When you act, Schiller wrote, you are truly free, and this freedom is what everyone craves. And for director Leonie Böhm, the theatre is an excellent place to go looking for it, a place where you can act and experiment – live, together with others. Leonie Böhm has chosen The Robbers to find this freedom, the work with which young Schiller tried his hand as a playwright for the first time. Schiller’s play tells the story of the brothers Franz and Karl Moor, who suffer from their father’s lack of acknowledgement. The character of the father stands for many things: the inner critic, the audience, the mirror of society, or old principles. In an attempt to emancipate themselves, the brothers lose themselves in the woods and in their thoughts. “It’s my business what I want to make of myself,” exclaims Franz. Why should we not live by our own fictions? Why put up barriers? How do we get back to acting?

Together with the ensemble, Leonie Böhm takes the material of the existing play in an attempt to catch the soul “in its most secret operations”. Real intimacy without compulsion, your own rules, no fear. Get out of your rut and into life. Very freely adapted from Schiller.

TIP: Scroll to the bottom of the page in order to obtain the programme as PDF.

PREMIERE ON 23. NOVEMBER 2019

The music video “Apeshit” by Béyonce and her husband Jay-Z received 150 million clicks on YouTube alone. It shows “The Carters”, as the couple calls themselves, during a performance at the Louvre in Paris. The museum is the symbol of European art. Beyoncé stands as a living work of art and as a contrast to the past in front of the iconic Mona Lisa, showing us very clearly: in the background lies the past, in the foreground the present.
In Anta Helena Recke’s new work, this Eurocentric assertion of a universal history of humanity and art is also examined. Based on Sigmund Freud’s text “A Difficulty of Psychoanalysis”, the three “insults to humanity” which he pinpointed – the realisation that we are not the centre of the universe, that we are descended from apes, and that we have a subconscious that we cannot control – are extended by a fourth insult: the fact that we doggedly overlook the greatest illusion, the assumption there is only one humanity. Perhaps because this would be one of the most profound insults to the human ego.
The current global resurgence of fascist forces in phenomena such as “Men’s Rights Activism” and the self-confident appearance of white supremacy groups show just how deeply the illusion of white male humanity is anchored in the white body. White humanity is fighting back with full force – and is prepared to steep to any level, no matter how low.

"Die Kränkungen der Menschheit" is a production by Anta Helena Recke with the Münchner Kammerspiele. In co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg and Mousonturm Frankfurt.

Sponsored by the Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München and the Fonds Darstellende Künste.

This production can only be seen until January 2020.

TIP: Scroll to the bottom of the page in order to obtain the programme as PDF.

Anta Helena Recke is a conceptual director. She plays with genres of theatre, performance and fine art, staging productions in state theatres as well as on the independent scene. Her work deals with the marking and non-repetition of normativity and how to construct spatial experience for the audience that it would not otherwise enter. Recke’s production “Mittelreich”, which premiered at the Münchner Kammerspiele in 2017, was performed at the “Radikal jung” theatre festival in 2018 and was also invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen.
She was voted Young Artist of the Year 2018 in the Theater heute critics’ poll. She was also awarded the International Theaterinstitut (ITI) Prize in 2019. For her new production „Die Kränkungen der Menschheit“ Anta Helena Recke was collaborating with Anna Froelicher and Maxi Menja Lehmann.

Thomas Melle invites you to an evening lecture on instability. But who is speaking and what is his agenda? For “Uncanny Valley”, Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll) made a copy of Thomas Melle (“Die Welt im Rücken”) in the form of a humanoid robot. What happens when a person is copied? Does the original person get to know himself better through his electronic double? Technology is taking over all sorts of menial work, and is now being tested on stage: What if a humanoid robot performs the lecture instead of the writer? Would the robot become a performer whose facial expressions, gestures and language trigger empathy – but then, empathy with whom? With Melle himself, who is not there, or with the robot? Whose voice is heard in the Uncanny Valley? Thomas Melle gives up control. The humanoid robot takes over and asks himself every night: what does it mean for the original when the copy takes over? Does he become more or less invisible?

An English translation can be provided on request.

TIP: Scroll to the bottom of the page in order to obtain the programme as PDF.

It is estimated that about one million Japanese have withdrawn from society, and hardly ever or never leaving their room. They are called “hikikomori”. Many of them live with their parents for their entire lives. Many of them become violent when they can no longer bear the pressure to become a functioning member of society in the end. Many of them see their withdrawal as a reaction to social conditions: “I’m not weird, the world is.” What does the future hold?

Toshiki Okada’s new play “The Vacuum Cleaner” takes place at the site where the hikikomori withdraw – the home; in a cramped house with thin walls, where only the sound of the vacuum cleaner provides a little privacy. How can people live together like this? After “No Sex”, “Nō Theater” and “Hot Pepper, Air Conditioner and The Farewell Speech”, Toshiki Okada, one of Asia’s most prominent theatre-makers, is now staging his fourth production at the Kammerspiele. He has promised it will be funny.

Kammer 1/2/3

“Bring in the savage, bring in the loud, and fill our house with all the holy astronauts.” These lines from the song “Gravity” by The Notwist aptly describe our programme. For the fourth time, the band from Weilheim is bringing a variety of ensembles and artists from all over the world, a parallel universe of sounds, constellations and experiments rarely or never heard in Munich, who will perform on all the available stages of the Kammerspiele at the Alien Disko. The festival sees itself as a project to counter the global threat of populism, exclusion and isolation, the conservative dismantling of tolerant societies and the discrimination of everything that is, or appears to be, “different”. The guiding principles at the heart of Alien Disko have always been interdisciplinary music, non-categorisability and collaboration. Over the years, numerous friendships and collaborations have emerged from the festival, which will also influence this year’s programme.

The American experimental musician and multi-instrumentalist Ben Lamar Gay, for example, is returning to Munich, having enjoyed the Alien Disko so much last year and has added another three American musicians to his quartet. For the first time, Maxi Pongratz of Kofelgschroa is accompanied by Micha Acher from The Notwist and with a large ensemble for a one-off concert. The Tokyo based duo, the Tenniscoats, have appeared on the Alien Disko stage since its first round and this year they bring their brass band Zayaendo , which is modelled on the Hochzeitskapelle and Landlergschwister formations. They will also collaborate with other bands and projects at the festival.

As a rule, the Tokyo duo will be curating in the background all the time. So this year, we will be welcoming some artists from the seemingly endlessly creative Japanese indie scene: the electronic musician Tentenko, the experimental Asuna (performing together with Jan Jelinek), the superb Ichi, an extraterrestrial one-man-band – and the Eddie Marcon duo. Due to passport problems, the latter were unable to fly to Germany last year. Together with Saya and Ueno from the Tenniscoats and Markus Acher, Eddie Marcon will make up for the cancelled performance.

One of the programme’s highlights is certainly Sons of Kemet. Bridging the gap from New Orleans Second Line parades to current grime music rhythms, the British brass band around the saxophonist Shabaka Hutchins conveys political messages: “Your Queen is a reptile (…) your queen is not our queen.” The trio Big Joanie is one of the best-known representatives of a new London scene called “Punks of Colour”. The New Zealand musician Maxine Funke will play her fragile and beautiful folk songs for the first time in Germany.

In addition to Maxi Pongratz, three other Munich ensembles from the currently sensational local music scene can be found in the programme: Julian Warner aka Fehler Kuti und die Polizei present their album “Schland is the Place For Me”, which was released at the beginning of December, in a large band formation. Salewski gives a guest performance with his chanson project and gathers some of the greatest and most active representatives of the local indie scene on stage. On both evenings The Notwist will play short “Guerilla Shows”. After the regular concerts another legendary Kantinendisko will, of course, take place. In played DJ sets, Munich and international musicians will pass balls back and forth.

December 13 (Single Tickets here)

Maxi Pongratz und Verstärkung / Big Joanie / Shygirl / Salewski performs Chansons / Tentenko / Tyondai Braxton / Asuna & Jan Jelinek / Eddie Marcon / Jam Money & Aimée Henderson / Notwist Guerilla-Pocketband

December 14 (Singletickets here)

Sorry / Sons of Kemet / Ben Lamar Gay / 75 Dollar Bill / Zayaendo / Fehler Kuti und die Polizei / Maxine Funke / Ichi / Notwist Guerilla-Pocketband

Kantinendisko:

Friday:
ALIEN-SOUNDCLASH:
DJ Tenniscoats / Stefan Schneider / Joasihno hypnotic trash machine & guests

Have a look to our ALIENS DISKO #4 Playlist here.

Festival Passes can be bought here.