In its 5th edition, the transnational Lusatia Festival presents art experiences in 60 events.
The Lusatia Festival invites you from 24 August to 14 September 2024 to exciting art experiences at special locations in Lusatia in southern Brandenburg and eastern Saxony. The fifth edition of this European arts festival will feature around 60 events in 10 genres and eight original productions: from classical concerts to jazz, theatre, dance, film, literature and recitals to philosophical discussions at the Lausitz Labor. The festival is under the patronage of the Minister Presidents of Brandenburg and Saxony, Dr Dietmar Woidke and Michael Kretschmer.
This year's festival edition will once again focus on one aspect of structural change, with the 2024 programme artistically processing the inspirational word "Anderselbst" in a wide variety of events.
The Lausitz Festival 2024 will open on 25 August in Weißwasser with "Othello/The Strangers" by William Shakespeare, staged by the young director Marcel Kohler. Shakespeare's masterpiece "Othello", about destructive rage, and "The Strangers", a harrowingly topical text, become an immersive station drama in the former Telux glass factory. The audience experiences the story at several locations on the site and is ultimately confronted with its own desires and dangers.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a total of 16 string quartets, which illustrate his creative development from Viennese Classicism to Romanticism and which can be experienced this year at special locations in Brandenburg and Saxony at the Lausitz Festival in the order in which they were written. The Quatuor Danel takes visitors on a musical journey through Lusatia to the Schmochtitz Sankt Benno educational estate, the half-timbered church Gut Saathain near Röderland, the coat of arms hall at Lübben Castle, Branitz Castle and the Lenten cloth of the Zittau Kreuzkirche.
In Weißwasser, the legendary director Claus Peymann is staging "A Report for an Academy" on the 100th anniversary of the death of the writer Franz Kafka. The young actor Nico Dorigatti appears before the high academy as an ape to report on his spectacular transformation from ape to man. This tragicomedy is the first time that the Lausitz Festival has staged the film in the Lichtsaal of the former Telux glass factory. It is about the radical break in the life of an outsider and a forced way of dealing with a new world in an absurdly alienated society.
In co-production with the new stage Senftenberg, a theatrical boat trip across Lake Senftenberg with the Santa Barbara is on the programme. "Vineta or The Black Valley" brings legends, legends and life stories to light. What happened to the villages, power stations and systems?
At the Staatstheater Cottbus, director Yaron David Müller-Zach is staging "Am I the Other? Recital for Cathy". The performance transforms from a romantic recital with piano into an orchestral, multi-layered tale about the Other, in which the singer explores the familiar and the strange with great tragedy and delicate humour.
The dance section of the Lausitz Festival continues its musical dance theatre work with the new production "Stille Post - lauter Träume", which will be staged in Hangar 1 on the site of the former Cottbus-Nord airfield. In collaboration with local actors from the Lusatian dance scene, the duo Haggai Cohen-Milo and Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart explore the link between dance and music by creating common languages and shared rules.
Inspired by the popularity and avant-garde of gospel music, the composer Haggai Cohen-Milo arranges Sephardic melodies with his long-time musical partner James Shipp. "Diaspora Crossover" is a rousing musical mixture that will be performed for the first time by the EuropaChorAkademie at the Kulturforum Görlitzer Synagoge.
The question posed by the author Jurji Koch about the survival of the Blauracken in the Fehrower Spreetal also raises the question of the future of the Sorbs. In "Wortall oder die Farben der Mandelkrähe", three actors playfully explore texts that shed light on the experiences of various members of the smallest Slavic people between the Spreewald and the Lusatian Highlands in the Burgtheater of the Deutsch Sorbisches Volkstheater.
The topic of a reading in Görlitz, which the prominent Czech author Radka Denemarková describes in her newly published novel "Peníze od Hitlera/The Money from Hitler", is of lasting relevance, especially in the border region of Bohemia-Germany, including Upper Lusatia. Her look back at a chapter of suppressed German-Czech post-war history has already been translated into more than twenty languages.
The Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund is one of the most sought-after singers in her field internationally and is making a guest appearance at the Lausitz Festival in the monastery church of St Annen, an art-historical treasure on the Via Sacra. She has put together a programme that includes songs by her Finnish compatriot Armas Järnefelt, Gustav Mahler's settings of Friedrich Rückert's poetry, early songs by Alban Berg and the popular "Four Songs" op. 27 by Richard Strauss.
Jazz fans will also have good reasons to visit the Lausitz Festival again in 2024. The WDR Bigband with US trumpeter Scott Wendholt will be playing at the Kulturweberei Finsterwalde, and the Louise Briquette Factory will be hosting a surprise concert with Poland's favourite contemporary jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer.
As a place for debate and art, the Lausitz Labor invites its audience to reflect on their own irritations in the face of the socio-political situation in the medium of philosophy and in reference to the festival's artworks. It poses the question "For whom?" to philosophy and art. The Lausitz Labor has invited renowned experts from the fields of philosophy, sociology, literature, art and theatre studies to Cottbus in Lusatia for three days to examine the role of philosophy and art in society. The panellists include Carl Hegemann, Susan Neiman, Armin Petras and Richard David Precht.
This year's festival edition will once again focus on one aspect of structural change, with the 2024 programme artistically processing the inspirational word "Anderselbst" in a wide variety of events.
The Lausitz Festival 2024 will open on 25 August in Weißwasser with "Othello/The Strangers" by William Shakespeare, staged by the young director Marcel Kohler. Shakespeare's masterpiece "Othello", about destructive rage, and "The Strangers", a harrowingly topical text, become an immersive station drama in the former Telux glass factory. The audience experiences the story at several locations on the site and is ultimately confronted with its own desires and dangers.
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote a total of 16 string quartets, which illustrate his creative development from Viennese Classicism to Romanticism and which can be experienced this year at special locations in Brandenburg and Saxony at the Lausitz Festival in the order in which they were written. The Quatuor Danel takes visitors on a musical journey through Lusatia to the Schmochtitz Sankt Benno educational estate, the half-timbered church Gut Saathain near Röderland, the coat of arms hall at Lübben Castle, Branitz Castle and the Lenten cloth of the Zittau Kreuzkirche.
In Weißwasser, the legendary director Claus Peymann is staging "A Report for an Academy" on the 100th anniversary of the death of the writer Franz Kafka. The young actor Nico Dorigatti appears before the high academy as an ape to report on his spectacular transformation from ape to man. This tragicomedy is the first time that the Lausitz Festival has staged the film in the Lichtsaal of the former Telux glass factory. It is about the radical break in the life of an outsider and a forced way of dealing with a new world in an absurdly alienated society.
In co-production with the new stage Senftenberg, a theatrical boat trip across Lake Senftenberg with the Santa Barbara is on the programme. "Vineta or The Black Valley" brings legends, legends and life stories to light. What happened to the villages, power stations and systems?
At the Staatstheater Cottbus, director Yaron David Müller-Zach is staging "Am I the Other? Recital for Cathy". The performance transforms from a romantic recital with piano into an orchestral, multi-layered tale about the Other, in which the singer explores the familiar and the strange with great tragedy and delicate humour.
The dance section of the Lausitz Festival continues its musical dance theatre work with the new production "Stille Post - lauter Träume", which will be staged in Hangar 1 on the site of the former Cottbus-Nord airfield. In collaboration with local actors from the Lusatian dance scene, the duo Haggai Cohen-Milo and Margaux Marielle-Tréhoüart explore the link between dance and music by creating common languages and shared rules.
Inspired by the popularity and avant-garde of gospel music, the composer Haggai Cohen-Milo arranges Sephardic melodies with his long-time musical partner James Shipp. "Diaspora Crossover" is a rousing musical mixture that will be performed for the first time by the EuropaChorAkademie at the Kulturforum Görlitzer Synagoge.
The question posed by the author Jurji Koch about the survival of the Blauracken in the Fehrower Spreetal also raises the question of the future of the Sorbs. In "Wortall oder die Farben der Mandelkrähe", three actors playfully explore texts that shed light on the experiences of various members of the smallest Slavic people between the Spreewald and the Lusatian Highlands in the Burgtheater of the Deutsch Sorbisches Volkstheater.
The topic of a reading in Görlitz, which the prominent Czech author Radka Denemarková describes in her newly published novel "Peníze od Hitlera/The Money from Hitler", is of lasting relevance, especially in the border region of Bohemia-Germany, including Upper Lusatia. Her look back at a chapter of suppressed German-Czech post-war history has already been translated into more than twenty languages.
The Finnish soprano Camilla Nylund is one of the most sought-after singers in her field internationally and is making a guest appearance at the Lausitz Festival in the monastery church of St Annen, an art-historical treasure on the Via Sacra. She has put together a programme that includes songs by her Finnish compatriot Armas Järnefelt, Gustav Mahler's settings of Friedrich Rückert's poetry, early songs by Alban Berg and the popular "Four Songs" op. 27 by Richard Strauss.
Jazz fans will also have good reasons to visit the Lausitz Festival again in 2024. The WDR Bigband with US trumpeter Scott Wendholt will be playing at the Kulturweberei Finsterwalde, and the Louise Briquette Factory will be hosting a surprise concert with Poland's favourite contemporary jazz pianist Leszek Możdżer.
As a place for debate and art, the Lausitz Labor invites its audience to reflect on their own irritations in the face of the socio-political situation in the medium of philosophy and in reference to the festival's artworks. It poses the question "For whom?" to philosophy and art. The Lausitz Labor has invited renowned experts from the fields of philosophy, sociology, literature, art and theatre studies to Cottbus in Lusatia for three days to examine the role of philosophy and art in society. The panellists include Carl Hegemann, Susan Neiman, Armin Petras and Richard David Precht.
