East-West conflict: Lausitz Festival: Imported happiness accelerator | nd-aktuell.de

It is not due to early winter that there is still frost in the relationship between the organizers of the Lausitz Festival and many cultural actors in the region. Even in the founding year of 2019, there was animosity between the makers and the local initiatives, which has increased to this day.

Since the coal phase-out was decided, the name “Lausitz” can no longer be imagined without the term “structural change”. Of the 40 billion euros approved for coal regions in the federal Structural Strengthening Act 2020, around a quarter ends up in Lusatia in Brandenburg-Saxony. But a law to strengthen mentality to cope with this change with an expected loss of almost 9,000 jobs has not been passed. Culture should once again provide the glue, the support and the morale in this phase of uncertainty. And so, in 2019, an opulently equipped festival was installed in the problem region without much advance notice. Terms like “mature birth” and “UFO” are still used today.

The phrase “Hamburg Connection” persists to this day. For example, with musicians from the New Lausitz Philharmonic, the only remaining orchestra in the Saxon cultural area of ​​Upper Lusatia-Lower Silesia. The two former members of the Bundestag, Johannes Kahrs (SPD) and Rüdiger Kruse (CDU), who are known as promoters of Hamburg culture, also take care of the starving Lusatia. And so there was a four million euro budget from the Federal Ministry of Culture for the new festival. The Hamburg funding continued, however, because the Hamburg Symphony Orchestra, the third major symphony orchestra in the Hanseatic city alongside the Philharmonic and the NDR Elbphilharmonie, received a performance subscription in Lusatia, so to speak. Its director and sole director, Daniel Kühnel, who has been in office since 2004, also took over the initially nameless Lausitz Festival. He brought with him confidants from his Hamburg festivals, such as the pianist Martha Argerich and the cellist Mischa Maisky – world stars that could hardly have been afforded in poor Lusatia.

Does this reverse a development in the region of failed festivals? Nobody talks about the cross-border Europera project or the Dreiklang music festival anymore, the Silesian Music Festival has been trying to make a comeback since 2020 and the Lausitz Music Summer, which takes place every two years, has not developed into the magnet that was hoped for. In the proverbially poor Görlitz district, which is burdened with above-average social spending, cultural institutions are fighting for survival. The Gerhart-Hauptmann-Theater Zittau-Görlitz, which also includes the Neue Lausitzer Philharmonie, was facing bankruptcy this year. Without increased subsidies, the tariff and energy cost increases could not be met.

Nevertheless, an established scene persists. There are 49 smaller art festivals on the Neisse and in Upper Lusatia, for example the diverse festival “1000 & Your View” that runs throughout the summer in the border triangle. Hans Narva from the “Kommen & Geh” music festival, following in the footsteps of the old Lusatian Six-City Association, had already made his peace with the Lausitz Festival last year. Don’t get in each other’s way, everyone does their own thing, only the billboard capacity is occupied by the rich festival. In autumn 2021, a “Lausitz Cultural Plan” was presented with much fanfare in the magnificent Art Nouveau Theater in Cottbus, which bundled together what was already there rather than planning anything. The Sorbs, the Slavic people who bravely resisted total assimilation, were happy that they were featured in it – unlike at the Lausitz Festival.

Nowadays no one talks about the Lausitz cultural plan anymore, only about it dem Festival that so many people are unfamiliar with. In the Bautzen regional studio of the MDR, director Kühnel is spoken of as the “most hated man in the region”. Which can’t be right simply because he doesn’t live here and only commutes from the north to organize the two and a half festival weeks at the end of August. “He just doesn’t sit in the pub and talk to natives or local artists,” is the saying in theater circles. Great value is placed on this horizontal component in a crisis region that is still strongly characterized by the cohesion from the GDR era.

The criticism of the festival that has flared up again since it was constituted as a Brandenburg-Saxon festival GmbH in April focuses very much on the director. The artistic advisory board was actually supposed to have the right to make proposals, but in August the supervisory board suddenly appointed him as artistic director for another five years. Daniel Kühnel is undoubtedly an educated, well-read and knowledgeable man from the arts to philosophy. At the press conference at the end of November in Görlitz, which was actually intended to present future festival guidelines, he extemporized for a long time about the different and the different. When asked whether he also applies this idea to his critics in the region, the answer is thin: “We have always spoken to everyone who is there.”

That’s exactly what those “who are there” doubt. Some report unsuccessful attempts at contact for months. A working paper has been circulating since September, especially in Cottbus and Lower Lusatia »For a real Lausitz festival«, which the Saxon Music Council, for example, has also joined. “The desired transformative power that art should develop in the region was not anchored in the Lusatian structures, although the idea of ​​the Lausitz Festival had the potential,” criticize the authors led by the former organizer of the Cottbus Film Festival Jörg Ackermann. The author and filmmaker Grit Lemke, who became known for her expert descriptions of Hoyerswerda, has left the advisory board, although she actually welcomes the enriching intention of the festival. There is no opportunity to participate; there is a “rude tone” with critics. »It’s more of a ZK atmosphere. The meetings go like this: the director announces the program, then everyone praises him and raises their hands,” says Lemke angrily. Intendant Kühnel rejects this, saying that no suggestion has ever been simply ignored. The artistic advisory board is appointed by the cultural ministries of Brandenburg and Saxony, and the majority of its members are cultural officials.

Daniel Kühnel has understood the problem, but cannot get out of the chalk circle of his ambitions. His statement at the Hoyerswerda Ideas Conference at the end of March 2019 before the festival premiere is usually reproduced in an abbreviated form. “We use it to turn on the light, see who is in the room and what we can do together,” he said in a very inviting way. If you listen to him today, you can sense distance, not necessarily the love for Lusatia that some expect there. “I didn’t come in to give the existing venue additional platforms,” he says rather casually. He sees an anti-Semitic mood in the region since the “Speeches to the German Nation” by Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who was born in Rammenau, 225 years ago. Professor Christiane Voss, who teaches in Weimar and moderates the festival’s cultural-philosophical colloquia, not only ripped apart the festival’s critics in a letter, but also accused a “Taz” journalist of anti-Semitism because he mentioned Kühnel’s birth in Jerusalem in 1973.

One more indication of a poisoned atmosphere that has a lot to do with latent East-West animosity. Why do the Lusatian Ossis appear so ungrateful for a festival full of bait and switch, where money plays no role in Lusatian culture for the first time? This creates feelings of envy. After a modest beginning, Daniel Kühnel has expanded his festival program into a sophisticated multi-discipline program and at least verbally expresses his good will to include local artists. But the natives vote with their feet. Only 5,000 to 7,000 people visit the venues, some of which are located in industrial wastelands, and that includes visitors to the highlights from Berlin and Dresden. Each ticket is subsidized by an average of almost 900 euros.

That was also the topic last Wednesday at a public hearing in the culture committee of the Brandenburg state parliament. Daniel Kühnel stated that it was normal for a new festival to have teething problems, but now it had to grow and thrive – “and to allow that to happen happily, that has to be successful!” He countered his critics by saying that it was wrong to think of a “victim -Lausitz” to speak, “because there is no oppressor, he does not exist”. Grit Lemke answered him: “When you say that Lusatia is dark, you don’t see what shines.” A basic law of curating cultural events is: knowing yourself means knowing your audience. That cannot be said about this festival. The festival representatives were unable to answer Lemke’s crucial question as to why the advisory board was not allowed to vote on the conclusion of the new artistic director’s contract for Kühnel as provided for in the statutes. And neither do the representatives of the state government; they don’t want to expose themselves.

The lack of response to the festival could be related to the general skepticism of the Lusatians towards all major missionary offers of salvation. The planned ICE Berlin-Görlitz “will only drive past us,” which is what we often hear. The billions in structural strengthening go past small and medium-sized businesses, businesses and citizens. Unfortunately, also the well-intentioned but uncomprehending offers of an imported high culture.