NEWSLETTER   #01-2008

Leipzig, 25th June 2008

Dear Colleagues and Friends,
Dear Ladies and Gentlemen,

today we would like to inform you for the first time about our festival this year. The euro-scene Leipzig will take place from 04 to 09 November 2008 for the 18th time and stands under the motto »Taumelnd auf glatter See« (»Floundering on a calm sea«). Planned are 12 guest plays from 8 countries in 22 performances and 9 venues.

The festival programme is now available under
www.euro-scene.de/programm. The ticket sale will start on Saturday, 27.09.2008. Upon request the printed festival programme can be posted at no charge.

I wish you a nice summer and send my regards

Ann-Elisabeth Wolff

Festival Director

Under the motto »Floundering on a calm sea«, this year's festival of contemporary European theatre and dance is dedicated to the opposite of a smooth surface and to the disasters concealed beneath – whether in the psychological or the social domain.

»Calm water can be both idyllic and, at the same time, eerie and frightening. Our existence is determined by overplayed uncertainties, tensely safeguarding the pretence of beauty and the increasingly hectic search for purpose in life. The festival this year aims to sensitise the audience to its floundering and provide courage to admit weakness«, says festival director Ann-Elisabeth Wolff. The spectrum of productions includes dance and spoken theatre as well as intermediate areas of performance art.

The following companies will give guest performances at the euro-scene Leipzig 2008:

Centre chorégraphique national d'Orléans / Josef Nadj
Cuqui Jerez, Madrid
Jonathan Burrows & Matteo Fargion, London
The Collective of Natural Disasters / György Árvai, Budapest
Orphtheater / Uwe Schmieder, Berlin
Quasi stellar dance company / Apostolia Papadamaki, Athens
Theatre Danny & Dessi / Tania Evtimova, Haskovo
E-Motion, Dusseldorf
Les Ballets C. de la B. / Alain Platel, Fabrizio Cassol, Ghent

The festival is presenting Josef Nadj, one of Europe’s leading choreographers, with a work show. Together with the Centre chorégraphique national d’Orléans he will be opening the euro-scene Leipzig with his latest piece, »Entracte« (»Interval«), as well as »Woyzeck« and »Journal d’un inconnu« (»The journal of an unknown«). In addition, his two films, »Dernier paysage« (»Last Landscape«) and »Paso doble«, and an exhibition with his drawings will be on show.

Another festival highlight will be the new dance play »pitié!« (»Have mercy!«) by Alain Platel with his company Les Ballets C. de la B., Ghent, based on Bach's »Matthäuspassion« (»St Matthew Passion«) in an adaptation by Fabrizio Cassol. This year's carte blanche for a guest play went to Tilmann Broszat, artistic director of the festival Spiel.Art, Munich. He invited the Spaniard Cuqui Jerez with »The real fiction« to Leipzig.

The guest performances will be complemented by an extensive fringe programme comprising films, talks, discussions and workshops. This includes e.g. the films »Woyzeck« by Werner Herzog with Klaus Kinski and »Tanz und Ekstase – Alain Platels ›vsprs‹« (»Dance and ecstasy – Alain Platel's ›vsprs‹«) by Sophie Fiennes.

For the first time, there will be a »Reviewer round« to the festival guest plays with the four well-known journalists Katja Werner, Peter Michalzik (inquired), Dirk Pilz and Klaus Witzeling. Presentation: Prof. Dr. Günther Heeg, University of Leipzig. Additionally, there will be a HipHop-workshop with Takao Baba/dance company E-Motion.

For the first time, the festival has got its own ticket outlet, which is at the Café-Restaurant Telegraph at the Dittrichring as from 27.09.2008. It will also house the new festival café.

The Tanzplattform Deutschland (Dance Platform Germany) 2008, whose co-organiser the euro-scene Leipzig is, was held in Hanover for the 7th time from 21-24 February 2008. The Tanzplattform Deutschland is the most important presentation forum for contemporary dance in Germany and will take place in Nuremberg next time in February 2010.

The annual meeting of the Informal European Theatre Meeting (IETM) / International Network for Contemporary Performing Arts took place in the Slovenian Ljubljana from 15-18 May 2008. The euro-scene Leipzig is member of the IETM and Ann-Elisabeth Wolff, too, belonged to its 408 participants from 41 countries. There had been numerous work groups, discussions and workshops to the topic »Rehearsing freedom« as well as performances of Slovenian theatre and dance companies.

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Content and editing: Ann-Elisabeth Wolff / Beate Dietrich
English translation: Susanne Saalfeld
Photographers: Jef Rabillon, La Bohalle / Attila Mátyás, Budapest / Georg Schreiber, Essen / Rolf Arnold, Leipzig
Graphic design: Dirk Baierlipp, Hanau – fertigungsbureau.de
Editorial deadline: 24.06.2008

Presenter: Sächsischer Verein zur Förderung des kulturellen Austauschs nationaler und internationaler Tanz- und Theatergruppen e.V.

euro-scene Leipzig, Gottschedstraße 16, D-04109 Leipzig,
phone +49 (0)341-980 02 84 // fax +49 (0)341-980 48 60
info@euro-scene.de // www.euro-scene.de