NORDWIND in the Theatre of Nations in Moscow, 13th-15th October and 8th-10th February at Kampnagel.
Nordwind festival has already had its thematic focus on Russia once before, in 2015. This year the partnership will be continued: a performative series of discussions entitled Nowy Mir – New World will take place from the 13th to the 15th of October under the curatorial direction of Jens Dietrich, in which artists and activists from both nations will come together to negotiate the seemingly unsolvable problems of planet Earth from the imaginary perspective of a space station. Nowy Mir – New World is a theatre salon with a band, guests, short video reportages and stand-up commentaries on transational themes. The audience is invited to intervene in the discussion at any time. Renowned theatre artists will be involved in both Moscow and Hamburg: in Hamburg, theatre-maker Manuel Muerte, who started the legendary talk format Der schwebende Diwan (The Flying Divan) and The Talking Dead at Kampnagel. In Moscow, one of the most important international directors, Konstantin Bogomolov, will be the host. On the 13th of October, two of the guests will be the Russian director Boris Bogomolow and the writer and journalist Christoph Twickel, who will discuss the link between theatre, media, politics and fear, on the 14th of October, the discussions will focus on charity organisations as institutions of power and on the 15th of October, Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll) and the composer Serjei Nevsky will talk about the market of ideas, which regulates the value and potential for realisation of ideas in art and the economy. Using playful, theatrical means, the aim is to create a prototype for a new discursive space, in which German-Russian themes can be examined beyond stereotypes and simple theories in their full complexity. Entertainment and knowledge production are also to be linked through performative strategies into a format that is just as exciting as it is informative.
In Hamburg, the project will be continued for three nights from the 8th-10th February at Kampnagel.