STADTFLUSSLAND BERLIN
Landscape Theatre, Episode 1
With STADTFLUSSLAND BERLIN we asked how the relationships between the cities, hungry for raw materials energy and the exploited landscapes at the end of the fossil age can be rethought, negotiated and shaped. The Spree as a natural connection to the Lusatian coalfield was the ideal place to present these questions in Berlin.
Our ship sailed the inner-city Spree for three days as a floating installation. With announcements and sounds, it carried messages from the charred landscapes of Lusatia into the city.
Daily 30-minute recruitment performances took place at three landing stages. The recruiter on the ship wanted to recruit pioneers for the subsequent landscapes of Lusatia. He called for people to leave the city and become part of the New Great Landscape Theater (NGLT), which can use everyone. A choir of city dwellers awaited the ship on the banks and sang about the unfulfillable longing for nature and the desire to start a different life. A dialogue developed between the energy-guzzling city and the charred land, between urban projections and the potential of the Anthropocene landscapes.
Each mooring created a special spatial reference for the performance: privatized Media-Spree-Berlin of the 21st century (Mercedes Platz), reconstructed Prussian World Heritage Site (DomAquarée), political Berlin of the government district and discourse for Anthropocene debates (Haus der Kulturen der Welt).
Photos: David Baltzer
STADTFLUSSLAND BERLIN was the staged announcement of the New Great Landscape Theatre (NGLT), which we want to design in the next episodes. On the day of the premiere we published the manifesto of the NGLT.
With Heiner Bomhard, Reemt Ulrich/Benedikt Riepe, Bernadette La Hengst and the Statistics Choir
Kindly supported by Haus der Kulturen der Welt und Weltwirtschaft and
fsr
