theater − music
| grande salle | running time around 2 hr 20 mn | presented during the festival TRANS(E)
French premiere
performance in German with French supertitles
thursday 22 march 2012 at 19 h 30
friday 23 march 2012 at 20 h 30
Lö Bal Almanya
musical piece
Nurkan Erpulat and Tunçay Kulaoğlu
In the early 80’s, Jean-Claude Penchenat, one of the co-founders of the famous Théâtre du Soleil, along with, among others, Ariane Mnouchkine and Philippe Léotard, staged Le Bal for the Théâtre du Campagnol, a musical piece without words, danced and highly theatrical, performed by twenty artists. Ranging from the Popular Front to the 80’s, we saw many of the important events in French history: the Occupation, the Liberation, the war in Algeria, the events of May ’68, all illustrated by the songs and dances of the period. The piece was immediately and enormously successful. A few years later, Ettore Scola, who adapted the piece for film, received the French César for Best Director and was nominated for an Oscar, as well as receiving the Silver Bear award in Berlin. Now, nearly thirty years later, the young artist Nurkan Erpulat, currently living and working in Berlin, whose creations take on the prejudices and conformists in German society, has chosen to re-adapt the concept and stage a German version of Le Bal. In Lö Bal Almanya, he retraces, with an astonishing power, five decades of Turkish immigration to Germany, demonstrating, with research and documentation at hand, that the “official” interpretation of this subject is a deplorable understatement. Onstage, the actors, all magnificent, sing traditional Turkish songs and explain why this history of Turkish immigrant workers must be re-written.
musical direction Tobias Schwencke / dramaturgy Tunçay Kulaoglu assisted by Marion Meyer / assistant to the director Paulina Papenfuß / set, props Justus Saretz assisted by Sebastian Simon / lighting Hans Leser / costumes Lea Walloschke assisted by Lena Buchwald / with Peter Becker, Melek Erenay, Katharina Koch, Tobias Schwencke, Muri Seven, Sesede Terziyan, Cem Sultan Ungan, Michael Wenzlaff, Mehmet Yılmaz
Production Kultursprünge at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße. With support from the Kulturstiftung des Bundes / Schering Foundation.
