CREATING ALTERNATIVES
A project of "THEATER OF EMPOWERMENT“'
sociotheatrical research & development at the BUTCHERIE ("FLEISCHEREI")
with focus on the topic of migration, integration and participation

Format I : “THE WANDERING GHOSTS” 1 / International Halloween Party

Opening: 31. Oktober 2007, LUX Restaurant, Spittelberg 1070, 19 Uhr

First sequel of a new docu-soap-of the BUTCHERIE
with world premiere texts by Camilo C. Antonio (PHI/A, commissioned work)

Concept/Mise-en-Scène: Andreas Pamperl (A), Sun Sun YAP (SGP)

Performance: Jella Jost (A); Maren Rahmann (D), Cornelia Scheuer (A), Jutta Schwarz (A), Sun Sun YAP (SGP)
Special Guest: UrbanNomadMixes Ensemble

„Cultural rituals such as Halloween, the telling of ‚Chinese Ghost Stories’ or the tradition of All Saints’ `serve as backdrop for a theatrical feast whereby dad relatives and `ghosts` appear as witnesses of lively pesonal histories onstage. They are real and/or mythological figures and as such part of migrant identity all too often repressed in guest countries.  Problems emerge when migrants must renounce their hiostories - sometimes full oa myths and legend s- when assimilationg into a new culture.  The proejct seeks to engage this isse with theatraical and palyful means in collaboration with migrants and artsits of the majority culture and put up it up for discussion in a humourous yet cirtical way."
- Sun Sun YAP, Andreas Pamperl

„To call forth and – in a way – ‚preserve’ cultural authenticity, my poetic approach isto enlist the power and strength of our ancestors in the theatrical process which resembles a shamanistic principle in order to dialogue with the past – in order tomake future possible! And to enhance modes of understanding and sharing between migrant and guest-cultures.”
-  Camilo C. Antonio, fragment for “The Wandering Ghosts”, 2007

„CREATING ALTERNATIVES“ [2007-2009] is a project of “THEATER OF EMPOWERMENT” - Two Year Cycle of sociotheatrical research and development [2007-2009] at the BUTCHERIE, with focus on the topic migration, integration and participation.  What is being examined in several new working formats are problems of East/Asian migrants before the backdrop of new migrants movements within Europe as well as their consequences.  It is the aim of the project to let migrants introduce their authentic stories and experiences in order to empower them and to enhance the understanding of the audience by giving both a platform of direct interaction.  Creative alternatives of a new intracultural dialogue are being developed and at once exercised in the sociotheatrical process. 

Since 2006 the BUTCHERIE-team of interdisciplinary artists is experimenting with new and unique working formats to give expression to the special problems of migrants of diverse heritages and cultures who are intimately integrated into the socio-artistic process (see also program on the pages FLEISCHEREI_mobil ad Special Events).

Work format 2 : “ENE MENE MUH”

„HELP YOURSELF, MARRY ME!“

Theatrical weddings rituals

at the 7th, 8th, 15th and 16th Vienna districts from October - December 2006
Curators: YAP Sun Sun (Singapur), Charles Ofoedu (Nigeria), Emel Heinreich (A/TR)
Texts by: Elfriede Jelinek, Charles Ofoedu & Magda Woitzuck
Performance: actors of the BUTCHERIE, migrants, guests

On the basis of improvisations, real biographies and oral history reports theatrical sturctures ans sketches are created – also using literary texts.  They will alter be completed in “teal time” with the audience/participants. The wedding rituals topicalize conflicts of migrants of different cultural and ethnic heritage living in Vienna today and their complex and difficult living conditions.  Current discourses on „migration&integration“ from the fields of politics, media and art will be engaged in the performance in visceral way.  Amongst the invited “wedding-guests” mingle the actors as well as local restaurant goers.  The theater frees itself from the constraints of its aura of art and regains its vital function as social ritual.  The “wedding-gift” counts as entrance fee.

December 8th, 2006 – 2nd intercultural wedding:
with African migrants
Curator/Mise-en-scène: Charles Ofoedu (Nigeria)
Performance: Uta Wagner (B), Nana-Gyan Ackwonu  (Ghana), migrants, guests
Place: Café Pause, Josefstädterstrasse 35, 1080 Vienna
Beginning: 8 pm
Meeting Point: Restaurant Tunnel, Florianigasse 39, 1080 Vienna
at 7:30 pm

free entrance/wedding gifts, African food

Curator/Mise-en-Scène: Charles Ofoedu (Nigeria)

Performance: Eva Brenner (A/USA), Katka Csanyiova (SK), Nana Gyan- Ackwonu (Ghana/A), Linda Iroegbu (Nigeria/ A), Kristin Matschiner (A), Alexandra Oberschneider (A), Charles Ofoedu (Nigeria), Josef Prenner (A), Christiane Schnell (A), Uta Wagner(B), MigrantInnen & Gäste

Charles Ofoedu (author/activist) comes to Austria from Nigeria und has been living in Vienna for the past 15 years.  He is a member of the Austrian PEN-Club, essayist, playwright and director, realizing his own productions with migrants. - His "wessding" will work with the means of comedy, satrie and persiflage in order to exacerbate and expose „topical questions of "migration" and "integration".  He is usind texts from his new play „Marriage on a rope“ (2006) and young African Dj-Music by DJ AZU.

The play by Charles Ofoedu, „I am a real Viennese!“ (2006), a commissioned play by the BUTCHERIE, is destined to be performed there in 2007.

With support by: Dep. of Culture of the City of Vienna, BKA-Kunst, District leader of the 8th Vienna District, Café Pause, Restaurant Tunnel, priv. private sponsors.

“Integration that is based on isolation and segregation is
integration that is based on discrimination“ - Charles Ofoedu

REVIEW:

October 13th, 2006 – 1st intercultural wedding: Asian migrants of the 7th Vienna district
Place: Restaurant LUX, Spittelberggasse. 3, 1070 Vienna
Curators/Mise-en-scène: YAP Sun Sun (Singapur) / Andreas Pamperl (A)

at 7:30 pm

Fragments from texts by Elfriede Jelinek ("Das Werk") and Magda Woitzuck ("Schicksal") will be used

Performance: Chung Yating (RC), Shuqi (PRC), Eva Lorenzo (E), Jella Jost (A), Jutta Schwarz (A), Maren Rahmann (D),Christina Haas(A), Yap Sun Sun (SG), Katka Csynyiova (SK), migrants, guests; Representatives of Ehe Ohne Grenzen, Asyl In Not, SOS Mitmensch

Sun Sun Yap (actress, singer) has lived in Vienna for 5 years.  Following her intensive work with the „Workcenter of Jerzy Grotowski and Thomas Richards“ in Italy and engagements in Asia and Europe, she is now developing her own performance work in Vienna.
 
People are getting married all over the world: for love or for economic reasons.
In Austria especially, the so-called „politics of marriage“ has a long tradition …   
Visitors will be part of a rich intercultural wedding offering an eight-course meal of Chinese-Austrian cuisine, in which the comical-tragic dealing with the “other” (and with “foreigners”) – of which no one is totally exempt – is breaking way again and again like an “illness”.