Free entry, please register here. Duration: 120 min
In September 2024, the federal states of Saxony, Thuringia and Brandenburg will elect new state parliaments. Current forecasts warn that the far-right AfD party could claim over 30% of the vote. This is not surprising after the results of the elections in Hesse and Bavaria last year and the visible shift to the right, and is continuing with measures in current migration policy.
Cultural institutions and artists have been committed to discrimination-sensitive work for years and are currently confronted with a discourse that seems to play off work against various forms of discrimination, such as anti-Semitism and racism, against each other – as if they were not inextricably linked.
What does this mean for art production? What are the effects on the stage, on the audience and on public funding? What should anti-fascist art look like in the 21st century? How can we encourage debate? How is it possible to work together in solidarity?
We discuss these questions with the artists Yvonne Sembene, Noam Brusilovsky and Anica Happich.
Duration
- 120 minutes
- The audience can enter and exit at any time during the panel as they wish.
Language
- In spoken English
Audience area
- Seating on grandstand with seat cushions.
- Two beanbag seats and two wheelchair spaces are available in the room.
About the event
- The event will be held as a frontal panel, with the opportunity for questions from the audience at the end.
Guests: Yvonne Sembene, Noam Brusilovsky and Anica Happich
Host: Franziska Pierwoss
Concept: Lena Kollender, Franziska Pierwoss, Mateusz Szymanówka
The title of the event borrowed from the book BURN IT ALL DOWN: AN ANTIFASCIST SPELLBOOK by YERBAMALA COLLECTIVE.
Theater and radio playwright Noam Brusilovsky was born in Israel in 1989. After attending the Thelma Yellin High School of the Arts, he moved to Berlin in 2012, where he studied theater directing at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts. While still a student, he directed his first radio plays for Deutschlandfunk and SWR and was awarded the ARD German Radio Play Prize in 2017 for his production Broken German. He was invited to the Radikal Jung and Fast Forward festivals with his autobiographical solo graduation performance Orchiektomie rechts and was nominated as “Young Author of the Year” in Theater heute’s critics’ survey. Since then, Brusilovsky has worked as a freelance author and director and has produced radio plays for SWR, Deutschlandfunk, rbb and WDR. His theater projects, which have appeared at numerous festivals, have been realized at the Munich Residenztheater, the Munich Volkstheater, the Konzerttheater Bern, the Berlin Sophiensælen and the Stadttheater Klagenfurt. In 2021, Brusilovsky again received the ARD German Radio Play Prize with Ofer Waldman for the play Adolf Eichmann: Ein Hörprozess. In 2022, he received the Hörspielpreis der Kriegsblinden with Lucia Lucas for the radio play Die Arbeit an der Rolle. In the same year, his production Nicht sehen received the Nestroy Prize in the special category.
Anica Happich, born in Magdeburg (Germany), is a curator, actress, cultural manager, and a cultural and political figure active in publicly funded theaters, the independent scene, and the film industry. As a cultural and political figure, she operates in the intersection of artistic practice and educational work, advocating for the significance and concerns of (independent) performing arts. She is involved in various roles, including being a member of the “ensemble-netzwerk e.V.,”, a board member of the Thuringian Theater Association, a member of the Board of Trustees of the Fonds Darstellende Künste, the “FAIRSTAGE” initiative, and the research project “Systemcheck.” As a theater actress, she was engaged at the Theater Basel until 2020. Since 2020, she works as a freelance artist. Since 2021, Anica Happich has also been teaching at institutions such as the “HfMDK Frankfurt am Main,” the “Hochschule für Schauspielkunst Ernst Busch,” and the “Performing Arts Programm Berlin.” In 2021, she initiated the PHOENIX Theater Festival in the former theatre Erfurt, which she has been leading since then. In 2022, she was elected to the board of the Thuringian Theater Association. She works in Thuringia and Berlin.
Franziska Pierwoss works as an artist in the field of performance and installation. She studied at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig and at the Lebanese University of Beirut. Her performances have been shown at the Fast Forward Festival Athens, the Sharjah Biennial 13, the Spielart Festival and the Literaturforum Brecht-Haus, among others. She has worked for many years with Sandra Teitge on questions of political, social and financial economies of waste management and, as a transformation manager, gives workshops on the implementation of ecological sustainability. Since 2015, Franziska Pierwoss has been examining the methods of the identitarian movement and the instrumentalization of food as a political symbol by the New Right in her performances (Maritim Hotel Cologne or Soup au Cochon).
Yvonne Sembene is a dance maker and critical observer based in Berlin. Her practice focuses on colonial influences in contemporary identities, especially in the European and German context, as well as on decolonial-feminist discourses. In parallel to her artistic work, she is often invited as a contributor to participate in local cultural-political discussions in labs and exchange formats. In 2023, she was particularly involved with the topics of German identities and white ethno-nationalism, emerging artists and accessibility. She also supports other artists in understanding their work in a socio-cultural context.