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fromFlorian Leclerc
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The “Politics in Free Theater” festival with around 100 events will take place in Frankfurt in autumn 2022.
The traditional festival “Politics in Free Theater” will take place in Frankfurt in 2022. Since the 1970s, the Federal Agency for Civic Education has held such a festival in German cities every three years. Now it comes to Hessen for the first time.
Around 100 events are planned from September 26 to October 9, shortly before the Frankfurt Book Fair. The main program consists of theater, performances, dance as well as interactive and experimental formats. The venues are the Schauspiel Frankfurt, the Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, the Naxoshalle and the Frankfurt Lab. There is also an accompanying program in which other performance locations such as the Open House of Cultures are to be included. Events in public space as well as mediation work in schools, among others, are planned.
For the first time, the independent theater scene is involved in the management and organization of the festival. These include the regional association of the independent performing arts, La Prof, where around 120 independent groups are organized, and ID Frankfurt with around 75 independent dance and theater professionals. The total budget is 1.3 million euros, which is largely borne by the Federal Agency for Civic Education. The cultural department of the city of Frankfurt is adding 375,000 euros. The ticket prices should be low-threshold, depending on the event, and sometimes free of charge for events in public spaces.
It is a political theater festival that is intended to reflect the diverse urban society and strengthen democracy. “We want to penetrate the capillaries of the city and initiate discourses that will be discussed further,” said Thomas Krüger, President of the Federal Agency for Civic Education, on Wednesday when he announced Frankfurt as the venue for the festival.
“Together with the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the international city of Frankfurt will send a nationwide signal by opposing the social rights, which are increasingly organized and gradually try to reduce the democratic principle to absurdity, open spaces that have to be used in a diverse and critical manner “, Emphasized Ina Hartwig (SPD), head of the cultural department.
Jan Philipp Stange from Studio Naxos sees the decision to involve the independent theater scene in running the festival as a “momentum” for the work of the independent scene.
The festival was originally supposed to take place in autumn 2021, but has been postponed for a year due to the corona pandemic. The dance and theater festival “Implantieren” by ID Frankfurt, which would have taken place at the same time, should be included.
Frankfurt is now hosting two major theater festivals within a short time. The city had already been awarded the contract for the “Theater der Welt” festival. It will take place from June 29 to July 16, 2023 in Frankfurt and Offenbach, including in the Mousonturm, the Schauspiel and the Museum Angewandte Kunst.
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