Welcome Elsewhere VI. 

Since 2017 the “Welcome Elsewhere” festival in Bautzen has shown how theatre can help refugees become better acclimated to their new home and promote understanding between people of diverse backgrounds. In view of the growing number of racially motivated assaults and attacks in Bautzen in recent years, the festival intends to send a strong signal against hate and for humanity. The festival organisers have fostered a close partnership with the Thespis Zentrum at the German-Sorbian Volkstheater since 2019. The Thespis Zentrum was founded in response to this hostility and has since focused on promoting understanding through mutual theatre performance and the artistic exploration of personal stories. Amateur and community theatre formats play a central role in this endeavour. 

The planned festival in 2024 will feature a multifaceted programme of local and international theatre productions, workshops, readings, children’s programmes and musical performances. The theatre productions range from a guest performance by the Munich Kammerspiele (“Ха́та”) to smaller productions and plays which are being developed with the active involvement of Bautzen’s residents. For example, the Dresden theatre director Miriam Tscholl is staging a community theatre project that brings mothers and sons of all generations from Bautzen together. Independent and joint productions, e.g. “Der gute Mensch von Shumen” (“The Good Woman of Schumen”), are being planned in cooperation with international production companies and theatre collectives. The Kyiv-based PostPlayTheatre and the Agency for Safe Space from Hamburg have teamed up to produce an interactive theatre installation entitled “Die Wolhynien Geschichte” (“The Volhynia Story”). In an accompanying programme for school classes, the children will read and discuss excerpts from the diary of Anne Frank, as well as letters from Helga Goebbels and the pupil Albina Bakukha from the Donbas region.

Artistic director: Georg Genoux, Anastasia Tarkhanova
Dramaturgy: Yana Humenna, Halimeh Ibrahim 
Project coordinator: Silvia Petrova
Participants: Alexandra Babkova, Olga Bakukha, Evgenia Devidenko, Uwe Gössel, Viola Hasselberg, Den Humennyi, Boryana Peneva, Anna Shkadarevich, Miriam Tscholl, Milko Yovchev and others
Festival: Deutsch-Sorbisches Volkstheater, Bautzen: 25–29 Sep. 2024