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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Sebastian Baumgarten has modernised Handel in Berlin. Sociologist Richard Sennett evokes surges of devotion in his interviewer while German bestselling author Daniel Kehlmann claims that he's been quite unproductive by the standards of past centuries. Islamic scholar Ralph Ghadban witnesses shifts of allegiance in Saudi Arabia. Compared to Princess Mona von Bismarck's wardrobe on exhibition in Paris, Hubert de Givenchy finds today's fashion painfully bad.
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The NZZ observes a general fear of the foreign in Germany, be it of birds or mosques. Viktor Erofeyev looks at Russia's winter of political discontent. Drago Jancar looks back on crimes committed by Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia sixty years ago. Myspace.com gives official proof that Madonna has 42,578 friends. And Frank Castorf stages Bertolt Brecht's "In the Jungle of the Cities" in Berlin.
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Viennese philosopher Isolde Charim has given up on the idea of a dialogue between cultures while Wole Soyinka suggests that such a dialogue can only succeed on a new footing. German sociologist Necla Kelek warns against underestimating the forced collectivity of Islamic culture. It looks like the Springer Publishing is about to launch Die Welt in Poland. Meanwhile Germany's Die Welt discovers the goldmine of a village priest in Rennes-le-Chateau: virtual requiems.
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For Peter Esterhazy, Hungary is known for its goulash and for driving its women prose writers out of the country. For Peter Schneider, the West risks nothing less than its soul if it cedes in the cartoon conflict. The feuilletons debate the merits of the Turkish action film "Valley of the Wolves," while the taz raves about Wisit Sasanatieng's Eastern melodrama "Tears of the Black Tiger." And the Stuttgart Opera brings an exquisite "Magic Flute" to Tokyo.
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Former CIA agent Robert Baer talks about doing his laundry in Beirut in 1983. Bernard-Henri Levy gets raked over the coals for his travel-and-tell portrayal of America in Tocqueville's footsteps. Oskar Röhler's "The Elementary Particles" puts male sexuality a step before insanity. The Tate Modern's Martin Kippenberger show is not the whole Kippy. And Europe desperately seeks an elite.
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While avian flu spreads in Germany, the cartoon virus hits a Russian newspaper. For director Nicolas Stemann the virus has even infected the German theatre scene. The SZ comments on David Irving's three year jail sentence in Vienna, and director Martin Kusej delivers a plastered and powerful version of Ödon von Horvath's "The Belle Vue".
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Actor Thomas Lawinky kicked up quite a stink by stealing the notebook of revered theatre critic Gerhard Stadelmeier and telling him to go to hell. Now Lawinky seems to be out of a job and the feuilletons out of space to accommodate all the discussion about freedom of expression. The Berliner Zeitung calls the Berlin Film Festival jury's decision "Salomonian", while the taz considers the competition standard to have been sub-Cannes. Plus Ralf Dahrendorf on Hamas' victory.
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Could it be that the cartoon conflict is the extremist reaction to the successes of Muslim integration in Europe? Iranian film director Mani Haghighi defends his right not to spit out slogans. Claude Chabrol's Berlinale contribution demonstrates the importance of smoking in film. A new batch of German magazines for the older woman write her off as a basket case. And a British Christian website pioneers religious jokes as a divine mission.
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For Robert Menasse, Angela Merkel makes Margaret Thatcher look almost Keynesian. After Denmark and Germany, a new cartoon affair is rocking Turkey. The FAZ is alarmed at the Turkish anti-American action film "Valley of the Wolves". Silvia Naef says there is no absolute ban on Muhammad depictions in Islam. And Nikolaus Harnoncourt wows Zurich with an early Mozart opera.
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German cartoonists write a letter of solidarity to their colleague Klaus Stuttmann, who is currently receiving death threats after publishing his drawing of the Iranian football team. For sociologist Wolfgang Sofsky the rioting Islamic masses want only the freedom to kill. Michael Winterbottom's "Road to Guantanamo" at the Berlinale has provoked both shock and awe. And 150 years after his death, poet Heinrich Heine is still Germany's most undaunted writer.
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The Tagesspiegel interviews a German cartoonist whose recent drawing landed him a string of death threats. The FAZ portrays media-savvy TV preacher Amr Khaled. Playwright Botho Strauß' comments in Der Spiegel yesterday have provoked a whole gamut of reactions. The press is also divided over Matthias Glasner's Berlinale film about a serial rapist. And director Pen-ek Ratanaruang tells us that bad English is the way forward.
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Botho Strauß describes the German "preparatory society" and how the cartoon controversy can help the alienated West. Elif Shafak says both sides of the dispute are speaking the same language after all: invective. Katajun Armirpur links to Iranian cartoons and Muhammad depictions. Alice Schwarzer fires the ball back at Necla Kelek's critics. And Olga Martynova is pleasantly surprised by post-Soviet Moscow and its monument to processed cheese.
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Günter Grass puts blame for the cartoon controversy squarely in the West, while for Ralph Ghadban it stems from the Islamicists' distortion of Islam. The SZ finds Berlinale opener "Snow Cake" hard to swallow. Snow and collapsing flat roofs are dwelt upon in overbearing detail and there's a round of applause for the return of the brown bear to the Alps.
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Daniel Cohn-Bendit smells hypocrisy in the defence of freedom of opinion. Satirist Daniel Kehlmann is doing his best to be unpopular but the Germans just lap it up. Coupe-Decale has Paris doing the football groove and Dream Girls are bringing glamour and grit to Berlin.
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Aljazeera head Wadah Khanfar explains that the Muhammad cartoon debate has nothing to do with freedom of opinion because the cartoons contain no information and express no opinion. Charlotte Rampling and Isabella Rossellini are looking forward to the Berlinale, which opens tomorrow. And Terrence Malick appalls the Tagesspiegel with his colonial soft porn.
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The FAZ reports that Sunni Muslims have it harder than Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Many see evidence of a clash of civilisations in the ongoing violence spiralling out of the Mohammed caricatures. Palestinian writer Hassan Khader is tired of being treated as nothing more than a religious subject. And the probing search for a nice German term for 'homepage'.
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Against a background of continuing caricature debate, director George Tabori sips tea while watching his "Waiting for Godot", Orhan Pamuk gives the Berliners a lesson on Hüzün, the climate of fear in the Hungarian film world shields Istvan Szabo from reproach and a critical buzz surrounds Lars Brandt's biography of his father and former German chancellor, Willy.
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German media errs on the side of caution, opting not to defend the publication of the Mohammed cartoons. One exception: a German Iranian student who's tired of double standards.
Necla Kelek answers an open letter condemning her book about forced marriage. Turkey gets a bad rap for its (un)freedom of speech. And Austrian playwright Händl Klaus delivers a murder mystery in which it's not clear who's dead and who's alive.
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The feuilletons are bubbling with the controversy over the Mohammed caricatures - one proposes building a reconciliatory mosque, another sends the bickering children outside to play. Lang Lang draws drool from Die Welt's critic, and Atom Egoyan admits that everything he's ever done has to do with his being Armenian. Plus, a colourful portrait of Iran's film scene and a bizarre moment in Germany's history as a country that doesn't know quite what to do with its immigrants.
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The Danish paper Jyllands-Posten apologises to the Muslims of the world for its Mohammed caricatures. Public sculptures are disappearing in London and landing, presumably, in scrap metal piles. Johnny Cash has a worthy double in Joaquin Phoenix and Beethoven inspires fear in the breast of Sir Simon Rattle.
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