Baustellengespräch #8

LIERENFELD. Every evening from August 22nd to the 24th, a group prepares for the arrival of a gathering around landscapes that is equal parts factual as it is mythical, at the Rote Halle.
Three performers and three musicians gauge the land, breaking it up, listening for hidden shallows.

The soil will also be prepared for “Construction Site Talk #8: Geographies of the Commune”. Here, Laura Strack and Helmut Schneider meet. During a walk together, they take on the neighbourhood’s geography: With insights into geological history, encompassing traces of early settlements, to the industrial landscape and into the now. Where once lay the North Sea shore, artists presently use a former garage for their works. What does it mean to think and act from a space? What is the local aspect in a globalised world? And how do communal spaces form?

Laura Strack explored different formats of space-oriented practical communal creation in her 2023 book “farsi commune. Topographien prekärer Theaterorte im Europa der Gegenwart (farsi commune. Topographies of precarious theatre spaces in contemporary Europe)”. She now ventures to and in the Rote Halle, tracing for the landscape’s inscriptions into today’s work, talking about the relation of agency and imagination. Geographer Helmut Schneider works at the Oberbilk Geschichtsverein (Oberbilk Historical Society) and at the Düsseldorf Bündnis für bezahlbaren Wohnraum (Alliance for Affordable Housing). In his thinking, the accumulated sediment of the layers of soil connect with the historic stratum of a city district and the political demand for a city for everyone.

Start and destination within the Construction Site Talk will be at the Rote Halle. As always, we will cater to the culinary needs as well. The Panoramabar will be open. And we would like to invite you to the subsequent LIERENFELD performance at 7 pm.

The Baustellengespräche (Construction Site Talks) were created by Rotterdam Presenta during “The Studio” in 2023 as moments of hands-on learning by experts and to provide accompaniment to the building process of their mobile rehearsal stage. Now, the format continues as an accompanying gathering alongside the production of LIERENFELD.