There’s a new summer festival in town, and that town is Berlin. From June 27 to July 14, the city will host Foreign Affairs, an ambitious multi-arts festival whose program was announced this week in Berlin by the artistic director, Matthias von Hartz.
The festival, which is centered around the Fritz Bornemann-designed Haus de Berliner Festspiele (although events take place across the city), has a strong emphasis on dance and theater, but is notable for its extended focus on key artists rather than a broadly eclectic program. The central events are extensive presentations of work by the Frankfurt-based, American choreographer William Forsythe, and by the New York experimental theater group, Nature Theater of Oklahoma. Two installations by Mr. Forsythe, “White Bouncy Castle,†an exhilarating, giant version of the children’s carnival staple, created with Dana Caspersen and Joel Ryan, and “The Defenders†will be presented throughout the festival, as well as several films, and two full-length works, “I Don’t Believe in Outer Space†and “Sides,†performed by the Forsythe Company.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma brings its 2009 “Romeo and Juliet†(not the Shakespeare you know; indeed that’s the point as its participants invent and enact variations on the tale, based on their notably vague memories of the story), as well as its work-in-progress, epic “Life and Times.†This multi-part, 12-hour (so far) work will be staged both in sections and as a daylong marathon (meals included), and the company’s residence in Berlin will incorporate the creation of a new section, based on interviews conducted at a public barbeque on June 28 and on conversations during public rehearsals at the Hebbel am Ufer HAU 1 theater, where the company will be resident during the festival.
Among the other highlights is the the slightly unlikely choreographic collaboration of Boris Charmatz (conceptual) with Anne-Teresa de Keersmaeker (kinetically physical) in a duet, “Partita No. 2†to the Bach composition of the same name; the radical Spanish performer Angelica Liddell and her company, Atra Bilis Teatro, with “Yo no soy bonita†(“I am not prettyâ€); the Catalan theater artist Ernesto Collado’s “Neuva Marinaleda,†described in the festival brochure as a “social utopia†that the audience is invited to try out; Philippe Quesne’s “Swamp Club,†(“an urban fairytale set in the eerily peaceful environment of a lonely swamp peopled by odd creatures, insects and soundsâ€); and the Congolese choreographer, Faustin Linyekula’s “Sur les traces de Dinozord,†a continuation of an earlier work examining personal and political histories in his home town of Kisangani.
And then there is a double bill from Pere Faura, a Catalan choreographer who, the brochure tells us “worked with names like Jerome Bel and Ivana Muller before he went on to undress in front of audiences across the world.†The pieces, “Striptease†and “Bomberos con Grandes Mangueras,†(“Firefighters with Long Hosesâ€) apparently deal with the nature of the gaze and the role of the performer. (“Demi Moore, naturally, has to feature,†concludes the description.)
Mr. Faura’s pieces, together with the on-site Nature Theater interactions with the public, and a collection of visual and performance art pieces based on betting (one involves giving people rides in a formerly abandoned stretch limo), suggest that Foreign Affairs is a festival with a sense of humor.
