Impulse Theater Festival Announces 2021 Lineup

With this year's selection, the Impulse Theater Festival has adopted a special approach. By doing so the festival seeks to counteract the planning uncertainties and financial worries to which artists are currently exposed:

It is only possible to definitely invite those productions which have been selected that can also be realised under the public health regulations in force at the time of the festival. If a work has been selected but cannot be presented, the artists will receive a sum of prize money.

The festival runs 2-13 June, 2021.

Check out the full lineup below!

Simone Dede Ayivi und Kompliz*innen
THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT

"Our children should have a better life" is what their parents said when they came to Germany - and then saw their children grow up with racism. This video installation brings together the voices of six people with different migrant heritages who provide accounts of generational conflicts, political struggles and visions of the future.
A production by Simone Dede Ayivi und Kompliz*innen in co-production with the Sophiensæle, Berlin. Funded through basic funding from the Senate Department for Culture and Europe and subsidy from the Capital Cultural Fund.

God's Entertainment
GGGNHM - GUGGENHEIM IN FLORIDSDORF?

An inflatable Guggenheim! Set up in a district on the outskirts of Vienna, this replica of the famous New York museum was both an attraction and an object of dispute. Here the group God's Entertainment presented memories that would not otherwise find a place in any museum and adopted a critical position towards art as a tool of adding value and city marketing.

A production by God's Entertainment in co-operation with engineer Thomas Herzig (pneumocell) and BMS Production Group. Funded by the City of Vienna Cultural Department and SHIFT - Basis Kultur Wien.

Phil Hayes
HEAVY HITTERS

A sad song, weak knees and a boxer's failed punches. Phil Hayes and John Rowley grapple with the question of when it is time for an ageing body to stop. How much blood, how much sweat has to flow? How much pain does it take for you to finally say: That's enough?

A production by First Cut Productions in co-production with the Gessnerallee, Zurich.

Samara Hersch
BODY OF KNOWLEDGE (AT HOME)

The theatre comes to its audience at home! Listeners are connected to each other and eight teenagers from Australia via telephone. In physical isolation a moving dialogue develops between generations - about intimacy, sexuality, fears for the future and grief.

BODY OF KNOWLEDGE was produced as part of Be SpectACTive! in co-production with the SICK! Festival, Liveworks Festival of Experimental Art and Carriageworks. The "At Home" version is a co-production by the International Summer Festival Kampnagel, Hamburg and the Zurich Theater Spektakel.

Tanja Krone and Friedrich Greiling (Mittekill)
MIT ECHTEN SINGEN

30 years after reunification Tanja Krone visits her home town in Saxony and asks: What was actually going on in 89/90? Krone and the musician Friedrich Greiling put the voices of her former companions together with a mixture of pop, rock, techno, disco and trance. A personal concert-performance that offers profound insights into East German realities.

With thanks to HELLERAU - European Centre for the Arts, Dresden.

Sibylle Peters
QUEENS. DER HETERACLUB

For a short time in February 2020 St. Pauli was made richer by an additional attraction: the Queens, a club exclusively for women who desire men. Treading a fine balance between art, sex work and care work, in 1:1 encounters with male performers its female visitors experienced what many people have painfully missed since the pandemic began: being touched.

A co-production with Kampnagel, Hamburg. Funded by a grant from the City of Hamburg's Elbkulturfonds.

Ülkü Süngün
TAKDIR. DIE ANERKENNUNG

Ten people were murdered by the NSU. Most Germans cannot even pronounce their names correctly. This is why Ülkü Süngün will invite the audience to take part in a language course. A temporary memorial to Theodoros Boulgarides, Michèle Kiesewetter, Habil Kılıç, Mehmet Kubaşık, Abdurrahim Özüdoğru, Enver Şimşek, Süleyman Taşköprü, Mehmet Turgut, İsmail Yaşar and Halit Yozgat.
An independent production by Ülkü Süngün.

Joana Tischkau, Elisabeth Hampe, Frieder Blume, Anta Helena Recke
DEUTSCHES MUSEUM FÜR SCHWARZE UNTERHALTUNG UND BLACK MUSIC

The DMSUBM is a space for Black culture, popular music and history. It houses a comprehensive archive of records, magazines, autographs and other objects that museums have rarely appreciated until now. By doing so, the DMSUBM is also making a statement against the prevailing historical narrative.
A production by Tischkau & Hampe, artistic collaboration: Blume und Recke, in co-production with the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt am Main, and HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin. Funded by the Frankfurt am Main Department of Culture, the Fonds Darstellende Künste e.V. and the Senate Department for Culture and Europe of the State of Berlin.

Julian Warner
THE HISTORY OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY AS TOLD BY FEHLER KUTI UND DIE POLIZEI

"Take my hand as we collect money for old cans," Fehler Kuti und die Polizei urge. In their stage show they scramble together music, theatre and theory. What emerges is a danceable, quasi-religious ritual that reveals the racist and capitalist power relations of a country in which there have never been equal rights and opportunities for all.

A production by Julian Warner in co-production with the Münchner Kammerspiele. Funded by the Department of Culture of the State Capital Munich.

Learn more at https://www.impulsefestival.de/en/programme/selection-2021.

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