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.
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Like no other painter of his generation, the terminally ill artist Jörg Immendorff took up things German in his work. In a new exhibition in Berlin he has dramatised his life's work like a brilliant play. By Hanno Rauterberg
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On August 1, we launched a poetry translation competition to celebrate what would have been Austrian poet Ernst Jandl's 80th birthday. Entries poured in from around the world, a jury headed by poet Barbara Köhler deliberated long and hard. Now the long-awaited moment has arrived. And the winner is ...
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Polytika announces the end of the Third Republic in Poland. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, Timothy Garton Ash wishes German president Horst Köhler would call new elections. Magyar Hirlap hopes the Germans will become worse off than they are - so they'll come back to the one-star camping grounds on the Plattensee. Prospect celebrates the statistical superiority of Anglo-American intellectuals in the world while The New Criterion finds British intellectuals somewhat mediocre. Outlook India learns about the role of the KGB in India. In Der Spiegel, Andre Glucksmann talks about hate. Reportajes explains what's special about poverty in the USA. Le Figaro honours Hannah Arendt and the New York Times fears democracy Turkish-style.
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Artists have long attempted to transcend the surface of the painting.
Michael Burges has dissolved it entirely – in his new series of paintings
called "Virtual Space". By Gerhard Charles Rump
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Joschka Fischer, Germany's former Foreign Minister and figurehead of the Green Party, has now announced he will be retiring from politics altogether. In an interview with the taz given in September 2005, Fischer reflects on what his coming retirement means for his party, his country and himself.
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Christian Petzold's most recent film "Gespenster" ("Ghosts"), which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival this year, has now opened in German cinemas. Anke Leweke raves about this ghost story, set in Berlin's here and now.
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"Some find smearing the Solidarity revolution and its heroes by means of the secret police archives heroic. Others think it is more like throwing a hand grenade into a cesspool:
some get killed, some injured, and everyone is left soiled and smelly.
This is how we will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the August
revolution: bruised, smeared and frustrated. Can't we learn to speak
sensibly about the things we have had the courage to achieve?"
By Adam Michnik
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The pop world ain't what it used to be. Small-fry nations shaped the programme at this year's Popkomm music platform in Berlin. Globalisation is making its mark on the pop music landscape. By Daniel Bax
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In the New York Review of Books, Peter Galbraith calls the Iraq constitution the last chance for peace. In Espresso, Andrzej Stasiuk describes his holiday in Montenegrin Budva. The Spectator declares the UN to be corrupt beyond redemption. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the Germans are too disobedient for Swedish-style reforms. Nepszabadsag sings praises of German politicians. Historian Karl Schlögel travels through the European archipelago for Le Monde diplomatique. In Le Point, Alain Finkielkraut takes on Hannah Arendt. The Figaro looks at a black book of psychoanalysis. The New York Times Magazine offers a portrait of the NGO Bono.
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"As I today, after many years, start off on a journey to the land of my birth, I feel as if I were leaving for Africa or Alaska. I am leaving for the unknown lands of my past without actually knowing why." Serbian author Bora Cosic visits his divided homeland for the first time since 1992.
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There was something surreal about Gerhard Schröder's appearance on national television on election night. Although his party was second in the polls, Schröder saw the victory quite clearly as his own. And anyone who saw matters differently, an idiot. Arno Widmann asks the question that is on the minds of many Germans today: what was Schröder on?
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What do you get when you cross Left and Right? Gerhard Schröder the double paradox: a chancellor who backs social protest against his own policies, and a
ruler who deprives himself of power in a bid to reclaim it. By Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht
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Like his country's heraldic eagle, the Russian president Vladimir Putin has one head facing west and the other east. By Viktor Erofeyev.
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The New York Times Magazine fears that the war on terror has strengthened al-Qaeda. The Spectator bemoans the Third-World conditions in the USA. L'Espresso reports on soldiers' blogs in Iraq. The Spiegel exposes the vision of the Left as reactionary. In the Gazeta Wyborcza, Adam Michnik takes a stand against the blinded masses. The Economist looks for Nobel Prize winners in German universities. In the Nouvel Obs, John Updike mourns the dying species of writers. The Guardian explains the difference between continental and British literature. And Outlook India sings the praises of film essayist Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
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"Humankind will prevail because, in spite of the accidents of history,
the novel tells us that art restores the life in us that was
disregarded by the haste of history." Carlos Fuentes'
opening speech at the Fifth International Literature Festival Berlin pays tribute to Don Quixote and literature as a whole.
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The result of the elections on September 18 is completely irrelevant.
Because global competition is about to push Western culture into the
abyss. An eleventh-hour obituary. By Matthias Politycki
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Tanja Dückers writes a retort to Eva Menasse's recent claim that German writers' refusal to take a public stance in the federal election campaign reflects opportunism.
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A combative response to Jutta Limbach's article on "Making multiculturalism work" by the Turkish-German lawyer and activist Seyran Ates.
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Why I'm getting involved in the current federal election campaign. By Eva Menasse
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Remembering love and death: why we need operas like "La Traviata" now more than ever. By Eva Demski
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Sometimes the strong points of a director cannot be had without the
weak ones. "Don't Come Knocking" is Wim Wenders' best film in a long
time. By Katja Nicodemus
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The run-up to the German federal elections is awash with blood, sweat and tears as Schröder, Merkel and Co. give their all. But the voters aren't having any of it. By Jörg Lau
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The New Yorker attests to weak stamina on the part of George W. Bush in the wake of events in New Orleans, while Gilles Kepel attests to spiritual poverty on the part of Jihad ideologues' in the Nouvel Obs. The New Yorker holds suicide attackers for intelligent weapons. Zadie Smith tells in The Guardian how as a teenager, she preferred toking alone at home to popping ecstasy at parties. L'Espresso travels to Gaza, and Al Ahram depicts the waning influence of Al Azhar University in Cairo. Polityka sees new life in the spirit of socialist resistance in Warsaw, and György Konrad writes in Magyar Hirlap that freedom makes you beautiful.
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Bernd and Hilla Becher travelled the world for 50 years photographing industrial buildings. On the eve of their retrospective in Berlin they talked to Cornelius Tittel about how they saved an era from being forgotten forever and set in motion the German photography boom. (Editor's note: Bernd Becher passed away on 22 June 2007 in Rostock. We put this interview, published in September 2005, once more onto our homepage in his remembrance.)
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Today's theatre is losing its pull. Why? "Maybe we don't cook so well these days. No one goes to a restaurant if it doesn't serve good food. We put ourselves 60 centimetres over other people. If we don't have anything to say, we shouldn't put ourselves there in the first place", says director Andrea Breth. An interview with Stefan Keim and Reinhard Wengierek (Image: © Bernd Uhlig)
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