24 – 30 June: Cultural Events Online
Anyone for a blind date at the concert hall?
Or would you rather play it safe? In any case, it’s safe to say that the next seven-day lineup of online events offers plenty of different strokes for different folks, including discussions of the smart body-tracking clothing of the future and ethical questions about having kids, participatory theatre, extra-terrestrial readings and interviews with writers, various and sundry music, and a dance festival.
Wednesday 24 June, 6–8 pm
TALK | PALAIS POPULAIRE: “DER GROSSE ENTHÜLLER” (THE GREAT REVEALER)
UNWRAPPING THE LATE WRAPPER’S MOTIVES. A valley in Colorado, a bridge in Paris, the Reichstag building in Berlin – the recently deceased artist Christo was world-famous for his spectacular site-specific installations that involved wrapping major landmarks and landscapes in fabric. This talk is about the life and work of the artist couple Christo and Jeanne-Claude. What was their motivation? This and other questions will be discussed by Andreas Kaernbach, curator of the German Bundestag’s Art Collection, as well as Michael Cullen, an architectural historian who came up with the idea of the Wrapped Reichstag project, and art collectors Ingrid and Thomas Jochheim.
>>> PalaisPopulaire
Wednesday 24 June, 7.30 pm
DISCUSSION | INSTITUTE FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETY: DIGITAL SALON – CLOSEUP ON TECH
FASHION MEETS HIGH TECH: This tech talk on Wednesday will be closing in on the clothes of the future. We’ve all heard of smartwatches, smart wristbands and other wearable fitness-tracking accessories by now. So what’s next? Smart clothes: T-shirts that take your pulse, self-lacing shoes and “mood shirts” that read your emotions. Designers Layla Mueller and Marte Hentschel and e-textile researcher Malte von Krshiwoblozki discuss what emerges – and might end up in our wardrobes – when designers, software developers and AI specialists join forces.
>>> Close-up on tech
Wednesday 24 June, 8 pm
CONCERT | ELPHI AT HOME: BLIND DATE
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT? That’s what we’re hoping for on this “Blind Date” at the Elbphilharmonie on Wednesday. We can’t wait to see which musicians will be playing what music in the main auditorium of Hamburg’s new ultramodern philharmonic hall: as on a real blind date, the programme’s a surprise! But whatever’s in store for us, never fear: if Mr or Ms Right isn’t there yet, you’re bound to find the right video-on-demand or live-stream concert for you on “Elphi at Home”.
>>> Elphi at Home
Kulturama.digital
Looking to livestream international cultural events? Kulturama brings the global arts scene right into your living room, including house concerts live from Buenos Aires, puppet theatre from Munich and live acts from the Berlin club scene. Organizers and artists list their cultural events on the Kulturama platform calendar, which opens them up to an unlimited international audience. Users will find the dates and times of upcoming events and can make donations to support artists of their choice. Together and in solidarity through this time.
>>> Kulturama.digital
Thursday 25 June and Saturday 27 June, 8–9.50 pm
THEATRE | FREIBURG THEATRE: “GLÜCKSRITTER” (FORTUNE HUNTERS)
YOU PLAY THE DETECTIVE! Theater Freiburg presents Glücksritter (Fortune Hunters), a very special sort of play involving online audience participation. Five characters get tangled up in conflicts … and one of them ends up dead. Your job is not to figure out “who-dun-it”, but why, by questioning the four survivors and sleuthing out their motives. You’ll need a steady Internet connection, webcam, and a master detective’s steady concentration!
>>> “Glücksritter” (Fortune Hunters) (in German)
Thursday 25 June, 7 pm
LITERATURE | BOOK CLUB FEATURING GUEST WRITER TERÉZIA MORA: “DIE LIEBE UNTER ALIENS” (LOVE AMONG ALIENS)
BEAM ME UP. This event held by the Goethe-Instituts in Northwest Europe turns a book club with readings into a special (virtually extra-terrestrial!) experience. Next up on this virtual book club is Hungarian-born Berlin-based novelist Terézia Mora for a reading and discussion of the first story in her short story collection Die Liebe unter Aliens (Love among Aliens).
>>> International Book Club
PODCAST: “FEUER & BROT” (FIRE & BREAD)
Maxi (Maximiliane Häcke) and Alice (Alice Hasters) are old friends who get together once a month, on Skype or in person, to talk about social issues and pop culture, including everything from rap music and cultural appropriation to masculinity, feminism and female lust. This podcast is for anyone who appreciates interesting conversation and likeable voices or simply wants to hear more from Alice Hasters, who has lately been giving one reading after another from her book Was weisse Menschen nicht über Rassismus hören wollen, aber wissen sollten (What white people don’t want to hear about racism, but ought to know).
>>> “Feuer & Brot”
Daily through Saturday 27 June
FESTIVAL | SOUNDANCE FESTIVAL 2020
A KALEIDOSCOPE OF DANCE & MUSIC. This festival features dancers performing within their own four walls, in various public places or on stage in Berlin, Madrid, Istanbul and Tel Aviv. It may not be quite the same as experiencing them in person with all our senses, but these online experiments in dance and new formats are remarkable artistic works that are definitely worth seeing. The dancers’ bodies express and explore themes ranging from the relationship between mother and daughter and between seeing and hearing to the significance of one’s native country.
>>> Soundance Festival
Sunday 28 June, 12 noon
DEBATE | SCHAUBÜHNE AM LEHNINER PLATZ: “STREITRAUM” – CAROLIN EMCKE TALKS
MORE AUTONOMY also means facing more questions. Reproductive autonomy used to be confined to the question of whether a woman wanted to have children and, if so, how many. But artificial insemination, surrogate mothers and pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) have opened up new possibilities – and a whole new ethical can of worms. For starters, how do we want to have kids and what kids do we want to have? Journalist and author Carolin Emcke and philosopher Barbara Bleisch explore these thorny questions as well as the concept of “real” maternity and the role of the state. The event is part of Streitraum: Brave New Bodies, Brave New Humanity?, a series about how bodies and corporealities are changing in the 21st century.
>>> “Streitraum”
Dienstag 30. Juni, 20:45 Uhr
CONCERT | BKA THEATER: UNERHÖRTE MUSIK (UNHEARD-OF MUSIC)
THAT’S QUITE UNHEARD-OF! thought the BKA Theater programmers, who are now bringing a recital of contemporary music by the Sounds of Life trio into our living rooms. Claudia van Hasselt (mezzo-soprano), Susanne Fröhlich (recorders) and Meinrad Kneer (contrabass) perform works by renowned avant-garde composers like Meinrad Kneer, Pascal Dusapin, Hans Ulrich Lehmann, Peter Hannan and Violeta Dinescu, plus some of their own compositions and improvisations.
>>> Sounds of Life
Got Any Tips?
We’re always on the lookout for online events these days, so if you have any tips or leads of your own, please email us at: sophia.karimi@goethe.de or sinah.grotefels@goethe.de. We look forward to checking out your recommendations!