>>SOLIPOLIS<< FESTIVAL NEW HAMBURG

in cooperation with the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg

Hamburg Veddel

15.9-30.9.2018

SET DESIGN | FESTIVAL DESIGN

Mara-Madeleine Pieler | Sophia Röpcke.

Under the title "SoliPolis", from 15 to 30 September we will be exploring ideas and concepts of a "Solidary City" that are being discussed worldwide, together with initiatives, activists, art and cultural workers and other partners from the Veddel, Hamburg and Germany: for example, Paulina Neukampf is developing a play on working worlds and social retreats in the Veddel pub "Zonck". Meanwhile, the choreographer Sayouba Sigué deals with the question of ageing in different social structures in a dance performance. Based on conversations with stateless persons and people without identity papers, the young director Dor Aloni develops a production on the situation of the "in-between". Show and puppeteer Oscar Olivo choreographs a parade of puppets and the "Institute for Grey Zones" researches legal spaces in which solidarity can be acted upon. Max Weydringer and the neighbourhood group "minigolf productions" are designing a course that playfully explores the district and its issues. And of course NEW HAMBURG cannot be imagined without music, without food, without celebrations, without bonding togetherness.

In "SoliPolis" we take stock of more than four years on the Elbe island. We address barriers, structural problems, exclusions and worrying social developments that many residents of Veddel are confronted with on a daily basis: How does it feel to live in a district without a drugstore or pharmacy? How does it feel to have to go to the immigration office every month - for over 20 years? How does a surname have to sound to get a flat? Who determines whose work is worth what? With which skin colour will I be checked and with which not? - And we get inspired for the future: Under the slogan of so-called "Solidarity Cities", civil society and political decision-makers in New York, Toronto, Barcelona, Zurich and numerous other cities are trying out municipal policy solutions that already successfully place solidarity principles at the centre. For such a development in the Hanseatic city, the NEW-HAMBURG festival "SoliPolis" is just one of many events of different local actors.

Afterwards, the ideas for a new society will spread to the centre with the nationally organised "We'll Come United" parade and to the MalerSaal with NEW HAMBURG, where we will come together in October for a show of works.

Throughout the 2018-19 season, NEW HAMBURG and many other actors invite us to make the "Solidary City" a reality. Together we think about who has to give up in which places, who makes which decisions, where we have to act radically differently and ally ourselves: In theatre seats and on stage, on church pews and in the pulpit, in the citizenry, in the living room and on the street.