Papas Arme Presse 4

Preisverleihung Westwind 2014
Plädoyer der Preisjury

Karsten Dahlem
Johann de Smet
Ute Pinkert

We are living in a quickly-changing society.

A society that changes so quickly, that,
on one hand, we are racing quicker than our feet can walk,
and on the other hand, we try to hold ourselves forced, to what we know.
To what gives us: security.
With a big fear, for what we don’t know.
With a big fear, for who we don’t know.
A fear that leads to polarity.
To ‘black-white-thinking’.
To be “un-nuanced”.
This ratcae of last decades, doesn’t only makes us doubting about ourselves,
but also about how we have build up our society.
It makes us holding on to what exists, what we know, to clearness,
to structure in the potential chaos.
But is this the goal of art?
Is this the function of theatre?
Isn’t “art” not one of the few places:
where we still can ask questions where others stop to ask them?
where we can be nuanced instead of explicit?
where we may instinctively féél something instead of understand it ?
where we can tell something, that in fact no-one likes to hear that much ?
where we can collectively experience something, without it should have a profitable function?
where we still can be what we wanna be, and not what others expect us to be ?

We fighted through the history, for our freedom through and withing the arts.

That something MAY go worng.
That something can stand OBLIQUE.
That something dangerous CAN happen.
That something can be discovered that we don’t understand so well,
but feels rught.
That something unexpected can suddenly appear, and makes us think differently about
ourselves, and another.
Individually, but constantly in a collective connection.

Isn’t it time, to bring back the arts -and specific theatre- back to the place which gives it’s
importance to society: biting in the ankles of our security.
Not as a comfort-zone, that feels “gemütlich”.
But as a constructive place full of new questions, and exciting unpredicted action, full of
danger but also wonder and surprise.
Of course we don’t find this alone: we need therefo
re partners. Artistic soulmates.
People who have the talent for wonder and surprise.
For who, experiencing something for the first time, doesn’t make them scared.
People who have still the naivity , to fight as a little knight with engagement for
things that don’t exist yet, and against cynisme.
People who dare to follow a road, not knowing where they will end up.
And especially all this, is what CHILDREN have.
Children born in the last decade, the so-called “digital natives”,
raised with one hand in the hand of their mother and father,
and with one hand stroking on a screen,
are so ideal partners to help us finding a way in this quickly-changing society.
By taking those children seriously,
also in how they are living in a contemporary world.
A life that is much more, than only yellow-gree-blue-red-and-curls.
A life that is, AS full of desire, of dead, of questions, of digital media, of new family-
structures… AS in the life of an adult.
By looking for a réal connection with children, where children are not only been seen as
“future audience”, but as active, sélf-thinking, sélf-creative, tolerant people. As partners, in
our artistic crime.
As members of the WESTWIND JURY 2014, we therefore wanna give the signal that “art”,
and specific theatre for the young ones, can be enriched and improved by artistic
developments, which get out of the comfort-zone.
Theatre that in it’s content or form dare to fail, dare to flow into different directions, dare to
the leave the main road,… and dare to carry the same joy, the same love, the same risk, the
same surprise for what we don’t know yet,
as children have.
We have therefore unanimous decided to give the biggest price of two,
to a performance, which not is floating from the head to the heart,
but flows from discovering, through surprise, through looking and seeing, through
experiencing, towards the heart.
Wir möchten eine Aufführung prämieren:

  • die dazu beiträgt, dass Kinder Dinge entdecken können, statt dass sie ihnen erklärt werden;
  • die Kinder in ihrer eigenen Lebenswelt respektiert
  • einer Welt, in der traditionelles Handwerk und Elektronik zu finden sind;
  • die Kinder in den kreativen Prozess einbezieht
  • der des gelingt, ein dunkles Thema auf intelligente und spielerische Weise zu transformieren;
  • die den Theaterraum nicht auf eine Theaterszene mit Performern reduziert, sondern Kinder zu einem Himmel voller Sterne reisen lässt und es möglich macht, dass dieser Himmel in der nächsten Sekunde wieder zu einem normalen Schnürboden wird,
  • die existenzielle Themen mit Alltagserfahrungen mischt
  • der es gelingt, die Beschäftigung mit Tod, Trauer und Erinnerungen zu einer spielerischen, positiven und hoffnungsvollen Aufführung werden zu lassen, die so viel mehr ist als einfach eine „Geschichte“

Der größte Preis, der Preis von 7000 Euro, geht an:
PAPAS ARME SIND EIN BOOT
pulk fiktion Köln
Koproduktion mit COMEDIA Theater Köln und JES Junges Ensemble Stuttgart
Regie: Hannah Biedermann