Download Activity Report 2010 - 2011 - 2012 Sommerblut

 Activity Report 2010 - 2011
Since 2002, SOMMERBLUT has been offering people in Cologne, the North RhineWestphalia region and around the world a unique, cross-cutting cultural program with
a mix of internationally renowned and burgeoning artists, In recent years, the festival
has become a fixture in Cologne’s cultural life, as well as in the national and
international cultural scene.
Since 2002, Jürgen Roters, Mayor of Cologne, has served as patron of the festival. The
chairman of the SOMMERBLUT Cultural Festival Association is Andrea Asch (Member
of the State Parliament).
SOMMERBLUT is the "Festival of multipolar culture". It has styled itself as an inclusive
cultural festival that merges different societal, political and social backgrounds and
identities. With a wide range of topics and methods of presentation, the organizers are
working at the forefront of conventional arts presentation and pushing beyond
traditional boundaries. Many contributions are meant to break taboos and to encourage
lively social debate, to build bridges between contrasts and differences. Here, the
concept of culture is deliberately broad: it deals with physical and cognitive
characteristics, lifestyles, value systems, traditions and religious beliefs – all the things
that determine the identity of each individual and the on-going cultural debate in our
society. The festival relates different perspectives to one another that might sometimes
seem disturbing, but can also be uniting or reconciling. SOMMERBLUT invites a
change in perspective toward a cross-border, courageous – and multipolar – form of art
and culture. The artistic forms and content productions of this multipolar cultural
program are intertwined with socio-political issues and cultural target audiences:
1. Cultures of disability. Established artists with disabilities are performing, and new
productions are initiated that enable close cooperation between professional artists and
semi-professional ones or people with disabilities. Here, what matters most is the
empowerment of people with disabilities. Besides the improvement of artistic expression
and the articulation of their own ideas, topics such as personal responsibility, selfdetermination, and design and decision-making capacities of the participants are
important goals.
2. Cultures of generations. Across the generations, questions of youth and aging are
being addressed. Schools and groups of seniors are involved. In this area, hybrid
productions by professional artists with far less artistically active citizens can be found.
This means that the productions are topical and current, because relevant questions for
our citizens are effectively dealt with. Participation in culture, in the sense of active
citizenship, is set in motion.
3. Interculturality. The challenges of migration and globalization are addressed by the
design of a positive communication culture. This makes the process of differentiated
cultures communicating with each other possible. The integration of people with an
immigrant background is as important for SOMMERBLUT, as is the implementation of
many multi-ethnic productions. Both international artists, as well as ethnic – or as the
case may be, culturally-specific – responses to cross-culturally relevant issues, are
therefore represented.
4. Thematization of gender and sexual identity. Women are still disadvantaged in our
society. Emancipatory questions and gender mainstreaming are essential for
SOMMERBLUT. Many people still have difficulty with their self-discovery, selfexpression and their coming out. Homosexuals and transgender lifestyles are being
developed to a playfully experimental level. There are many overlaps with the gay and
lesbian community in Cologne and worldwide.
These themes are implemented with various forms of artistic expression including
theater, dance, exhibitions, music, readings and performance using the aesthetic and
technical possibilities of our time. It is SOMMERBLUT’s standard to both keep up with
the rapid developments in the field of Information and Communication Technologies
(ICT) and to include these innovatively into the aesthetics of the productions. Here,
SOMMERBLUT always ties in with existing local structures by choosing different
venues. Additionally, in cooperation with different partners in the socio-cultural field,
their expertise, their networks and their identities are respected and even enhanced.
This also facilitates the aspect of sustainability. The continuation of project activities and
the continuity of structures are made possible, because local venues and agendas in the
socio-cultural field benefit from the initiatives of SOMMERBLUT projects. This
optimizes the effect of the SOMMERBLUT activities on a social and political level. It is
essential that the SOMMERBLUT festival is both locally and globally integrated in the
political context.
SOMMERBLUT – the FESTIVAL OF MULTIPOLAR CULTURE – is certainly a
symbol of diversity and tolerance. And it is also a forum in which minorities can
provide insight into their lives through art. But the term "minority" can be very flexible.
Who are these minorities? Is not everyone at some point part of a minority? In today's
modern society we cannot speak anymore of minorities or a majority. Indeed, the
majority began long ago to differentiate itself.
Moreover, cleavages are individually often entwined, so that – for example – questions
of different sexual orientation are mixed with aging issues, disability issues with
questions of gender identity or, last but not least, the search for identity of adolescents
can be merged with questions relating to immigrant backgrounds.
Under multipolarity, we talk about more than simple diversity or the representation of
minorities. SOMMERBLUT points at the socially relevant and virulent lines of an everchanging modern society. Between the various social and cultural interests, varying
polarities exist.
There are conflicts, misunderstandings or deficits of understanding that meet and rub
up against each other, before they are finally dissolved. Peaceful gatherings cannot be
provided. Rather, they must be set in motion and kept in motion by certain sociocultural processes. Cultural articulation, sharing and communication, and virtues of a
culture of communication, such as listening, watching, understanding and exchanges
are part of these processes. Creative and innovative approaches – considered as genuine,
artistic expression and action forms – are hence the source of energy of these processes.
Such processes are vital for the transformers of modern society towards a democratic
future. The SOMMERBLUT festival considers itself part of a positive concept of social
development at the local and transnational levels:
1. Democratization as a creative process of shaping modern society’s culture by means
of participation by all stakeholders in the respective projects: a bottom-up approach.
2. Articulation of personal, social and cultural identity through artistic expression as
empowerment of the respective socio-cultural groups.
3. Divergent cultures enter into communication with other cultures – that seem
different to them – through the emergence of a new communication culture.
4. Peaceful social change through participation and inclusion.
5. Participation and inclusion in society by challenging the social status quo, which in
turn makes multi-polarity and democratization possible. = The circle closes.
The artistic productions of SOMMERBLUT flow into cultural action. SOMMERBLUT
is specifically distinct in its willingness to experimentally test with relevant social actors,
how these concepts – that have been developed on the artistic level – can be translated
into the social field in terms of practical policies of identity.
SOMMERBLUT is a workshop for the peaceful, creative and innovative coexistence of a
society’s culture that is becoming more and more diverse and multipolar. It is also a
workshop of a society that does not suffer under the hegemony of one particular group
and its culture, but rather which lives democratically and balanced, although this
balance is a precarious one. SOMMERBLUT does not just represent traditional cultural
values and civic virtues, but stands for the socio-cultural practices of an increasingly
changing transnational and transcultural society. This means both cultural exchange
with its neighbours in Europe as well as with non-European cultures, to get to know
other divergent definitions and concepts of culture, art, society, statehood and their
related practices.
Key elements of the spirit of SOMMERBLUT are empowerment, bottom-up
approaches, participation, inclusion, interculturality, gender and disability
mainstreaming. SOMMERBLUT as the festival of multipolar culture will also be – on
the national and international stage – a breath of fresh air in art, an open track for social
movements, and an innovative discourse in culture. SOMMERBLUT creates contact
zones for development and creativity through its innovative art productions, its daring
social experiments and its critically challenging discussions.
2010
From 1 to 23 May 2010 the SOMMERBLUT Festival had about 20,000 visitors at 45
venues with 150 events and more than 1,000 national and international artists.
International artists from Hungary, Poland, Thailand, Italy, Turkey and Switzerland,
were among the festival’s guests. In addition, there were several theatre, music and
dance productions with professional artists and people with disabilities and / or social
disadvantage: such as "human forms", "OUT TAKES" and "light shade plants".
Of the participating artists, 30% had an immigrant background, 20% were lesbian and
gay people and 10% were people with disabilities or social disadvantages. The program
covered chanson songs, comedy, cabaret, concerts, art exhibitions, readings, music,
performance, dance and theatre.
Although the SOMMERBLUT festival is held in May, this festival has a long planning,
organizational and preliminary lead time, which, depending on the production, can
stretch from one to two years.
Multimedia Youth Theatre Dance Project "OUT TAKES"
The project focuses on the identity formation of young people with special emphasis on
the socially disadvantaged, those with multicultural and immigrant backgrounds, and
the empowerment of young girls. It was conducted in collaboration with several
secondary modern schools, youth clubs, community centres and district offices in
various parts of the city of Cologne. Participants included 21 girls and boys from
different parts of the city of Cologne, aged between 14 and 19 years. The theatre project
took place from September 2009 to June 2010. The play was awarded a prize by the
Minister of Culture North Rhine-Westphalia NRW, Prof. Klaus Schäfer.
"OUT TAKES" deals with the personal lifestyles of a group of young people from very
different social and cultural backgrounds. These are uncut, fragmented episodes of their
own lives.
In the artistic realization of their subjects, these young people found within the forms of
presentation such as music, dance and film, their own personal expression and through
collaboration with professional artists brought about a self-designed performance on
stage, where their wishes, dreams and experiences were the focus.
Learning and work targets in the rehearsals were that young people understand: It's not
just about their specific task in the project, but about supporting the work of the others.
Everybody has become aware that art is also the result of work and discipline.
Toughness, communication skills, compassion, willingness to address own fears, having
trust in others – these are all experiences during the rehearsals. And of course, the great
joy of artistic work.
OUT TAKES was acclaimed by critics and the young people have – mostly for the first
time – produced something "big" on the stage. This made them very proud, happy and
confident.
Play "light shade plants" of the Senior Theatre Ensemble "GOLD + EDEN"
This staging project – cooperation of the SOMMERBLUT festival, the Gay Network
NRW, the “Freies Werkstatt Theatre” and the social work for gays and lesbians – is on
the boundary between sexual identity and aging issues in modern society. The overall
project with participant castings, rehearsals and performances took place from January
to June 2010. There were seven gays and seven lesbians aged 39 to 71 on stage. The
theatrical experience of these amateurs was embedded in an aesthetically pleasing
context that was designed by professionals from the fields of theatre, costume, lighting
and sound.
"Light shade plants" tells a collage of the lives of lesbians and gay men in Germany of the
60s until today. The focus of “light shade plants” is a series of subjective, lived feelings
and biographical experience. Individual and general aspects of the coming-outs were
theatrically, choreographically and musically identified: accept yourself, recognition and
membership for the price of denial of identity versus living one’s life in a self-confident
and self-determined way, discrimination and persecution on the basis of originality,
empowerment due to the merger as a group. Many participants have gained selfconfidence from this project.
Photo exhibition by Ohm Phanphiroj "identity crisis in Thailand"
This exhibition provides an intercultural contrast to usual patterns of seeing and
thinking in Germany through one of the gravest crises of one’s own sexual identity. In
May 2010, 19 portraits of young Thai male-to-female transgender individuals on a high
white wall in the alternative socio-cultural meeting place in Cologne-Ehrenfeld, built the
bridge between these two different cultures. Sometimes perceived as provocative,
sometimes as a teachable moment, depending only on the angle from which you look at
the half-naked old men that were to become women.
The idea for the installation of these images from Thai photographer Ohm Phanphiroj
at SOMMERBLUT was taken from the idea that in Thailand there is a relatively candid
and socially accepted transgender scene, while the perception of transgender lifestyles in
this country is largely determined by broken images or for the purposes of suggesting a
tragedy (being captured in the wrong body) which is placed medially to flaunt. The true
life of men before, during and after a sex change, however, remains largely hidden.
Multimedia play "humans! forming!"
Essential to this play is the participation of people with a mental disability. The content
of the project "humans! forming!" was created in collaboration with the Swiss theatre
director Michael Elber, the theatre HORA Zurich and the Bonn-based magazine
Ohrenkuss. This magazine by people with Down syndrome has documented the project
by visiting rehearsals and the premiere of the play, and by releasing a publication on the
subject. On 8 January 2010 the casting took place at the Freies Werkstatt Theatre in
Cologne, where 35 people were invited from about 80 applicants to come together for a
playful encounter. Twelve actors were selected: seven of them actors had a mental
disability and five actors were professionally trained. Sold-out shows in Bremen,
Cologne and Zurich and about 1,500 visitors were the reward for the great work of the
ensemble.
The stage production did not pursue therapeutic or educational—but merely artistic—
goals.
The production "humans! forming!" is a theatre project that utilizes the resources of
narrative theatre, dance, improvisation, performance and concert. It is about the
unknown, the desire for normality, the opportunities, challenges and evils of integration
and socialization, the desire for ugliness and the view that excludes, as well as fatal
similarities between science and freak shows. Filled with humour, music and craftiness
"absurd and provocative questions about the normalization of the alleged ‘others’ were
asked by these ‘experts of otherness’”.
Music-dance performance "ATTACK OF THE KILLER GUITARS"
Questions about their own identity as women were the focus of the piece by artists
Sylvana Seddig, Susanne Bartelt, Ria Kesternich and Katrin Schyns. Ballet, and
contemporary dance styles, as well as different vocal skills—trained or completely
untrained—were juxtaposed with a female jazz guitarist who plays rough rock music.
Everything led to the central statement to show women at the centre of a nervous
breakdown: "They did not have any guitars here. Guitars played no role. So it was. They
were just hanging out".
2011
From 8 to 28 May 2011 Cologne was the venue of 100 events in the field of music,
dance, theatre, readings, cabaret, film and exhibitions. International artists from
Morocco, France, Italy, Turkey, Iran and the United Kingdom were participating in
original productions, collaborations and guest performances at the SOMMERBLUT
festival. Also, some of the 2011 highlights were the organization and implementation of
several theatre, cabaret and music productions with professional artists and people with
disabilities or social disadvantages: such as "Everything will be fine," "Out Trips" and
"Ohrenblicke".
The SOMMERBLUT festival in 2011 was organized for 35 venues with 100 different
events and over 700 artists with about 25,000 visitors. Once again, the festival had a
planning, organization and preliminary lead time of nine months.
Music and Dance Theater "MOVE IN PATTERNS" by Modjgan Hashemian
The conflict between political bondage and the intrinsic value of traditional culture
drives this piece: This guest cooperation of the cultural festival SOMMERBLUT with the
Iranian choreographer Modjgan Hashemian was performed on the stage of the
Kulturen/Arkadas, Cologne. The starting point for MOVE IN PATTERNS is Tehran in
the year of 1979. First, moments of euphoria are followed by disillusionment. After the
Islamic revolution, music and dancing is forbidden, the humans are veiled. They
withdraw to their homes and seek freedom there. A girl discovers the patterns of the
carpets in the house of her grandparents. And she begins to dance. Thirty years later, the
choreographer, now living in Berlin, rediscovers the world of her childhood. The carpet
is becoming a transport system between space and time, and the ornaments are proving
to be ambiguous: familiarly dreamy, but also restricted and limited. It is a magical
protection against fear and a system that does not tolerate any deviation. Musically, the
piece oscillates between these two worlds: Oliver Doerell electronically processed
recording from Iran, Mohammad Reza Mortazavi is playing Tombak, a traditional
instrument of Iranian classical music, in a stylistically and stunningly contemporary
way.
Theatre project "OUT TRIPS" – infinite TRAVEL across SPACE AND TIME
Sexual self-determination is the subject of this production. This mobile performance
with strong dramatic moments was a collaboration of the Social Work, of the Anyway
and SOMMERBLUT (registered association). Led by the two theatre teachers Charlott
Dahmen and Stephan Isermann 20 young people aged between 15 and 27 years
developed this performance beginning in fall 2009.
During six performance days, the ensemble went along with the audience in a shuttle
bus and walking tour through Cologne to unusual venues in the new Rheinau harbour,
the Old Town and the war ruins of St. Alban. The performance devoted itself to
important aspects of lesbian-gay-bi-trans life at different times: new stories from
yesterday, today and tomorrow were staged. Here, OUT TRIPS entered into galactic
worlds that no one had ever seen before. In the end, the ensemble developed its own
utopia of a multi-sexual society in 2099.
Theatre Project "Everything will be fine"
Inclusion of people with disabilities is one of the burning issues of our time. "Everything
will be fine" (AWG) was as an original production of the SOMMERBLUT festival
directed by Niko von Glasow was a theatre project for people with and without
disabilities, professionals and amateurs. Six sold-out shows in Cologne were followed by
four performances in Berlin, Munich and Cologne in the fall of 2011 for about 2,000
visitors.
From the theatre project, a film of the same title was produced.
An official nationwide tender was organized for this casting that specifically looked for
talented and appropriate actors/actresses. Overall, there were about 400 nationwide
applicants. The samples and the further formulation of the play took all together about
10 weeks. "AWG" did not consider itself as a performance of people with disabilities for
people with disabilities, but due to its professional approach opened up to a broad
audience and asked for honest self-reflection in the daily treatment of people with
disabilities and to one's own expectations.
The thematic framework of the play is casting: people with disabilities were placed in a
waiting room and forgotten. It built friendships, intrigue, tension and eroticism. Unlike
the current casting formats on TV, where often the inability of the candidates is the key
to success, “AWG” presented theatrical, musical, dance or other performing talents in a
professional and high-quality play to a large public, showing an honest and authentic
handling of all actors with their abilities.
Since it was aimed at a broad "disabled or not disabled" public, it had a profound dual
effect. Firstly, "AWG" addressed new social awareness around those with disabilities and
disadvantages by working with professional actors, but it also raised awareness of the
ingrained perception and expectations of people with disabilities. Secondly, the project
was a role model and has encouraged people with disabilities to build collective selfesteem and individual confidence in their own ability … and this goes beyond the
performance.
Movement theatre "sound and cherries”
This guest cooperation of the SOMMERBLUT festival with the intercultural travelling
theatre group "sound and cherries" was performed at the venue Odonien in Cologne.
Actors/musicians from Germany, England, Morocco, Australia, Japan, Israel, Colombia,
Portugal, Poland, Russia, Algeria, France, Spain, Switzerland, India and Egypt belong to
this international travelling theatre group.
A wooden post like a ship's mast rises into the sky. Steel rings with ropes and two lamps
provide a simple, large face. It moves the broad jaw to a carried aria. Demolishedlooking, uniformed people encircle the structure and are shouting in foreign languages.
In this production, the richness unfolds from the combination of the different cultural
backgrounds of the actors and musicians—a theatrical moment that is not tied to a
particular text template. A story that has the logic of dreams, it is a fantastic material
and movement theatre.
Exhibition "Blind spots"
"Blind spots" is an acoustic show in the DuMont studio as a coproduction of the
SOMMERBLUT festival with the association BLIND and ART. "Blind spots" are the
favourite haunts of blind people. Seeing does not matter. This exhibition does not only
bring together the world of and for the blind, but also sighted people are able to
rediscover their own world through hearing. Sighted people get the ability to grasp the
unusual in order to gain a new perspective. With aesthetically refined soundscapes, the
acoustic surroundings were made to create a “live” feeling. Seventeen favourite places
can be heard on headphones in 10 hearing rooms, while 17 texts spell blind spots for the
eye and hands. The exhibition was part of a unique European radio project entitled
"OHRENBLICKE", which further developed the radio art of blind and visually impaired
people into audio art, while creating a European network for blind artists.