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
Le Point | Gazeta Wyborcza | DU | Der Spiegel | The Guardian | Plus -
Minus | Literaturen | London Review of Books | Elet es Irodalom | The
New York Times Book Review
Le point, 26.05.2005 (France)
Bernard-Henri
Levy sent a letter from Sarajevo, which did not stop him from
commenting on the "non" of the French Left, even before the outcome of
the referendum. For Levy, it is "not only absurd, frivolous and
suicidal," but also "shocking and outrageous. This perfume of national
egoism, this fearfulness on the part of the well-off who cling to all
they have, this church-spire politics, this renunciation of the
universalism that once made the noble greatness of the Left! Seen from
Sarajevo, the navel-gazing attitude with which the French discuss a
constitution they brand as 'social dumping', without ever having
listened to the 'other Europe', is especially shocking and outrageous.
We held the carrot out to this 'other Europe' and now we are indebted
to it."
Gazeta Wyborcza, 28.05.2005 (Poland)
"Poland
should make its decision on the European Constitution independently of
the French. We must make our minds up on our own, and then cast our
eyes about together with our European neighbours, to see the state
Europe is in", according to Bronislaw Geremek, member of the European
Parliament. Geremek, a former Polish foreign
minister, admits that there is no "Plan B" in case the European
constitution fails. He expresses the fear that, paradoxically, after
the "non", France will apply itself to strengthening the confederation
of the richer European countries, and that Poland will have no place in
such an alliance.
Adam Leszczynski has read Thomas L. Friedman's
praise of global free trade "The World is Flat. A Brief History of the
Twenty-first Century", and finds it hard to share Friedman's optimism.
"Alright, even if a few million Hindus join the middle class thanks to
the new economic sectors, what happens to the hundreds of millions that
don't? The rise of the few was possible because the world has become
flat – that is, technological progress has allowed Indian, Chinese or
even Polish specialists to compete with Americans. But will others also
have a chance for a better life? For Friedman they have no prospects.
If you look closer, this new economic revolution is a chance for the
lucky few."
DU, 01.06.2005 (Switzerland)
Hungarian
writer Imre Kertesz helped compile the articles in this month's DU,
which also publishes a number of texts about him, only two of which are
available online. György Spiro explains why Kertesz' merciless take on
the murder of the Hungarian Jews is unacceptable to Jews and Hungarians
alike. "His approach was never and is still not compatible with the
Hungarian mentality. Which, by the way, is not limited to Hungary. It
is unpleasant. Embarrassing. Not Jewish. Not Hungarian. Not anti-German
enough. Telling the truth with murderous irony? Who benefits from such
a thing? It's politically unusable. After all the temptations of the
20th century and the lack of any prospects for the future, people's
souls are thirsting for kitsch. So a radical novel like 'Fatelessness'
complies neither linguistically nor conceptionally with the usual tear-jerking Jewish salvific history, whose climax, whose 'extrahistorical
event' (Agnes Heller) was Auschwitz."
Kertesz' German translator
Ilma Rakusa investigates laughter in the character and work of the
Nobel prize winner who "occasionally displays the sort of pessimism
that makes Samuel Beckett look like an optimist." The magazine also
publishes Laszlo Földenyj's small Kertesz dictionary (sadly not
available online) of 10 terms ranging from Auschwitz to giving
testimony. Also included are three short stories by Kertesz published in German
for the first time, one of them an explanation to Claude Lanzmann, the
French documentary filmmaker famous for his nine-and-a-half-hour
documentary film "Shoa", titled "Why Berlin?" in which Kertesz
describes his relationship to Germany.
Der Spiegel, 30.05.2005 (Germany)
"I
can be wicked, but I don't know how to hate" the great German
literature critic Marcel Reich-Ranicki (website) admits in an interview
on his 85th birthday. The conversation focusses primarily on his
dispute with Albert Speer's biographer Joachim Fest, and Fest's
attempts to make the Nazi architect and armament's minister socially
acceptable. "It is wrong to think Fest is naive. His presentation of
Speer has nothing to do with good faith, but with his political
convictions and tactics, and perhaps also with his patriotism. By
selling Speer to the nation and particularly the small-time Nazis and
their followers as an upstanding if not noble Nazi, he helped them
clear their consciences. If a person with talents as extraordinary as
Speer's allows himself to become ensnared, then everybody's sins are
pardoned. The huge success of the Speer books is based on this. I do
not accuse Fest of evil intent, but there never could be, and there
never can be, talk of Speer's being ensnared. He was a dangerous
national socialist criminal who differed from Göring and Himmler only
because he had good manners."
The writer Peter Schneider's
article about the end of the Red-Green coalition is only available in
the print edition. In the face of the recent defeat of the SPD/Greens
in local elections in North-Rhine Westphalia, Schneider did briefly
feel that his team had "suffered outrageous injustice". But in fact he
knows better, admitting the federal SPD/Green government has simply not
kept its promise of lowering unemployment. And he has another thing to
pin on Gerhard Schröder. "In contrast to Tony Blair in England or Göran
Persson in Sweden, Schröder has never succeeded in wresting the
monopoly on 'higher morals' from the traditionalists in his own party
and revealing their self-important claims to fairness and justice as
group egoism."
The Guardian, 28.05.2005 (UK)
Fascinating,
gripping and luckily somewhat simplified, is how Edmund Fawcett
describes "Medici Money", Tim Parks' portrait of the Medici dynasty.
Fawcett praises Parks' way of first spinning out the myth surrounding
the wealthy, artistically inclined family before rebutting it. "His
overall message is sparklingly clear: whatever else you have heard
about the Medici, politics, art and banking did not really mix."
Plus - Minus, 28.05.2005 (Poland)
"President
Bush will win back an important ally in Europe, Russia will lose its
most important lobbyist in the West, Chirac will lose his most
important partner in constructing a multi-polar world, Turkey will have
to wait longer for EU membership and the Chinese will have to wait
longer for the weapons embargo to be lifted." An upside-down world? No,
according to Jaromir Sokolowski in the magazine of the Polish newspaper
Rzeczpospolita. Sokolowski looks at how German foreign policy will
change under a (very probable) coalition of conservative CDU/CSU and
FDP. From the Polish point of view, a change of government in Berlin
would have one major disadvantage: the lobbying power of Germans
expelled from Eastern Europe after World War II will possibly have more
sway with a Christian Democrat government. And the CDU/CSU may well
commit itself in its electoral programme to establishing a "Centre
Against Expulsion" in Berlin. "We hope that in the name of a true
German-Polish reconciliation, Angela Merkel will not allow young
Germans and young Poles to be burdened with these historical disputes,"
writes Sokolowski.
Literaturen, 01.06.2005 (Germany)
The
main focus of this edition is dedicated to Brasilian writer Paolo
Coelho who is worshipped by his readers and ridiculed by the
critics as "a philosopher for horoscope readers". Hanna Leitgeb met
this "modern Hermann Hesse" and attempts to defend his honour. Because
behind the kitschy new-age facade, Coelho has turned out to be the
greatest populariser of Nietzsche, he is a writer who understands
"spiritual ego-strengthening as political groundwork" without wanting
to let the treasure of the insight dry out as mere metaphor.
"Everything that has a symbolic aspect must also have a physical
aspect, otherwise you get nowhere. Some readers are disappointed at the
end of the 'The Alchemist', that the shepherd boy actually finds a real
treasure. But when you set out to find a real treasure, then you should
return home with one."
London Review of Books, 02.06.2005 (UK)
The
topic of US estate tax might sound as dry as a bone, but Michael Graetz
and Ian Shapiro's "Death by a Thousand Cuts: The Fight over Taxing
Inherited Wealth" is, according to David Runciman, "one of the most
interesting books about politics, and power, and the way the world is
going, that you are ever likely to read." Why? Because it is a "mystery
story (...) about how the repeal of a tax that applies only to the
richest 2 per cent of American families has become a cause so popular
and so powerful that it has steamrollered all the opposition placed in
its way". For Runciman, "in the face of an endless readiness on all
sides to heed the unmediated voice of personal experience, it has
become harder to sustain the bigger picture needed for any plausible
defence of progressive politics. This shifts politics, inexorably, to
the right."
Elet es Irodalom, 30.05.2005 (Hungary)
György
Spiro's novel "Captivity", which takes place in the Roman Empire of the
1st century, is being hailed as the literary sensation of the upcoming
Budapest Book Festival. Spiro tells in an interview how the book came
about. "I didn't want to know how Christianity originated, but what the
world looked like in which it not only came into being but also
triumphed incredibly fast. ... Politically, economically and
intellectually, the Roman Empire of the 1st century was very similar to
our world. That was a real surprise to me. The empire was in its
infancy, it was a time of growth, a well-constructed, well-organised
and tolerant world. And yet frenzy broke out, because the people sensed
something intolerable."
The New York Times Book Review, 29.05.2005 (USA)
That
The Nation has survived for 140 years is thanks to obsessive people
like Victor S. Navasky, who has now published his memoires "A Matter of
Opinion" (first chapter). Thomas Powers is enthralled: "But it is the
fate of The Nation, and of feisty magazines, that concerns Navasky
here. His account of what it takes to keep them going is wonderfully
complete, a kind of primer, detailed as a county road map, on the
practical, political, economic and diplomatic challenges of running a
money-losing magazine by persuading men with millions to maintain a
literary pulpit for a scribbling rabble mad about everything, while
somehow convincing the oft-provoked patrons to bite their tongues."