Othello c’est qui

Viewing the Outsider

For the second time the Theatertreffen has invited the winner of the Impulse Theatre Festival, a collection of the best of Germany’s independent theatre, to Berlin. Every two years Impulse presents the most noted productions produced outside the system of city and state theatres in Bochum, Düsseldorf, Cologne and Mühlheim an der Ruhr. Last Autumn eleven plays were shown “covering independent theatre’s entire bandwidth of forms” selected by the two artistic directors Tom Stromberg and Matthias von Hartz, for whom the aspect of international co-production is significant and prescient: “Unlike those working in city theatres, artists and companies are responsible for most of the production work themselves. Co-producing theatres such as Kampnagel and the HAU, but also the Kaaitheater (Brussels), Theatre de la Ville (Paris) or Frascati (Amsterdam) form the international framework to enable this. The increasing role of (international) co-productions – which cannot be overlooked in the selection for this year’s Theatertreffen – has been a natural way of producing in international independent theatre for years. This doesn’t just make international exchange easier, it also makes new and different ways of working and aesthetics possible. The future, in fact”.

The choice of “Othello c’est qui” for the 2009 Impulse Prize was made by the prize jury – Vincent Baudriller, Martin Berg, Dr. Christian Esch, Joachim Lux and Annemie Vanackere – for the “exceptionally intelligent way” in which director Monika Gintersdorfer and visual artist Knut Klaßen created “an evening on the theme of cultural difference”. The duo, who have been collaborating with the Ivorian choreographer Franck Edmond Yao since 2005, contrast Shakespeare’s character, who tends to represent the European view of an outsider, with an African self-image in a meeting of two cultures. “The myth of Othello is approached playfully yet seriously. Through the meta-level of the theatre with which the performance begins, the production leads deeper and deeper into the play between the characters of Othello and Desdemona, thereby getting closer to Shakespeare than the company might perhaps be aware. The evening is both politically and aesthetically and also sensually a genuine impulse for the German theatre”.