Transnational intercultural exchange project / Transnationales interkulturelles Austauschprojekt
For artists and students from Indonesia and Germany / Für Künstler aus Indonesien und Deutschland
Cooperation between theater: playstation e.V., Hamburg and Padepokan Lemah Putih, Plesungan, Surakarta
With / Mit:
David Chotjewitz, Katharina Oberlik (theater: playstation e.V., Hamburg); Dorothea Grießbach (University of Hamburg), Lars Maué (Theater Maué, Wismar), Suprapto Suryodarmo (Padepokan Lemah Putih, Surakarta, Indonesien), Turah Hananto (Indonesien) and others / und anderen
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The project:
The question of cultural identity, in addition to economic injustice, is today one of the main causes for conflicts worldwide. Cultures are threatened by fundamentalism and intolerance, and this is increasing with the insecurity of cultural identity, which is a question that is also raised in Germany and Indonesia.
The problem is even more important because cultural identity, once broken, can not be easily restored. It seems all the more important to protect and promote it.
For this purpose, it is important to distinguish what is actually culturally grown and what just customary formality, and to go back to the personal experience.
Because cultural identity is always the result of concrete personal experiences – and thus part of life story.
In this project we want to approach these questions with artistic means, by performance and theater-work.
Biographical aspects play an important role in contemporary theater. At the same time, they offer an opportunity to reflect and express own roots and own social situation in cultural work with teenagers, students and people of all ages and backgrounds.
The Indonesian culture still has theater-traditions, just to mention Wayang Kulit, dance theater and mask play. Until today, many popular stories are linked to this material.
There is also a traditional practice of what in the West is now called „participatory“.
Our project aproaches this and concentrates, based on the idea of mutual learning, on the development of tools for the implementation of participatory projects.
Artists from Germany and Indonesia meet, work together and implement a workshop for students, teachers, social workers and others. They get to know cultural techniques in theater and contemporary performance that can be passed on in the field of socio-cultural projects.
We explore strategies for the implementation of this socio-cultural practice in neighborhood projects, schools, universities and other institutions.
This programme is accompanied by public discussions and performances.The project links the participating students, artists and cultural mediators from Hamburg and Surakarta. They work together and at the same time get in contact with cultural institutions in the respective cities / countries.
The project is self-contained, but also provides a long-term perspective by connecting the institutions in Germany and Indonesia.
The aim is to stimulate and support the cultural scene both in Germany and Java by establishing international contacts and transnational perspectives.
General item are perspectives of teaching theatrical work as a means of cultural education and of making it more relevant for social development.
In Java, the project is open for students and Indonesian artists of all disciplines.
Padepokan Lemah Putih, a very active cultural institution in Surakarta (Solo), acts as invitation institution and will help to facilitate the project in Java.
Participants will work with performance artists, writers, directors and choreographers to get training in performance skills, dance and drama.
For this, we present questions which seem to be relevant to the given theme of cultural identity.
At the end of the second workshop phase there will be a stage presentation with small public performances. These will be clearly presentation of work results.