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The Berliner Festspiele will celebrate on 27th August

4 July 2011

10 years of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele 10 years of Artistic Director Joachim Sartorius 60 years of the Berliner Festspiele The Berliner Festspiele will open the new cultural season in Berlin on 27th August from 4pm with a huge jubilee celebration. The occasion for these celebrations is provided by 60 years of the Berliner Festspiele, 10 years under the artistic directorship of Joachim Sartorius and 10 years of the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, coupled with our delight at the successful completion of the extensive modernization work on the building. Since the beginning of Joachim Sartorius’ artistic directorship in 2001, the theatre on Schaperstraße in Berlin-Wilmersdorf has been filled with artistic vitality and experience. The former Freie Volksbühne was designed by Fritz Bornemann in the style of 60s modernism and opened in 1963 by Willy Brandt and its first artistic director Erwin Piscator. The clear, bright architecture of Bornemann’s building has provided the ideal framework for the many different artistic events which the Berliner Festspiele have presented over the last 10 years. Through the modernization works undertaken since January 2010, the theatre is now on the highest technical level and is a flexible performance space providing an optimum solution to the complex demands of international touring. The Berliner Festspiele present international festivals and programmes all year round in all artistic disciplines: MaerzMusik – festival of contemporary music, the Theatertreffen, the musikfest berlin, the international literature festival berlin, spielzeit’europa, JazzFest Berlin as well as the Berliner Lektionen, the youth competitions and exhibitions in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. The Berliner Festspiele’s exciting artistic programming is renowned around the world and is attended not only by Berliners. This tradition now extends back some 60 years. Because since the foundation of what were then called the ‘Berliner Festwochen’ in 1951, the Berliner Festspiele have influenced the cultural life of the city, bringing distinguished artists and international productions to Berlin, facilitating a cultural bridge between East and West during the time of the wall, shaping the celebrations of reunification in 1990, of twenty years after the fall of the wall, the city’s 750th birthday and much more. The jubilee celebrations on 27th August will open in keeping with the tradition of the Berliner Festspiele’s summer festivities with a great fanfare on the square outside the theatre. Through the afternoon and the whole of the evening there will be rich programme of concerts, readings, theatre, conversations and tours on all the many stages, in the garden, the box office foyer and in the depths of the theatre. The festival programme includes the dance company MAU led by the Samoan choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, the Bolivian ‘Orquesta Experimental de Instrumentos Nativos’, the ‘Capital Dance Orchestra’ with the singers Lisa Bassenge and Simon Marlow, jazz musicians Nils Landgren and Kalle Kalima, the writer Herta Müller and many more. The centrepiece of the jubilee celebrations is the act of celebration itself with speeches by Joachim Sartorius and Peter Raue, Chair of our Patrons, a laudation by Thomas Kapielski and a musical programme from the musikFabrik. The ‘Berliner Festspiele Book’ will be published to mark the jubilee celebrations. It summarises the last ten years of artistic endeavour in workds and pictures and brings together exciting essays by; Peter von Becker, Khesrau Behroz, Kerstin Decker, Sigbert Gebert, Heiko Michael Hartmann, Wolf Kampmann, Michael Naumann, Bernd Neumann, Moritz Rinke, Joachim Sartorius, Habakuk Traber, Henning Wagenbreth and others. The book costs 18.00 Euro. Related links and documents: • press release The Berliner Festspiele will celebrate on 27th AugustBerliner Festspiele Jubliee