Wo kommen wir hin. Getting the Elephant Out of the Room
Kathrin Röggla in discussion with ...
... Frank Raddatz, a dramaturge and publicist
To carry out a literary experiment, Kathrin Röggla invites viewers to a series of talks from 21–25 May 2019, presented under the title Der Elefant aus dem Raum (Getting the Elephant Out of the Room). Her guests come from varied fields of political, legal and dramatic professions. She will speak with them about their work experiences in an attempt to determine whether problems in communication crop up on a par with the proverbial “Elephant in the Room”, and then she'll process this material live. Röggla uses the special features of the Akademie building on Hanseatenweg ‒ a venue that is a place of production, performance and artists' residences combined into one ‒ to delineate such sites in her performance.
In a series of talks meant to be publicly experienced, Röggla begins by holding a one-hour conversation with each respective visitor in the sound studio. At around 7 pm she moves to Hall 1, where she publicly transcribes the recorded conversation. And towards 8 pm the performance continues in the “Beckett Studio”, where Röggla extracts literary material from the transcript. During her performance Mark Lammert will carry out his work as a copyist and transformer of texts.
Frank M. Raddatz is a publicist and dramaturge at diverse theatres, including the Schauspielhaus Köln (Cologne),the Niedersächsisches Staatstheater Hannover, the Staatstheater Stuttgart, the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus and the Berliner Ensemble. Collaborations with Heiner Müller, Dimiter Gotscheff, Theodoros Terzopoulos, Einar Schleef and Tadashi Suzuki, et al. Currently a guest dramaturge at the Berliner Ensemble: Frank Castorf – Les Miserables (2017), Galilei Galileo (2019). Artistic director of international cooperations such as Mania Thebaia (Düsseldorf/Epidaurus, 2002) and Promethiade Athen ‒ Essen ‒ Istanbul (2010).
From 2007 to May 2014 he was on the editorial staff of Theater der Zeit; since then, Raddatz has worked for Lettre International, Berlin, where he publishes regularly and is responsible for the theater section. Member of the International Theatre Institute (ITI). Raddatz teaches at various universities; currently at the University of Greifswald and at the Ernst Busch Academy of Dramatic Arts (HfS).
He has produced numerous publications on aesthetics, literature and theatre; most recently Republik Castorf (Alexander Verlag, 2016). He is the current author of the four-volume series Performative Strategien for the Kunststiftung NRW, published by the Alexander Verlag, Berlin: Acting Cities (2016), Crossing Lines (2017) and Traumpfade der Kulturen (expected in October 2019).
The theatre section of Lettre International was awarded the Konrad Wolf Prize of the Akademie der Künste on 31 October 2018.
21 May: Heike Kleffner, a journalist and chief executive officer of the Association of Counseling Centres for Victims of Right-Wing, Racist and Anti-Semitic Violence in Germany (VBRG).
22 May: Arabelle Bernecker-Thiel, a political scientist and consultant for migration management
23 May: Ulf Bünermann, a sociologist and coordinator in the Berlin State Office for Equal Treatment and against Discrimination (LADS)
25 May: Patrick Kroker, a lawyer, affiliated with the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
A special event that is part of “Wo kommen wir hin”.