Symposium 2018: City Stages Spoils – Performing Arts in Public Spaces

In cooperation with Bundesverband Theater im Öffentlichen Raum e.V. (the German Federal Association for Theater in Public Space), the Performing Arts Program of LAFT Berlin is hosting a symposium in which the current developments in the performing arts that work in public spaces will be intensively examined and placed in context with the urban planning and urban architectural developments in Berlin.

Artistic interventions in public space, no matter whether they are temporary (dance, theater, performance) or permanent (visual arts, architecture) have direct consequences for the city and its inhabitants. New discussions in the social sciences and other disciplines help to find a contemporary categorization for these developments.

Over the course of the symposium City Stages Spoils, practical examples will be presented from the very diverse aesthetics and production methods of the performing arts in public spaces, also within the context of specific challenges, such as, e.g. generating an audience or in terms of spaces that should be "rescued" for artists in the city center by the members of the cultural associations. The current developments in Berlin's urban planning policy will be looked and the new book Darstellende Künste im Öffentlichen Raum (Performing Arts in Public Space) will be presented.

Schedule of Events:

11:00 am Official opening and words of welcome by the board of LAFT Berlin and Bundesverband Theater im Öffentlichen Raum (German Federal Association for Theater in Public Space) as well as the direction of ACUD MACHT NEU

11:30 am Opening presentation by Dr. Friederike Landau

12:00 pm Brief presentations: Examples from practice and art by Grotest Maru, Hysterisches Globusgefühl, Club Real and Studio Urbanistan amongst others

1:30 pm Shared lunch

2:30 pm Book presentation "Theater in Public Space" by Günter Jeschonnek

3:00 pm Brief presentations: Examples from practice and art by PENG! Collective and Rocco Zühlke (LAFT Space Coordination)

3:40 pm Closing presentation by Prof. Dr. Stefanie Wenner and Stephanie Zurstegge