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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According to the FAZ, Berlin's Museum Island deserves more than a "prim little toilet house" for its entrance. Dramatist Mark Ravenhill and director Thomas Ostermeier discuss Germany's love-hate relationship with all things artistic. Aufbau Verlag has had its entire archive digitised and stored away for eternity. And there's another round of Bahn bashing now that the rail company has been ordered to do things the way the Hauptbahnhof architect intended.
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Berlin's Hauptbahnhof architect Meinhard von Gerkan has won his court case against Deutsche Bahn: a triumph for aesthetics over false economy. The French election campaign is being fought in the realm of the imagination. Russian author Viktor Erofeyev tells why his country is like an open refrigerator. And the Tate Modern is cleaning up its acrylics.
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Thirty years after the release of "Anarchy in the UK" Diedrich Diederichsen honours punk in its purest form. The SZ could not stomach the combination of Tom and Jerry with Verdi. A Russian dissident who sticks his neck may lose his head, says a friend of dead ex-spy Litvinenko. And Peter Sellars' new homage to Mozart celebrates the wunderkind's free spirit - with farmers, gamelans and refugees.
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Sengalese writer Boubacar Boris Diop decries the powerlessness of mankind in the face of the genocide in Darfur. The FAZ introduces the new out of control generation of Chinese writers. The west should stop flinching and start defending
its freedoms against Islamist totalitarianism. Russian space scientists are materially
challenged but brilliant, says civilian space traveller Charles
Simonyi. And finally, can an audience have too much
fun at the theatre?
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Die Welt laments the waning Christian era in Lebanon. Director Hans Neuenfels recalls how Rilke and the Beatles and not computer games helped him survive puberty. Rimini Protokoll is the hottest, most surprising theatre around. And contrary to popular belief, there are intelligent forms of life in the Ruhrpott.
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In the wake of a high school shoot out in Emsdetten, the papers debate the aesthetics of killer computer games. Russian philosopher Michael Ryklin and artist Anna Altschuk tell how trials against artists were used to whip up electoral support for Rodina. Die Zeit praises Peter Sellars' Mozart festival "New Crowned Hope," where not a single note of Mozart can be heard. And author Judith Kuckart tells how train travel is done right.
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As general elections are being held in the Netherlands, writer Hans Maarten van den Brink reflects on the veiled codex in his supposedly super-tolerant country. Writer Ilija Trojanow defends the fighting spirit of the Chinese, singer Tom Waits explains that putting together an album is like packing a suitcase and author Marlene Streeruwitz objects to her vaginal objectification in Elfriede Jelinek's play "Ulrike Maria Stuart."
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The taz tells how the Transylvanian city of Sibiu became the next European Capital of Culture. Religious studies professor Karl-Heinz Ohlig explains how Islam started as a Christian sect. Russian filmmaker Andrei Nekrasov relates the dangers of his country's new cool extreme nationalism. Najem Wali praises Orhan Pamuk's new book "Istanbul", American author Jonathan Littell defends his novel "Les bienveillantes" and no one knows what to make of Thomas Pynchon's toaster-size "Against the Day."
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A conference on restitution claims of art stolen during the Nazi era is opening in Berlin today. German museums are accused of slovenliness in this area. George Soros explains that he wouldn't be so blunt as to compare Bush directly with Hitler. Indian literature is breathing a new freedom. And Hungarian football legend Ferenc Puskas, prodigious belly and all, has died.
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The NZZ sees Al Jazeera's English news service as part of a fight for world media dominance. The SZ pities pedestrians going through Norman Foster's newly train station in Dresden. Former culture minister Julian Nida-Rümelin laments the state of American humanities. And Pekka Vapaavuori's Eesti Kunstimuuseum in Tallinn houses treasures of Estonian 20th century art.
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Ralf Dahrendorf is annoyed by Germany's insatiable interest in its own Nazi past. Art activist Hans Haacke explains why he would rather be critical of Bush than Islam. Die Zeit bids a fond farewell to the old James Bond. Matthias Luthardt's debut feature "Pingpong" offers a glimpse into the emptiness of German suburbia.
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Hungarian author Peter Zilahy sees the traffic jammed German autobahn as a metaphor for Europe: no speed limit, going nowhere. New York art collector Ronald S. Lauder suggests that Germany could learn a thing or two from American museums. The Berlin School of film takes an ethnographic look at the world. And Wolf Biermann at 70 is still viewed sceptically by what considers itself to be the real Left.
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Singer songwriter Wolf Biermann calculates that with 20 times more informers than in the Nazi era, the GDR must have had correspondingly many people worth informing on. The SZ dedicates two pieces to the horrific beauty of Gazprom City outside Saint Petersburg. And Nikolaus Geyrhalter's "Our daily Bread" takes the cake at the documentary film week in Duisberg.
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Critics are divided on the Neo Rauch exhibition in Wolfsburg – either the paintings have lost their edge or the artist has lost all inhibitions. Christian Thielemann, devoted to his Munich Philharmoniker, is tired of Germany's idolatry of Berlin's Unter den Linden opera. Frankfurt's new film festival has the potential to offer something other than superfluous glamour. And a portrait of artist Jörg Immendorff from the central command of his wheelchair.
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The taz asks, can both of Saddam's bodies be executed? Civil-rights activist Wolfgang Templin wonders how much he should hate Markus Wolf, the deceased East German spy master. Aging Autodestructive artist Gustav Mezger describes his toxic concepts. The SZ takes a liking to Guy Maddin's film about a lady with beer-filled legs. And compared with their muckraking American counterparts, Swiss seniors' magazines are tame indeed.
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Poet Durs Grünbein remembers Pier Paolo Pasolini's non-codified, poetic despair. Jürgen Habermas has harsh words for Germany's feel-good patriotism and flagging European integration. In China, authors Ingo Schulze, Ilija Trojanow, Jakob Hein and Juli Zeh compare notes on life post-1989. Benin artist Romuald Hazoume explains why he doesn't sell in Africa. And Iraqi writer Najem Wali discusses the new wave of sympathy for Saddam Hussein.
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Berlin's mayor and self-appointed cultural senator, Klaus Wowereit, is still the focus of the feuilletons. Would someone like him support someone like Sasha Waltz? An exhibition in Frankfurt shows how Picasso used the theatre for self-promotion. And composer Bernhard Lang discusses the negative theology in his new opera "I Hate Mozart."
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Feuilleton feathers are ruffled by the decision of Berlin's mayor, Klaus Wowereit, to scrap the position of Cultural Senator and do the job himself. Orhan Pamuk wants to be seen as a writer, period, writing about love and other matters, period. And the Open Mike competition for young literary talent in Berlin was a catwalk for professionalism.
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Mario Vargas Llosa defends the "Enlightenment fundamentalists" targeted by Ian Buruma in his new book. Writer György Dalos laments that the Hungarian Uprising commemorations are being overshadowed by vulgar political wrangling. Magazine publisher Karl-Heinz Bohrer extrapolates gaily from the Günter Grass affair to tell us what good Nazis the 68er generation would have been. And a theatre-version of the first volume of Karl Marx' "Capital" isn't even remotely dull.
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The NZZ reports that Microsoft has just about won the battle for the living room, while Jean Paul Gautier, in his 30 years as fashion designer, has mastered sexy chic. Norwegian playwright Jan Fosse sings the praises of small empty sounds. And Italian author Roberto Saviano's fictional accounts of the mafia were so accurate that he has had to go into hiding.
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The Berliner Philharmoniker under Sir Simon Rattle still doesn't live up to the days of musical guru Claudio Abbado, writes Die Welt. The SZ has seen a collection of modern Soviet art in Uzbekistan, which during the Soviet era was about as welcome as a love letter from Leon Trotzky. And at the millionaire's fair in Moscow you can smoke gold-leaf cigarettes for a hundred dollars apiece.
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Bassist William Parker talks about the universalist revolutionary holy healing music he'll be playing at Berlin's Total Music Meeting. Die Zeit praises the Turkish German women behind the new headscarf debate. And at Frankfurt's Schirn Kunsthalle "Anonymous" offers resistance to intellectual barbarism by dropping any mention of works or artists, while "I like America" plays with the Germans' image of the Wild West.
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