection of documentation and results from its mediation work. An extensive offering of workshops provides children, young people and families the opportunity to get closer to various aspects of the Bauhaus in an experimental way.
And Torsten Blume from Bauhaus Dessau provides Bauhaus selfies and photo gymnastics à la Bauhaus with costume pieces and props for outfitting as “Bauhaus dancers”.

The historical testimonies of the Bauhaus are presented with Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet and Pictures at an Exhibition of Wassily Kandinsky’s work. Catalan dancer and choreographer Cesc Gelabert presents a further début performance within this framework with the reconstruction of the Bauhaus Stick and Hoop dances produced especially for the opening festival.

The festival programme is expanded by the discursive format, Bauhaus Theatre Experimental Field, where renowned researchers and artists intensify and discuss topics of the festival, moderated by Nicolas Flessa.

Advance sales for all opening festival events begin on 25 October via the Academy of the Arts’ ticket sales office.

A detailed programme booklet for the festival will appear in December 2018.
You’ll also find all information online at www.bauhausfestival.de.

100 jahre bauhaus. Das Eröffnungsfestival is an initiative of the Bauhaus Berlin Dessau Weimar Cooperation and is supported by the Federal Cultural Foundation. With the friendly support of Sparkassen-Finanzgruppe. The festival is staged in cooperation with the Academy of the Arts, Berlin.