Physical Dramaturgy: Ein (neuer) Trend?

Dramaturgie im zeitgenössischen Tanz ist ? positiv gemeint ? ein heißes Eisen. Idealerweise sind Dramaturginnen und Dramaturgen während der Erarbeitung eines Stücks die besten Freunde der Choreografen. more more

GoetheInstitute

16/11/2007

From the Feuilletons

From the Feuilletons is a weekly overview of what's been happening in the German-language cultural pages and appears every Friday at 3 pm. CET.. Here a key to the German newspapers.

Neue Zürcher Zeitung 16.11.2007

Italian writer Ugo Riccarelli tells his compatriots not to forget their own difficult past before hurling accusations at the Roma. "The recent accession of Romania to the EU allows all its citizens free movement in all member countries (and even to work in Italy), which of course scoundrels will use to their own advantage. Yet the majority of these migrants are searching for a way - doing their utmost -to exchange precarious poverty for more worthy living conditions. They are living within reach of the light and an existence which must look dreamlike, yet they remain in the dark, invisible and shabby. (...) We should remember the ramshackle suburbs which survived in this eternal city not so long ago, until the 80s in fact, which didn't look so different from those of the invisible today, except that they were inhabited by Italians, by evacuees from the war or from the fascist demolition of the Centro Storico."


Der Tagesspiegel 16.11.2007

Having visited the Jeff Wall show in the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin, Thomas Wulffen complains about German art's ignorance of social reality. "Where is the artist in this country who attempts a similar critical description of the realities around him? Contemporary painting has no interest in social issues, as the example of Norbert Bisky shows, whose paintings are full of young men. His current exhibition in Berlin's Haus am Waldsee is all about his own obsessions, he has no eye for the foibles of society. The new generation of painters is more interested in painterly delicacy than social debates. Even Neo Rauch, whose paintings show people working, does not go beyond surreal reminiscences of the workers' and farmers' state of yesteryear. Images of today's labour market or immigrants in Germany? Forget it."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 15.11.2007

"One hundred years after he was born, Claus von Stauffenberg, the central figure in the July Plot against Hitler, is more in the public eye than ever," writes historian Peter Hoffmann. "His name appeared briefly in the news and Nazi propaganda in 1944, and in the memories of survivors after the war. Many considered those who conspired against Hitler's life as traitors, while the Allies condemned them as opportunistic putchists. As late as 1970, surveys revealed that only 32 percent of respondents knew who Stauffenberg was, and most of those who did had a negative opinion of him. It was only in 1985 that the Allensbach Institute for Demoscopy registered 'growing sympathy for the resistance fighters of July 20, 1944.' By then 68 percent of respondents knew who Stauffenberg was. In 1994, 47 percent of West Germans felt that those involved in the attack of July 20, 1944 should be honoured, while 44 percent felt such veneration was unfitting. 46 percent could cite names or events having to do with the attack, while 50 percent could not. But in 2004 things were very different. The majority - 54 percent - of respondents knew that an attack on Hitler's life had taken place on July 20, 1944."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 15.11.2007

Thomas Karlauf, biographer of German poet Stefan George (see our review), puts the hundredth anniversary of the birthday of Claus von Stauffenberg - George's disciple - in context: "George saw himself very early on as a perpetrator, and always stressed the active nature of his poetry. Conspiracy, subversion, and the coup d'etat were elements central to his world view. The 'act' or 'deed' was one of his most important poetic metaphors. George infused his young friends with this ethos, extolling subversion and evoking the dramatic images of the Sicilian Vespers of 1282: 'You should carry a dagger in the laurel wreath.' For Claus von Stauffenberg, George's ethos of action went hand in hand with lofty ideas of soldiery passed down to him through his family. After all, one of his forefathers, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, played an important part in the uprising against Napoleon."


Frankfurter Rundschau 14.11.2007

Peter Michalzik explains why the GDL, the much-maligned train drivers' union, is currently the "most important consciousness-building force" in Germany. "Apart from the train drivers and the hospital doctors, the managers are the only other group to have grasped the extent of their power until now. In recent years they have done an admirable job of fobbing off their particular interests as the common good. If the trains stop running, however, it will quickly become clear that there are other factors that advance the common good than raising the German gross national product."


Die Welt 14.11.2007

Johannes Wetzel comments on the Altar of Vetheuil, which has turned up - 40 years after being stolen - at the shop of Antwerp antique dealer Bernard Descheemaeker. It comes as no surprise that many stolen artworks reappear in Belgium, Wetzel writes, because there is no regulation of the antique trade is in Belgium or the Netherlands. "In addition, trade in stolen goods is subject to a limitation period of just three years in Belgium, and the very narrow definition of what constitutes a crime make prosecution very difficult. Antique dealers in Brussels consider the border area around Maastricht between Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and France as a sort of Bermuda Triangle, and a good number of the trade's black sheep are located there."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 13.11.2007

The government crisis in Belgium has now entered its sixth month. Flemish theatre director Luk Perceval says that like the majority of his countrymen he no longer understands the political crisis in Belgium, which does not reflect everyday coexistence in the country. "The polarisation of the Flemish and the Walloons is quite normal and part of the country's folklore. No matter where you go in the world, when you tell people you're Belgian they've always heard something about the language dispute. People think the Flemish and the Walloons are constantly at loggerheads with each other. Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite, or perhaps because of our complex form of government with its four regional governments and one national government, the Flemish and the Walloons live side by side in relative harmony, do business with each other and are welcome guests to the tourist attractions of the two respective regions. A survey shows that two-thirds of the population is simply not interested in the debate. That's a typical feature of the Belgians: no interest whatsoever in political quarrels."


Die Welt 12.11.2007

Constitutional Court judge Udo di Fabio sends words of warning in a speech printed by the newspaper to politicians whose answer to terrorism is to cut into human rights and freedom. "The intellectual lust for the anticipated state of emergency is no source of good advice. It also misses its stated aim which is to create more security for freedom using tough measures. The American 'war on terror' will not be made more effective by creating special rights in Guantanamo or through wilful interpretations of international law, but will be weakened in the long term. The West is fighting a losing battle, measured in the degree to which it stops being Western."


Die Tageszeitung 10.11.2007

Sonja Eisman wishes German feminism could be more like its American sister, which combines the old radical aims with pop culture. "American women are streets ahead of us yet again. Not only do they have a whole spectrum of women's magazines which pin their feminist as well as pop-cultural credentials proudly on their chests - while we can only lick our lips for such things over here. But in these magazines which have names like Bitch, Bust or Venus Zine, consensus has been reached that the supposed trench warfare between the 'serious' feminists of the second wave and the 'lifestyle' feminists of the third wave is primarily an invention of the media, which famously loves nothing more than to proclaim one more time feminism' death, or at least final collapse."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10.11.2007

Freedom of the press will be 'curbed significantly' by the telecommunication data retention act that was passed yesterday in the Bundestag, warns Michael Hanfeld. "There are reasons why our industry is raising its voice, not for its own comfort, but for the sake of protecting witnesses who are invaluable in exposing scandals, and particularly those involving the abuse of state power. This represents substantial collateral damage in the fight against terror and organised crime. The mass retention of data for surveillance purposes destroys what it purports to preserve, by blocking information from getting to the public, which is outside the remit of state organs."

Get the signandsight newsletter for regular updates on feature articles.
signandsight.com - let's talk european.

 
More articles

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 11 - 17 December, 2010

A clutch of German newspapers launch an appeal against the criminalisation of Wikileaks. Vera Lengsfeld remembers GDR dissident Jürgen Fuchs and how he met death in his cell. All the papers were bowled over Xavier Beauvois' film "Of Gods and Men." The FR enjoys a joke but not a picnic at a staging of Stravinsky's "Rake's Progress" in Berlin. Gustav Seibt provides a lurid description of Napoleonic soap in the SZ. German-Turkish Dogan Akhanli author explains what it feels like to be Josef K.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 December

Colombian writer Hector Abad defends Nobel Prize laureate Mario Vargas Llosa against European Latin-America romantics. Wikileaks dissident Daniel Domscheit-Berg criticises the new publication policy of his former employer. The Sprengel Museum has put on a show of child nudes by die Brücke artists. The SZ takes a walk through the Internet woods with FAZ prophet of doom Frank Schirrmacher. The FAZ is troubled by Christian Thielemann's unstable tempo in the Beethoven cycle. And the FR meets China Free Press publisher, Bao Pu.
read more

From the feuilletons

Saturday 27 November - Friday 3 December

Danish author Frederik Stjernfelt explains how the Left got its culturist ideas. Slavenka Draculic writes about censoring Angelina Jolie who wanted to make a film in Bosnia. Daniel Cohn-Bendit talks   about his friendship, falling out and reconciliation with Jean-Luc Godard. Wikileaks has caused an embarrassed silence in the Arab world, where not even al-Jazeera reported on the what the sheiks really think. Alan Posener calls for the Hannah Arendt Institute in Dresden to be shut down.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 20 - Friday 26 November, 2010

The theatre event of the week came in a twin pack: Roland Schimmelpfennig's new play, a post-colonial "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" opened at the Deutsches Theater in Berlin and the Thalia in Hamburg. The anarchist pamphlet "The Coming Insurrection" has at last been translated into German and has ignited the revolutionary sympathies of at least two leading German broadsheets, the FAZ and the SZ. But the taz, Germany's left-wing daily, says the pamphlet is strongly right-wing. What's left and right anyway? came the reply.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 13 - Friday 19 November, 2010

Dieter Schlesak levels grave accusations against his former friend and colleague, Oskar Pastior, who spied on him for the Securitate. Banat-Swabian author and vice chairman of the Oskar Pastior Foundation, Ernest Wichner, turns on Schlesak for spreading malicious rumours. Die Zeit portrays the Berlin rapper Harris, and the moment he knew he was German. Dutch author Cees Nooteboom meditates on the near lust for physical torture in the paintings of Francisco de Zurburan. An exhibition in Mannheim displays the dream house photography of Julius Schulman.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 6 - Friday 12 November, 2010

The NZZ asks why banks invest in art. The FAZ gawps at the unnatural stack of stomach muscles in Michelangelo's drawings. The taz witnesses a giant step for the "Yugo palaver". Bernard-Henri Levy describes Sakineh Ashtiani's impending execution as a test for Iran and the west. Journalist Michael Anti talks about the healthy relationship between the net and the Chinese media. Literary academic Helmut Lethen describes how Ernst Jünger stripped the worker of all organic substances.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 30 October - Friday 5 November, 2010

Now that German TV has just beatified Pope Pius XII, Rolf Hochmuth tells die Welt where he got the idea for his play "The Deputy". The FR celebrates Elfriede Jelinek's "brilliantly malicious" farce about the collapse of the Cologne City Archive. "Carlos" director Olivier Assayas makes it clear that the revolutionary subject is a figment of the imagination. The SZ returns from the Shanghai Expo with a cloying after-taste of sweet 'n' sour. And historian Wang Hui tells the NZZ that China's intellectuals have plenty of freedom to pose critical questions.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 23 - Friday 29 October, 2010

Author Doron Rabinovici protests against the concessions of moderate Austrian politicians to the FPÖ: recently in Vienna, children were sent back to Kosovo at gunpoint. Ian McEwan wonders why major German novelists didn't mention the Wall. The NZZ looks through the Priz Goncourt shortlist and finds plenty of writers with more bite than Houellebecq. The FAZ outs two of Germany's leading journalists who fiercely guarded the German Foreign Ministry's Nazi past. Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt analyse the symptoms of culturalism, left and right. Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht demonstratively yawns at German debate.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 16 - Friday 22 October, 2010

A new book chronicles the revolt of revolting "third persons" at Suhrkamp publishers in the wild days of 1968. Necla Kelek is appalled by the speech of the very Christian Christian Wulff, the German president, in Turkey. The taz met a new faction of hardcore Palestinians who are fighting for separate sex hairdressing in Gaza. Sinologist Andreas Schlieker reports on the new Chinese willingness to restructure the heart. And the Cologne band Erdmöbel celebrate the famous halo around the frying pan.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 9 - Friday 15 October, 2010

The FR laps up the muscular male bodies and bellies at the Michelangelo exhibition in the Viennese Albertina. The same paper is outraged by the cowardice of the Berlin exhibition "Hitler and the Germans". Mario Vargas-Llosa remembers a bad line from Sweden. Theologist Friedrich Wilhelm Graf makes it very clear that Western values are not Judaeo-Christian values. The Achse des Guten is annoyed by the attempts of the mainstream media to dismiss Mario Vargas-Llosa. The NZZ celebrates the tireless self-demolition of Polish writer and satirist Slawomir Mrozek.
read more

From the feuilletons

Saturday 2 - Friday 8 October, 2010

Nigerian writer Niyi Osundare explains why his country has become uninhabitable. German Book Prize winner Melinda Nadj Abonji says Switzerland only pretends to be liberal. German author Monika Maron is not sure that Islam really does belong to Germany. Russian writer Oleg Yuriev explains the disastrous effects of postmodernism on the Petersburg Hermitage. Argentinian author Martin Caparros describes how the Kirchners have co-opted the country's revolutionary history. And publisher Damian Tabarovsky explains why 2001 was such an explosively creative year for Argentina.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 25 September - Friday 1 October

Three East German theatre directors talk about the trauma of reunification. In the FAZ, Thilo Sarrazin denies accusations that his book propagates eugenics: "I am interested in the interplay of nature and nurture." Polemics are being drowned out by blaring lullabies, author Thea Dorn despairs. Author Iris Radisch is dismayed by the state of the German novel - too much idle chatter, not enough literary clout. Der Spiegel posts its interview with the German WikiLeaks spokesman, Daniel Schmitt. And Vaclav Havel's appeal to award the Nobel prize to Liu Xiabobo has the Chinese authorities pulling out their hair.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 18 - Friday 24 September, 2010

Herta Müller's response to the news that poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant was one of overwhelming grief: "When he returned home from the gulag he was everybody's game." Theatre director Luk Perceval talks about the veiled depression in his theatre. Cartoonist Molly Norris has disappeared after receiving death threats for her "Everybody Draw Mohammed" campaign. The Berliner Zeitung approves of the mellowing in Pierre Boulez' music. And Chinese writer Liao Yiwu, allowed to leave China for the first time, explains why schnapps is his most important writing tool.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 10 - Friday 17 September, 2010

The poet Oskar Pastior was a Securitate informant, the historian Stefan Sienerth has discovered. Biologist Veronika Lipphardt dismisses Thilo Sarrazin's incendiary intelligence theories as a load of codswallop. A number of prominent Muslim intellectuals in Germany have written an open letter to President Christian Wulff, calling for him to "make a stand for a democratic culture based on mutual respect." And a Shell study has revealed that Germany's youth aspire to be just like their parents.
read more

From the Feuilletons

Saturday 4 - Friday 10 September, 2010

Thilo Sarrazin has buckled under the stress of the past two weeks and resigned from the board of the Central Bank. His book, "Germany is abolishing itself", however, continues to keep Germany locked in a debate about education and immigration and intelligence. Also this week, Mohammed cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has been awarded the M100 prize for defending freedom of opinion. Chancellor Angela Merkel gave a speech at the award ceremony: "The secret of freedom is courage". The FAZ interviewed Westergaard, who expressed his disappointment that the only people who had shown him no support were those of his own class.
read more