Burning Issues Academy

Round 1

14:30 – 16:00

#1 Henrike Iglesias’ Feminist Performance Bootcamp
In Henrike Iglesias’ feminist bootcamp, we will practise feminist work on feminist material and become feminist authors of our own feminist performances. What does it mean to go onstage as a feminist? What is a feminist? And what is a stage?
With Henrike Iglesias

#2 Adoption is also a solution
Working in theatre is not family-friendly. Nightly childcare, costly baby-sitters – and it is still legal for parents’ contracts to fall victim to non-extension during their parental leave. What are the current “best practice”-examples? And why has a protection against non-extension not made it into the collective work agreements yet? A debate about the necessary next steps.
With Barbara Frazier (theatre educator), Hasko Weber (chairperson of the group of artistic directors at Deutscher Bühnenverein), Katja Wetzel (chairperson of Bund der Szenografen)
Moderated by Felicitas Zürcher (leading dramaturg at Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus)

#3 Sex Power Money
What is the current situation regarding the structures in the theatre and the field in general? What advances have we made over the last twelve months? And what remains to be done? This mixed panel of reform activists and witnesses of everyday operations will probe deep into the current structures prevalent in the theatre.
With Florian Fiedler (director, artistic director Theater Oberhausen), Johannes Lange (actor, chairperson of ensemble-netzwerk), Hanna Werth (actor at Schauspielhaus Düsseldorf)
Moderated by Sascha Kölzow (dramaturg at Staatstheater Nürnberg)

#4 Luise, her Boyfriend and his Father’s Problems
Female roles, gender images and feminism in (theatre) literature. A conversation with authors about the future of roles and role models, of themes and forms onstage.
With Maria Milisavljevic (author), Darja Stocker (author), John von Düffel (author, dramaturg, head of Creative Writing for the Stage, Berlin University of the Arts)

#5 Performance as Witchcraft
Regarding theatre and performance as magic rituals is to take them seriously as actually occurring actions with a force of impact and action. They are a behavioural revolt and a counter-culture to oppose the passive nihilism of an esoteric “Love&Light”-movement or a retreat into aesthetic utopia – but only if they avoid remaining devoid of content in a mere quotation of ritual. In English.
With Antje Prust (performer)

#6 Did Someone Say Intersectionality?
A conversation about clauses, quotas and contact points against discrimination.
Movements like #MeToo and #MeTwo have shown that the culture industry is by no means free of discrimination. In the theatre, there have been initial attempts to produce fairer working structures. We want to talk about the anti-racism clause, the opportunities provided by quota regulations and the need for contact points against discrimination.
With Diversity Arts Culture and guests

#7 She She Pop
The name says it all! She She Pop are among the international figureheads of experimental feminist theatre. They present their current production “Oratorio” at the Theatertreffen and received this year’s Berlin Theatre Prize. In this workshop, performers Fanni Halmburger and Ilja Papatheodorou will show us how we can work as a collective.
With Johanna Freiburg (performer), Ilja Papatheodorou (performer)

#8 Time to Get Busy I
Cornelie Kunkat, representative of the German Culture Council’s project office “Frauen in Kultur & Medien”, will present facts, dates and figures resulting from the study “Frauen in Kultur und Medien” and talk about female empowerment and mentoring programmes and models. This workshop will be held in both rounds.
With Cornelie Kunkat (Head of the project office “Frauen in Kultur & Medien / Women in Culture & the Media”)

#9 Please Come in High Heels!
Until quite recently, many drama colleges demanded that female applicants prepare at least one audition role in a skirt and high heels. How do drama students perceive the gap between tradition and gender equality? And what situations will they find when they work at theatres after graduation? Marion Hirte in conversation with students and teachers about gender issues in the training process.
With Marion Hirte (dramaturg, head of Acting, Berlin University of the Arts), Susanna Rydz (deputy student gender equality officer, Berlin University of the arts), Alexander Simon (professor at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”)

#10 The Digital Age in the Performing Arts
Is digitalisation the hot shit of the new millennium? Or is it sexist, dangerous and the downfall of creativity? An interactive workshop on the digital realm, digitalisation and art, by and with Marie Helene Anschütz and Marcel Karnapke.
With Marie Helene Anschütz (director, blogger on culture), Marcel Karnapke (media artist and theatre maker)

#11 How to be an Ally – Practising Solidarity I
Applying an international approach, we want to unite theatre makers and work on strategies for acting in solidarity and new forms of community within theatre structures marked by hierarchies. A readiness to critically review one’s own privilege is a prerequisite for this process. This workshop will last for three hours, which means that it covers both rounds. It is not possible to take place in only one round.
With INITIATIVE für SOLIDARITÄT am THEATER

#12 Not your Gretchen, not your Geisha
Theatre maker Olivia Hyunsin Kim and film maker Sun-ju Choi will explore the background of why theatre makers with an Asian immigration history tend to be exoticised and rendered invisible in the German theatre. Are there structural reasons, inherent in the system? And if there are, what exactly are they?
With Olivia Hyunsin Kim (theatre maker), Sun-ju Choi (film maker)

Round 2

16:30 – 18:00

#13 The Boss is a Woman
Christina Gassen in conversation with female directors of various cultural institutions: Their topics are work, responsibility, challenges and the necessary steps that apply when the boss is a woman.
With Anna Badora (artistic director of Volkstheater Wien), Amelie Deuflhard (artistic director of Kampnagel, Hamburg), Nadin Deventer (artistic director of Jazzfest Berlin), Christina Schulz (head of Berliner Festspiele’s National Contests)
Moderated by Christina Gassen (head of division at the State Chancellery of Rhineland-Palatinate and co-initiator of Theater.Frauen)

#14 It’s all about Drama
Hamlet, Richard and Henry dominate the theatres’ repertoires – but where are the big female roles? And above all: Where are the female roles that are not conceived as dependent on a man? Why do theatres produce so few plays by women? And what use is the Bechdel-test to us? A conversation between female agents from several theatrical publishing houses about gender (in)equality in the field of (theatre)literature.
With Ruth Feindel (Suhrkamp Theater Verlag), Sabine Westermaier (rua. Kooperative für Text und Regie), Maren Zindel (Rowohlt Theaterverlag)
Moderated by Theresa Schlesinger (dramaturg)

#15 The Undefinable Journey from my Vulva to your Brain
Become visible, become audible, become tangible with the collective dorisdean. Rethink norm-bodies and give love. Say ahoi and move.
With dorisdean

#16 Hasta la Vista Craftmanship
This lecture performance by Barthelmes/Kaufmann deals with the pressure on women in theatre to justify themselves and with the issue of artistic freedom. Barthelmes/Kaufmann welcome their guest fish-sticks Elsbeth and Kunigunde in a new play by Renate Pollesch
With Sophia Barthelmes (director), Saskia Kaufmann (director)

#17 My Body is not an Apology!
Kieron Jina is a queer, interdisciplinary artist in Johannesburg and fellow of the International Forum. In his art, he specialises in expanding the boundaries of (dis)comfort. This queer performance workshop will explore Jina’s practice of immediate physicality. In English.
With: Kieron Jina (Fellow International Forum 2019)

#18 Gretchen, that Bummed-Out Guy with the Dog and his Problems
Female roles, gender images and feminism in (theatre) literature. A conversation with male and female authors on the future of roles (and their images), themes and forms onstage.
With Sivan Ben Yishai (author), Nele Stuhler (author)
Moderated by Paul Brodowsky (author, professor of Creative Writing for the Stage, Berlin University of the Arts)

#19 Time to Get Busy II
Cornelie Kunkat, representative of the German Culture Council’s project office “Frauen in Kultur & Medien”, will present facts, dates and figures resulting from the study “Frauen in Kultur und Medien” and talk about female empowerment and mentoring programmes and models. This workshop will be held in both rounds.
With Cornelie Kunkat (Head of the project office “Frauen in Kultur & Medien / Women in Culture & the Media”)

#20 Forming Gangs
A workshop by Pro Quote Bühne on the current status quo and the next necessary steps.
With Pro Quote Bühne

#21 Reality Check
What kinds of female characters has the theatre produced over the last two thousand five hundred years? And should we play women today? “Pretty When you Cry” is a wild mixture of samples from the dramatic canon by and with Barbara Colceriu, Aysima Ergün, Anna Therese Lösch, Milena Arne Schedle, Sarah Yawa Quarshie (students at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”). Following the performance, the actors Lara-Sophie Milagro and Katrin Wichmann give answers in a “Reality Check”. How to play a woman today?
With Barbara Colceriu, Aysima Ergün, Anna Therese Lösch, Sarah Yawa Quarshie, Milena Arne Schedle (students at Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch”); Lara-Sophie Milagro (actor), Katrin Wichmann (actor)

#22 Gender Sensitive Theatre as a Tool for Peace Building
What is gender sensitive theatre? And how can it be used for peace building? In a mini-workshop with the participatory theatre maker Natasha Borenko, fellow of this year’s International Forum and head of a research project of the same name, and her collegue Anna Osypova, we will raise this topic and our awareness of it onto an international level. In English.
With Natasha Borenko (theatre maker), Anna Osypova (peacebuilder, project coordinator in the field of human rights, conflict transformation, non-formal education)

Burning Issues Academy is part of the conference “Burning Issues”.