Archive

Symposium and festival on children’s rights in the theatre for young audiences

50 years of GRIPS Theater – that means 50 years of the fight for children’s rights! GRIPS Theater is celebrating its anniversary with international guest performances and lively specialist discourses. As part of an international symposium, we will jointly pursue the question of how existing children’s rights can be strengthened and implemented by means of the theatre in lectures and panel discussions, but also in practical workshops and performance visits with subsequent audience discussions. For a whole day, our two venues will be overrun by children and young people who bring their own perspectives to our stages!

Tuesday, 11.6.2019
12:00 Accreditation and welcome
13:00 Keynote speech: “Everyone has the right to participate freely in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts”. Children’s theatre as a human right (Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Schneider, Director of the Institute for Cultural Policy at the University of Hildesheim, Honorary President of ASSITEJ)
Panel discussion: Children’s rights in the theatre: Political necessity or pure symbolism?
Hosts: Philipp Harpain (Theatre Director GRIPS Theater)
Judit Costa (National Coalition)
Prof. Dr. Gerd Taube (Head of the Children’s and Youth Theatre Centre in the Federal Republic of Germany)
Eva Bartholomäus (theatre teacher) and a member of the Children’s Theater Council of GRIPS Theater
Prof. Dr. Jörg Maywald (German League for Children; Potsdam University of Applied Sciences)
14:30 Performance visit: NASSER #7Leben (GRIPS Theater) + interactive staging talk with artists
19:30 Anniversary gala: 50 years of GRIPS Theater

Wednesday, 12.06.2019 ASSITEJ workshop: How much content can art take?
10:00 Accreditation and attunement with the Secret Dramaturgical Society
10:30 Introduction and keynote speech: Children’s rights in theatre in the area of tension between content and aesthetics: International Perspectives (Stefan Fischer-Fels, Head of Young Drama Düsseldorf)
11:45 Four practical workshops with:
Robert Neumann (director), Lydia Ziemke (director, suite42), Daniel Wetzel (Rimini Protokoll) and Nadja Raszewski (choreographer, dance tangent)
16:30 Guest performance 1: For God's sake, Icarus! (Ahmed Ezzat Elalfy (Alexandria, Egypt) in cooperation with the theaterwerkstatt hannover) + follow-up discussion with artists
19:30 Guest performance 2: Jamba Bamba Boo (Maharashtra Cultural Centre (Pune, India)) + follow-up discussion at the bar

Thursday, 13.06.2019
11:30 Children take the stage! (Day of action with 200 children)
16:00 Performance Hovering (Kid's Club Rocket Now! / GRIPS) + follow-up discussion with actors
18:15 Keynote speech: GRIPS Children. On the emergence of a new image of childhood in the emancipatory children’s and youth theatre (Prof. Gerhard Fischer, University of New South Wales, Australia)
20:00 Work exhibition: Arrival is WLAN + follow-up discussion with artists

Friday, 14.06.2019
10:00 School premiere: Die Lücke im Bauzaun (GRIPS Theater)
15:00 Keynote speech: Cultural work in political fields (Prof. Johanna Kaiser, ASH Berlin)
17:30 Introduction GRIPS in Greece (Vassili Koukalani, director and founder of the Manufactory of Laughter, and Katarina Adamara, theatre teacher)
18:00 Guest performance 3: Stronger than Superman (Manufactory of Laughter (Athens, Greece))
20:30 Farewell party

The symposium is accompanied by the Secret Dramaturgical Society. 
Funded by the Federal Cultural Foundation, Berliner Sparkasse and mehr grips! – Sponsor of GRIPS Theater e.V.
In cooperation with ASSITEJ e.V.
With the kind support of Kulturprojekte Berlin

Artistic actions for the City – Digital

GRIPS Theater conquers the (digital) city artistically together with you. For the first time we meet in online workshops to make your demands heard loud and clear! What do we want from the city, from our surroundings, from the people with whom we share our space? You have the message, we will find your art form: You can expect online workshops in hip-hop, video and creative writing, guided by artists like the rapper Matondo, activists from Youth Without Borders and theater educators from GRIPS Theater.

Instead of the Podewil, we are currently meeting online for digital workshops and presentations. We publish the results of Speak out loud! on the GRIPS Blog!

GRIPS TheaterRat for the season 19/20

The GRIPS TheaterRat is a group of children and young people between the ages of 12 and 15 who will accompany GRIPS Theater for one year from November 2019. Together we watch plays at GRIPS Theater and other children’s and youth theatres, talk about them, make our own statements and publish them. This creates podcasts, videos, picture collages or texts.

In addition to all premieres for the age group 12 to 15 years at GRIPS Theater and visits to other children’s and youth theatres in Berlin, we will also see at least one film at the Berlinale, for example. At the end of the season we will present a final statement in the form of our own scene collage in the GRIPS Theater.

The GRIPS TheaterRat meets once a month, on Saturday and Sunday in the GRIPS Box on Hansaplatz or in the GRIPS Podewil. The theatre visits sometimes take place during the week.

No previous experience is required!

Workshop leaders: Wiebke Hagemeier, Friederike Dunger and Laura Mirjam Walter
Assistance: Anna-Lena Köster

Accompaniment and rides: The GRIPS TheaterRat takes place outside of school hours. The children can be picked up by our supervisors at one of four meeting points in Berlin and then brought to and from GRIPS Theater. Please ask when registering.

Prices: Participation in this project is free of charge for all children and young people!

The GRIPS TheaterRat is a project of GRIPS Werke e.V. in cooperation with GRIPS Theater, the Evangelical Johannesstift “Campaign to give children wings” and the Marzahn-Hellersdorf children’s and youth participation office in the Humanist Association of Germany. The project is funded by “Wege ins Theater!”, the ASSITEJ funding program as part of “Kultur macht stark! Bündnisse für Bildung”. With the kind support of Kulturprojekte Berlin.

The city of tomorrow was built 62 years ago. That is where we are right now. Whereby: Tomorrow could actually have come a long time ago, the city of tomorrow could have changed into the city of today – and we, we simply missed it! And if we work it out exactly: Yesterday could have become the present long ago. Or even the future? It would be time.

Together we dare to look behind the architectural backdrops of the Hansaplatz. In cooperation with students from the neighbourhood, an audio walk was developed which enables the square and its surroundings to be experienced from an unusual, more detailed perspective. The audience become actors themselves, discover the stories of the people, small and large interactions and thereby gets right into the happenings of this unique place.

Dates of the performances:

For school classes and groups:
Mon 30.09: 10:30 (individual seats still available)
Tue 01.10: 10:30 and 16:00
Wed 02.10: 10:30 and 16:00

As part of the Triennale der Moderne – Bauhaus100:
Sat 12.10: 11:00

Project management: Hannah Ehlers, Alexander Kuen
Dramaturgy: Teija Vaittinen
Technology: Joe Maubach
Coordination: Fabian Schrader
Documentation: Sophie Krische

“The Hansaplatz in view – a theatrical audio walk” is a project of GRIPS Theater in cooperation with the KONFEKT collective. The realisation of the project is made possible with funds from the Stiftung Deutsche Kassenlotterie Berlin and is part of the Berlin program of the Triennale der Moderne – Bauhaus100.