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Dear audience
The last time we addressed you, we were still able to announce the "soon it will be over" and thus the final festival. Now the festival is over and the last days are approaching: 5 days to go and the 5 years of our co-directorship with you at the Schauspielhaus Zürich will be over.
"The show is over" is the suiting title of the beautiful and spatially impressive video installation by Wu Tsang, Tosh Basco & Moved by the Motion (inspired by the poem come on, get it by Fred Moten and the Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin), which will be installed and shown again at the Pfauen in the next few days - the show is over.
"This is our stage!" claim the young actors at the largest theater youth club meeting in Switzerland, which will take place in Zurich again after many years from 26 to 29 June 2024.
This was important to us: the very last word should belong to the future. At the end of "Spiilplätz" and on the last day of the last season, on Saturday, June 30, 2024, the basses will be booming. And it will be where the younger generation has made its voice heard in recent years: on the Pfauen stage!
All those who believe that this will be the end of the story can breathe a sigh of relief. The doors and stages can no longer be closed, the future has long since arrived. And it will remain. Even if it is called Schauspielhaus Zürich again and the lettering on the Pfauen will soon be dismantled - there is no going back. The Schauspielhaus Zürich will always remain the Zchauspielhaus Sürich. And thus a place that is open to people who do not accept rigid boundaries, dogmatic attributions, bans on experimentation, or the refusal to stand up for a different kind of togetherness and a different kind of municipal theater. People who know exactly: an S can also be a Z, a Z can also be an S (and so much more). And who have long been living this as a matter of course.
So what remains? So much! In the institution itself, which has changed and been set in motion in recent years (today there is a compass, a mandatory sustainability report in the annual report, regulations to protect integrity, an external ombudsman's office and much more). Then there was the experience of a broad, open understanding of theater, in which there was room for a wide range of aesthetics and representations both on and off stage. This artistic freedom has resulted in a whole series of remarkable performances that have been widely recognized in the city, nationally and internationally. Some of them will continue to be seen beyond our time - in Zurich, for example (Nicolas Stemann's "Biedermann und Brandstifter", "Tambourines" by Trajal Harrell/Schauspielhaus Zürich Dance Ensemble and Leonie Böhm's "Blutstück"), but also in Berlin (Christopher Rüping's "Einfach das Ende der Welt" and "Gier") and on tour worldwide (e.g. "The Köln Concert" and "Gier"). e.g. "The Köln Concert" and "The Romeo" by Trajal Harrell/Schauspielhaus Zürich Dance Ensemble or "Moby Dick" and "Carmen" by Wu Tsang/moved by the motion).
Finally, the experience that a municipal theater can still be the talk of the town and is capable of sparking passionate debates (which may have gone over the heads of some decision-makers).
And of course your and our memories will remain. The final publication "Theater is Dead - Long live Theater. Zchauspielhaus Sürich 2019-24", which we recently published and which is now available online, could certainly provide further inspiration.
We are glad that we have been able to say goodbye to many of you in recent weeks and that you have also met the artists who have shaped the last 5 years. Your applause after the performances during the final festival was overwhelming. We won't forget that. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you once again for this and much more. And of course wa want to say: Tschau Zürich and goodbye, dear audience!
All the best to you!
Yours, Benjamin von Blomberg and Nicolas Stemann
Artistic Directors Schaupielhaus Zurich
2019-2024
Theater Is Dead. Long Live Theater. Schauspielhaus Zürich 2019 - 2024 - Limited Edition, now on sale! Available to order until June 27th via webshop and afterwards via Theater der Zeit.
Exuberantly sensual, internationally celebrated, open to diversity and beyond disciplinary boundaries, at the same time hostile, embellished and contested. Packaged as an alphabetical glossary, this final publication evokes the hopes and promises associated with the artistic co-directorship of Benjamin von Blomberg and Nicolas Stemann at the Schauspielhaus Zürich, represents the diverse signatures of the artists involved and calls for public debates on the reorientation of the Schauspielhaus.
So what remains of this attempt to rethink the municipal theater for the 21st century? Theater Is Dead. Long Live Theater. Schauspielhaus Zürich 2019 - 2024 does not provide any definitive answers, but rather brings together material that could be relevant for future attempts at renewal. The result is an artistic text and illustrated book that celebrates an expanded concept of theater and illustrates and contextualizes the works created in Zurich between theater, dance, film and the performative arts.
Theater Is Dead. Long Live Theater. Schauspielhaus Zürich 2019 – 2024
Price: CHF 30.- (Linen-bound hardcover)
Limited edtion!
After Bullestress will be the last repertory performance of the season and the artistic directorship of Nicolas Stemann and Benjamin von Blomberg, The Show’s Over comes back to the Pfauen stage at the right moment to herald the end of the season and the co-directorship. The video installation by Wu Tsang, Tosh Basco and Moved by the Motion will be shown for the very last time at the Pfauen from June 23 to 27, 2024. Admission is free.
Based on Fred Moten’s poem come on, get it and James Baldwin’s Report from Occupied Territory, Wu Tsang and Moved by the Motion created a film with the Schauspielhaus ensemble in the year 2020, in the midst of the pandemic. Wu Tsang's films unite documentary and narrative techniques with fantastical excursions into the imaginary, exploring hidden histories, marginalised narratives and the act of performance itself. In early March, she and Moved by the Motion made a film with the ensemble. Based on the poem come on, get it by Fred Moten and the Report from Occupied Territory by James Baldwin, the camera moves continuously between individual choreographies and movements and actions of the group, ranging from improvised music to ascents and descents on a Penrose triangle – a triangle that connects and separates the performers depending on their perspective. With Fred Moten's Poem, the film explores motifs of indivisibility, fluidity and watery land and mud, and investigates subterranean currents of resistance and the politics of (in)visibility.
