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THE ART OF STAYING MANY | Bitterfeld-Wolfen

Video still on the animated event trailer. Detail of green park with two colorful billboards. In dark lettering "Bitterfeld-Wolfen 14.06." and the OSTEN Festival logo. © Roman Hagenbrock

14. June 2024 | OSTEN Festival

The mobile theater truck stopped at the OSTEN Festival, which explored "the East" (Osten) as a landscape of change and became platform, discourse space, punk concert, subversion laboratory and venue for transformation experiences. Networking and practical strategies to strengthen artistic and resilient forces and resources met subversive practices that undermine claims to social normalcy. We werre delighted to have the truck officially opened on site by the Minister of State Rainer Robra and the Head of the Arts and Culture Department of the BKM Ingo Mix.

Impressionen

With their backs to the camera, we see five performers in the stage setting of "Paul und Paula auf der Suche nach dem Glück ohne Ende" (Paul and Paula in search of happiness without end), looking at the packed rows of the audience on a grandstand in the background. The audience follows the puppeteers' goings-on with amused and spellbound gazes. © Falk Wenzel
People discuss with each other in a two-tiered arena made of hay bales. Behind them, numerous photo galleries hang on a washing line - as well as a large banner with the inscription "After the NOW comes the new NOW." © Falk Wenzel
The Minister for Culture of Saxony-Anhalt stands in front of a microphone and gives a welcoming address. © Falk Wenzel
On an open meadow, surrounded by people sitting at long tables, the artist and activist Tanja Krone gives her workshop. In the background you can see an open truck, as well as a yellow brick building and trees behind it. © Falk Wenzel
Bright light shines out of the open gates of the Bitterfeld fire station, where groups of people have gathered in front of the building to talk. In the background you can see a large scaffolding, a kind of installation, on which "FRAGEN FRAGEN" is written in large letters. © Falk Wenzel
Six people sit in a semicircle on the brightly lit stage with their backs to the camera. A presenter sits to their right and speaks into the microphone. In the semi-darkness of the hall in front of them, spectators sit on a stand and on the floor in front of the stage. Other people stand behind them and watch the on-stage conversation. © Falk Wenzel
Concert by the Wolfen punk band AbRAUM: a singer with sunglasses and a microphone in his hand stands on stage, with the band's bassist to his left and the guitarist to his right. © Falk Wenzel
From fully occupied rows of garden chairs in an open field, the audience watches the scene of "Baggern", the performance by Studio Urbanistan, in front of them: three diggers take up position on the wide field in front of industrial plants on the horizon for their further choreography. © Falk Wenzel
View of the audience: the spectators of "Baggern" sit close together in packed rows of plastic garden chairs. Equipped with headphones, they follow the performance intently. © Falk Wenzel
Seven performers of the play "Paul and Paula in search of happiness without end" stand in a semi-circle on stage, with the packed rows of spectators in the background. They carry various cardboard signs in front of them that read "Food without restrictions, cake for all", "In love forever and ever, for justice, in peace" and "Checkout 1 - BILLA". © Falk Wenzel
A group of nine people are sitting around a garden table on a sage with dense bushes in the background, engrossed in conversation on red cocktail chairs. © Falk Wenzek
The artist and activist Tanja Krone stands in front of a group of workshop participants gathered at a table and gives a lecture with a microphone in her hand. The open truck stage with a monitor on it can be seen in the background. © Falk Wenzel
Ingo Mix, Head of Department at the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, opens the event with a welcoming address standing at the microphone on an open stage. In the background, the title of the event series can be seen on a large billboard: THE ART OF STAYING MANY. Nationwide forums for art, freedom and democracy". © Falk Wenzel

Friday, 14.06.2024

2 p.m. - 9 p.m.

Truck Time

Truck Time is an active and activating chill-out time and a place for constant discussion about THE ART OF STAYING MANY: come along, find out more about us and yourselves, exchange ideas - about fears, questions and wishes about contemporary history. On our journey through 9 venues, the truck will lend you an open ear and connect you via analog CHAT. And if you want to do something concrete, build DIY wind turbines with us - to measure together how and where the political wind is blowing.

  • Venue: Truck on the course
3 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.

Opening

With words of welcome from Rainer Robra (State Ministry of Saxony-Anhalt / Head of the State Chancellery and Minister for Culture of Saxony-Anhalt, CDU), Ingo Mix (Head of Department for Arts and Cultural Promotion at the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media) and Holger Bergmann (Managing Director of the Fonds Darstellende Künste)

  • Venue: Truck on the course
3:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

“Schön aufmischen! Eine Übung zu anregendem Wahlkampf” ("Mix it up! An exercise in stimulating election campaigns'')

Workshop by and with Tanja Krone

The performative-activating workshop invites all interested parties to explore how to stand for election and "how a stimulating (good) election campaign works. Grassroots movement with a difference."

  • Venue: Truck on the course
  • Language: German
  • Admission: Admission free
  • Registration: please register online
6 p.m. - 8 p.m.

“Paul and Paula in search of happiness without end” performance by DAS HELMI (premiere)

Inclusive puppet theater by Das Helmi and members of the Diakonie Bitterfeld-Wolfen-Gräfenhainichen workshop for the disabled

With its own very individual version of the most legendary of all East German films: "The Legend of Paul and Paula", Das Helmi sets out in search of where happiness may be hiding today.

8 p.m.

"Baggern“

Performance by STUDIO URBANISTAN

On a wasteland, Studio Urbanistan presents a ballet for three mothers in three excavators: a literal revolutionary deep excavation of social fields in which the question of the place of mothers in the (working) world is ripped open and standardized realities are ploughed up, tilled and turned over.

  • Venue: On the wasteland
  • Language: German
  • Admission: from 12 years
  • Especially suitable for families
  • Tickets: www.osten-festival.de
9 p.m. - 11 p.m.

HOLIDAY AM SILBERSEE

Concert with Wolfen punk band AbRAUM and talk about the price of non-conformity with AbRAUM, Tanja Krone, Götz Lehmann, Florian Loycke, Dr. Anna Lux, Hans Narva & moderation: Christian Tschirner

Even though their hit HOLIDAY AM SILBERSEE was broadcast on DT64, the Wolfen punk band AbRAUM remained an insider tip until their break-up in 1991. If you missed them back then, here's another chance: AbRAUM invites you to a concert and discussion.
Between sets, the question of how people who do not conform to standardized ideas were and are treated in the East will be explored. The relationship to the punks, who were not only attacked by the state apparatus but also by citizens in the GDR and who also experienced exclusion and violence in the so-called baseball bat years after the fall of the Wall, highlights a fundamental difficulty in dealing with the supposedly different. How can we relate artistically and politically to the sad tradition of violence against deviance?

  • Venue: At the vehicle hall and on the wasteland
  • Language: German
  • Admission: free

Registration and Accessibility

Day program:

Admission to the day program is free of charge.

Please register for the workshop “Schön aufmischen! An exercise in stimulating election campaigns'' by Tanja Krone at: https://eventfrog.de/de/p/kurs...

Tickets evening program:

„Paul und Paula auf der Suche nach dem Glück ohne Ende“: https://eventfrog.de/de/p/thea...

„Baggern“: https://eventfrog.de/de/p/thea...

„HOLIDAY AM SILBERSEE“: Admission free

Accessibility

Please note the barrier notices at the OSTEN Festival venues.