Berlin – While the world climate conference in Glasgow is still going on, the first climate refugee from Lusatia is already coming to Berlin. He travels along the Spree on a self-built ship, crossing the Oberbaum Bridge. He is standing in blue overalls on a glass greenhouse that is part of the installation. A choir has rolled out the red carpet at the East Side Gallery and sings: “Our earth is scorched, climate refugees come ashore!” But as a recruiter from the brown coal area, the boatswain replies: “Where do we want to live, where are the millions? You are ousted? We have space for you! “
It is a musical dialogue between city and country, performed as a play on the water in the middle of Berlin. The art performance “Stadtflussland Berlin” will stop at three stops on the inner-city Spree this weekend for free, on Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 4 p.m. at the East Side Gallery, at 6 p.m. at the Berlin Cathedral and at 7.30 p.m. at the Haus der Cultures of the world. But what drives the artist collective to such a project? And what does that have to do with the climate?
You could think that the project was motivated by activism, according to the motto: the good green city against the bad brown coal surrounding area, in time for the world climate conference. That is not the intention of director Stefan Nolte, set designer Hendrik Scheel, musician Bernadette La Hengst and author Paul Brodowsky, who form the “Research Practice” team that organizes this so-called landscape theater, supported by grants and foundations at state and federal level.
The message behind it is similarly nested and complicated as the structure of the choir, red carpet and boat at the dress rehearsal on Wednesday. The self-built ship is too late, so director Nolte still has time for a quick chat. “We deal with social and political issues, but more in a poetic way,” he says. “We are not a political action group, but a theater collective that poetically reflects topics, but also depicts them in a way that is full of conflict.” Aha. And what’s the topic here?
One ton of cement requires one ton of lignite
Nolte answered it with counter-questions: “How are town and country connected? What does the city have to do with the rural area over there? ”The Spree, as a river, is the connecting element. The artist collective came up with the idea during theater projects in Lusatia when they visited huge coal pits and places threatened by sandstorms, subsidence and contaminated groundwater. “These are drastic stories, but they have to do with the energy consumption of cities,” says Nolte. “We all somehow repressed this relationship”. Now the problem is being brought from Lusatia to the city.
That becomes clearer when the ship finally arrives. It is more of a raft that was built by the Spree: publik support group, which campaigns for “Water for everyone!”. Theater actor Heiner Bomhard is written on the self-made construction with the lettering “Lusyca” for Lausitz. He confronts the choir of townspeople waiting for him: “I come from charred, charred countryside, with holes bigger than Berlin. A legacy of the energy hunger of voracious cities that block energy-intensive goods like cement. ”One tonne of cement needs one tonne of lignite, he accuses.
City dwellers’ longing for nature as kitsch for a weekend cottage
At the same time, the piece also plays with the city dwellers’ longing for nature, who transfigure high-tech landscapes that have hardly anything to do with their original condition into weekend cottage kitsch. “When is it time to leave the cities, who doesn’t long for peace, relaxation and meaning?” Asks actor Bomhard the crowd on the bank, where more and more tourists are gathering. The passers-by become part of the staging and should also be able to ride along.
Berliner Zeitung / Markus Wächter
Wave for the climate refugee. Musician Bernadette La Hengst and the Statistics Choir wait on the bank.
The choir, which is the “Choir of Statistics” from the House of Statistics, musically enthralling led by musician La Hengst with electric guitar, changes its mind. He now sings: “Lusyca, you visionary emptiness! As I desire you! ”The ship casts off. The supposed climate refugee, who is actually a recruiter, continues down the Spree. Does every passerby who watch the lights, music and performances on the ship from the bank on the weekend understand exactly what he is seeing here? Perhaps one of the many misunderstandings between town and country is that art first has to bring the country into the city.
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