Ciudades paralelas

For their festival Ciudades paralelas, directors Stefan Kaegi and Lola Arias have invited a group of artists to create artistic interventions at places that are common to every city – schools, hospitals, bus stops, petrol stations, pedestrian zones, parks, supermarkets, football stadiums, etc. The two directors collaborated with the artists to develop theatre pieces which transformed frequently patronized public spaces into artistic venues and encouraged people to see these places in a different way. Dominic Huber staged a play in an apartment building: the audience could watch and listen to the residents from across the street like detectives investigating a crime that was never committed. Gerardo Naumann’s factory workers took audiences on a subjective tour along their own assembly line. The radio activists of Ligna integrated listeners in a shopping centre for their performance of a “conspiratorial radio ballet”. In various hotel rooms, Lola Arias staged plays about a cleaning service comprised of mostly female foreigners who have to clean up after other foreigners. And Stefan Kaegi gathered all of these projects together for a roof-top performance. Mariano Pensotti’s La Marea (opens in a new window) is a model for this form of theatre work in public space. The Argentinean director transformed a whole street in Brussels and in Berlin into a public stage and attracted an enthusiastic audience which may not have gone to a theatre otherwise. The festival Ciudades paralelas took place in Zürich, Buenos Aires and Berlin.

Artistic directors: Lola Arias (RA/D), Stefan Kaegi (CH/D)
Featuring projects by: Dominic Huber (CH/D), San Keller (CH), Mariano Pensotti (RA), Christian Garcia / Velma (D/CH), Ligna, Gerardo Naumann (RA/D), Ant Hampton (UK) and others

Venues and schedule:
Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin, 17 – 24 Sept. 2010
Argentina, Goethe Institut Buenos Aires, 26 Nov. – 5 Dec. 2010
Poland, Warschau, 26 May – 3 June 2011
Switzerland, Schauspielhaus Zürich, 23 June – 2 July 2011