The Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP) calls for the return of 3,300,000 Jews to Poland in order to re-establish the annihilated Jewish community. The movement was initiated by Israeli-born artist Yael Bartana in 2007 and has since spread internationally. It aims to create an atmosphere for a Jewish appearance in Europe. The Jews of today are not the same people who were expelled from Europe—the Europeans of today are not the ones responsible for the ethnic cleansing. This may be the appropriate time to unite again—and change Europe and Israel for the better.

The JRMiP is a response to these times of crisis, when faith has been exhausted and old utopias have failed. The aim of the First Congress of the JRMiP is to ultimately formulate the concrete platform of the movement and collectively imagine the future. The three-day long gathering departs from a letter of the late leader of the movement, Sławomir Sierakowski, found after his assassination, and considers the following questions:

- What should be changed in the EU to welcome the Other?
- What should be changed in Poland to become part of the revived EU?
- What should be changed in Israel to become part of the Middle East?

For the first time since its foundation, JRMiP members assemble, joined by international speakers, to reflect upon particular demands. The movement needs all of you who sympathize with the issues of different Diasporas in general.

Watch the official promo video here.

First International Congress of the Jewish Renaissance Movement in Poland (JRMiP) in Berlin
May 11 – 13, 2012
Daily from 3 – 10.30 pm
Hebbel am Ufer – HAU 1 , Stresemannstrasse 29, 10963 Berlin
In the frame of the 7th Berlin Biennale
More Information on the Congress / Program / Tickets

Medea is a project directed by Dimitris Papaioannou with the team of Mesa Project. As Die Walküre by Wagner, their work lasts six hours, from 17.30 till 23.30. The exciting point of this project is that, as an audience, one may come and go whenever s/he wants, create her/his own composition by choosing when and from which seat to watch. Besides the outstanding stage and lighting design, costumes and the choreography are breathtaking. Unfortunately, in order to see them, one must go to Athens.

Detectives Jimmy McNulty and Lester Freamon who love each other’s company are re-united as Iago and Othello at Sheffield Crucible from 15 September to 15 October.

I stumbled across the brilliant theatre group of sorts, Improv Everywhere, the other day and was pretty amazed – founded in 2001 in New York, they’ve been staging undercover performances in public for a decade now, ranging from spontaneous musicals in supermarkets to gathering thousands of people to do weird things according to instructions given by mp3 to public installations and interferences prompting a reaction.

It works along the classic hidden camera set-up, in a way, but without the glee and the schadenfreude, just a good sense of humour and the aim to make an ordinary moment, well, less ordinary. It’s interactive in the literal, analogue sense, it’s surprising and it’s utterly charming.

The British experimental theatre company COMPLICITE was founded in 1983 by Simon McBurney, Annabel Arden, and Marcello Magni. The company’s work – usually created jointly by the performers and directors – combines realistic and stylized acting with narrative text, movement, music, and visual art. Their early shows were regarded as quite anarchic and 27 years later they they experiment in all directions – this autumn the company puts on their first opera.

In an interview in today’s online edition of The Guardian McBurney talks about his group’s productions, his experiences with Al Pacino and how he directed the 2008 production of All My Sons by Arthur Miller at Schoenfeld Theatre, which marked the Broadway debut of Katie Holmes (aka Mrs Tom Cruise).

If you’re in London this autumn try to get tickets to one of the three shows that they’re putting on: A Disappearing Number (until September 25 2010, Novello Theatre), Shun-kin (Barbican, 4 – 13 November 2010) and A Dog’s Heart (ENO at London Coliseum, November 20 – December 4, 2010).

It wasn’t until yesterday I found out why: for the time of the summer holidays, Volksbühne invited OSA – the Office for Subversive Architecture, a practice that seems rather like a network of ideas, meddling in as many media as they have offices across Europe – for a public installation while the theatre was closed. OSA added five replica columns to the already imposing patio, literally excluding the audience from the building, as if to say, ‘It’s summer, go outside and play, there’s no one here.’

It’s yet another beautiful gesture by a theatre that is tireless in questioning itself and its role as a public institution, in challenging its audience, in experimenting with new ideas and continuously breaking new ground in terms of what a theatre could be in the digital age. There’s a lesson to be learnt here on how an old and venerable lady can stay young at heart.

‘Eintritt Frei’ by OSA is in place until August 28, 2010, when Volksbühne starts its new season.
A recommendation on the side: Moderat will be playing on September 28, 2010.

Volksbühne
Linienstrasse 227
10178 Berlin

Photography by Ulrich Schwarz

DORKYPARK’s newest production Oedipus Rex will premiere in Dresden this Thursday, November 19. Igor Strawinsky’s “opera-oratorio after Sophocles” is mise-en-scène at Festspielhaus Hellerau by Argentinean choreographer Constanza Macras, the set is designed by Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota. The productions by DORKYPARK are hard to describe with words: expect opera singers, dancers, a choir, a full orchestra and with Shiota’s atmospheric artwork it will be a truly exciting show. Dresden also offers a great local christmas speciality called “stollen“, be sure to try it out on your visit.