The Village Festival

Photos: Florian Model

The Village Festival
October 24, 2015, 2-10 pm
Theater Rampe Stuttgart

Participation has become a key term not only in the realm of political opinion making.
A utopia of solidarity and non-hierarchical participation, only seldom questioned, grows in between practices of liquid democracy, open councils, viewers’ conferences, and urban gardening. At the same time rural spaces are proclaimed experimental laboratories of a new communality. The vision of a new idyll of the countryside – self-determined, close to nature, in touch with the world – develops where office buildings are abandoned, where model communities campaign for communities of responsibility, where associations occupy old castles, where publicly funded art projects opt for collective modes of production, and where broadband networks help sustain communication. But where are the limits of participation, country commune and global traffic? We debate with experts of participatory strategies from the arts and sciences, we open up a theatrical excursion into rural areas of Baden-Württemberg (‘The Theater’), we present art which relies on the participation of its audience, and we stage an eight-hour village festival. The village festival is documented in the form of an installation which will become the place from which, throughout the theater season of 2015/16, around 20 outings to Michelbach an der Lücke are going to start, organized by Theater Rampe and hosted by Herbordt/Mohren: The Theater.

With talks and/or artistic contributions from: Ursula Achternkamp, Lorenz Aggermann, Judica Albrecht, Marcus Bergmann, Kerstin Faber, Anja Füsti, Kerstin Gothe, Gordon Kampe, Michael Kleine, Markus Krajewski, Gabriela Oberkofler, Ines-Ulrike Rudolph, Michl Schmidt, Sandra Umathum and Armin Wieser
Artistic directors: Melanie Mohren and Bernhard Herbordt
Space design: Leonie Mohr and Hannes Hartmann
Video: René Liebert
Assistance: Alida Breitag and Laura Oppenhäuser
Production: ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro
Technical director: Norman Thörel
PR: Bernhard Siebert
Graphic design: Demian Bern

A production by Herbordt/Mohren, in cooperation with Theater Rampe Stuttgart and the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, funded by the State Association of Independent Theaters Baden-Württemberg financed by the Ministry for Science, Research and Art Baden-Württemberg.

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