This blog serves to give an overview of some of my journalistic and other written work. All works posted here were previously published in other print or online publications (as indicated). Tabs below lead to distinct publications or to a selection of specific articles. For further articles scroll through the different years of publication (at left).
Rubina De Paolis and Vanessa Morandell in LASCIAR ANDARE, presented at Brücki 235's August performance showcase Photo Michael Meili
Mary Staub looks at Brücki 235, an artist-led Zurich organisation that aims to help independent dance and theatre artists with rehearsal space and performance opportunities. Could it provide a model for cities elsewhere?
On the first evening of a three-day performance showcase at the Kulturhaus Helferei in Zurich’s old town this August, audiences found themselves mesmerised by the ebb and flow of Rubina De Paolis’ LASCIAR ANDARE, an abstract contemporary movement duet about letting go.
The next, the interactive performance stilles geld by radikal plüsch, forced viewers to consider the role of money in their and their neighbours’ lives with projections of financial data, such as the percentage of people in debt in distinct city districts, forming a backdrop to the piece. The works showcased on subsequent evenings were similarly varied, each the creative output of a different Zurich-based independent dance or theatre artist or collective.
stilles geld by radikal plüsch, presented at Brücki 235’s August performance showcase Photo Michael Meili
This Helferei showcase was the fourth such performance block that the newly established non-profit organization Brücki 235 has brought to the public since its founding eighteen months ago. The next block, which is geared specifically to young audiences, takes place in November at a community centre.
The purpose of these largely uncurated showcases, each produced in collaboration with a distinct performance venue, is to give as many independent performing artists as possible a foot in the door, so diversifying whom is seen on this city’s stages and who starts to get access to public funding. It also broadens the range of work that Zurich audiences come into contact with, thereby giving them a more comprehensive understanding of the local artistic community than what is produced on established mainstages and through traditional streams of funding.
Brücki 235 came into being after large-scale city surveys revealed a dire lack of rehearsal space and performance opportunities for independent theatre artists, dance artists, and artists working for young audiences. This lack of space, funding, and visibility is by no means unique to Zurich. Comparative research into the realities of independent performing artists in thirteen European cities, conducted by The European Association of Independent Performing Arts, revealed similar deficiencies.
The artists from the opening day of Brücki 235’s August showcase at Kulturhaus Helferei Photo Michael Meili
Following the survey, in November 2022, the city put out a call for proposals that would help begin to meet the needs of independent artists. For each of an initial four years, 250,000 Swiss Francs would be awarded to a proposal that could serve these artists by establishing rehearsal space on the one hand, and uncurated performance opportunities on the other.
Thus, Brücki 235 was born, a joint-initiative developed by members of three local dance and theatre associations: Assitej-Regiogruppe Zürich, representing theatre for young audiences; TanzLOBBY IG Tanz Zürich representing dance; and t. Zürich representing theatre.
Since May 2023, Brücki 235 has operated out of the second floor of a non-descript office building in Zurich’s former industrial quarters, Zurich West. There, a central administrative office with mini-kitchen, co-working space and lounge area is flanked by two 90 square-metre rehearsal rooms, one for dance, one for theatre.
Brücki 235’s dance space Photo courtesy Team Brücki
One thing that distinguishes the Brücki 235 spaces from private dance studios is that the rehearsal spaces can be used completely free, as long as the artists are Zurich-based, professional, working within theatre, dance, and related performance styles, and not otherwise funded by the city of Zurich.
Another thing that distinguishes Brücki 235 is that it aims to be a collaboratively-run organization, operated for the independent theatre and dance community by that community, free from gatekeepers who dictate whose aesthetic, theme, or purpose is worthy of being practiced and seen.
Meant to be together by Merge Dance Collective, also presented at Kulturhaus Helferei in August Photo Michael Meili
A so called ‘Szenerat’ (scene council) is tasked with deciding how to shape the performance showcases. How many groups should perform each evening? How should the available budget be divided to compensate the artists? If too many artists or artistic groups register for a showcase, how should the performers be selected in a way that still maintains its uncurated nature? These scene council members are selected by lottery every year, and rotate, thereby ensuring that no one particular interest group or aesthetic holds the reins over who appears. Anyone from the independent performing arts scene can put themselves into the lottery pool.
Additionally, the entire Zurich-based independent theatre and dance community has a voice in how Brücki 235 evolves. Multiple times a year, all Zurich-area performing artists are invited to workshop new ideas, propose projects, voice concerns, suggest better ways of operating, or similar. Recent changes that resulted from these inputs include the establishment of a Telegram channel for users to post last-minute cancellations for reserved rehearsal studios.
Company Bettina Zumstein in Erde, performed during the Brücki 235 August showcase Photo Michael Meili
Despite the collaborative decision-making processes at Brücki 235, it’s striking just how quickly things get done. Within three months of being awarded funding, the people at the heart of the organisation had transformed office spaces into rehearsal space, developed operating procedures, launched a website, built a prop storage space, built partnerships with already-established performance venues, and informed the independent dance and theatre scene of the new rehearsal and showcase opportunities.
That performance opportunities happen at existing venues, rather than on a siloed stage created specifically for independent artists, hopefully means that artists will become more visible as a part of the city’s artistic makeup. Since launching, about120 distinct performing artists or collectives have become members and users of the Brücki 235 spaces. About 90 have performed on Zurich stages who would otherwise not have, which may be a first step towards getting more financial support too.
Hosting the MULTIVERSE by Company O, a participatory workshop about inclusivity of and with neurodivergent people, part of the Brücki 235 August showcase Photo Michael Meili
As Michael Rüegg, in charge of theatre and dance for the city of Zurich, said in a recent interview with Swiss radio SRF, “It [Brücki 235] is used a lot. People show up who we haven’t seen before. There is hope that communities or groups who previously did not partake in the cultural funding system will find an entryway here.”
Whether Brücki 235 will remain a part of Zurich’s dance and theatre landscape beyond its first four years remains to be seen. What is clear, though, is that such innovation in the independent performing arts scene is desperately needed.
Perhaps similar endeavours could serve independent performing artists in other European cities too.
To read more about Brücki 235, visit bruecki235.ch (in German)
Upon entering the lakeside, park-like main festival grounds of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel at the Landiwiese this year, one of the first sights that visitors came upon was a house made of bales of densely packed used, discarded clothes donated by the global north to the global south. Inside the installation, titledReturn to Sender, created by Nairobi-based Nest Collective, a documentary illustrated that up to forty percent of the clothes we donate to the global south are unusable, and that we thereby export the burden of disposal to these countries. What’s more, the sixty percent of donated clothes that are reusable prevent local textile industries from developing. Our good deed is their misfortune.
The urgency of the installation’s message, confronting visitors with a complex global injustice in which they are no doubt complicit, was echoed by innumerable other works I encountered over the course of my six days at Theater Spektakel.
Return to Sender, an installation by Nest Collective at Zürcher Theater Spektakel Photo Kira Kynd
A celebration of contemporary performing arts, the festival’s main program showcased the perspectives of more than 240 artists and thinkers from about 30 countries, many of whom put concrete inequities near and far centre stage in their theatre and dance work.
In Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan) (This is not an Embassy), the Berlin-based documentary theatre group Rimini Protokoll confronted, educated and entertained audiences as they established a Taiwanese embassy in the safe space of the theatre, with the audience as accomplices. The cast of three, a former Taiwanese diplomat, an activist and a musician, shared personal stories and conflicting perspectives on Taiwan’s past, present and future, letting all points of view resonate across stage. In so doing, they also directly challenged the Swiss audience to ponder their own complicity in Taiwan’s oppression through their (neutral) refusal to recognize it as a sovereign entity.
Dies ist keine Botschaft, and many other works at the festival, integrated documentary techniques, leaving audiences uncertain at times as to what was real and what was not, thereby blurring the line between fact and fiction. Were those true, personal anecdotes or composite stories based on fact? Not that it truly mattered, as, in all instances, the experiences and situations relayed were all too real.
Dies ist keine Botschaft (Made in Taiwan) by Rimini Protokoll Photo Claudia Ndebele
Similarly, in Song for Wartime, by Polish director Marta Górnicka, audiences encountered Ukrainian and Belarusian women singing of personal wartime experiences beyond the frontlines. And, in the documentary musical Los días afueras (The days out there), by Argentinian writer and director Lola Arias, viewers experience via former inmates what it means to live in a women’s prison on the outskirts of Buenos Aires.
Most of the works I saw also blurred the boundaries of clear-cut categorisation, emerging out of innumerable artistic genres and styles to present as something entirely new. In Hatched Ensemble, for example, South African dance artist Mamela Nyamza cracked the constraints of Western classical ballet and other imposed, Western movement styles, by integrating incantatory opera, traditional dance, percussive sound, storytelling, and more into a haunting, liberating visual poem. Other works included everything from aerial acrobatics to silent theatre, from contemporary-krump street dance battle to performative therapy session, from multi-media projection to museum tour.
Hatched Ensemble by Mamela Nyamza Photo Mark Wessels
In addition to the main program, innumerable performance sites were freely accessible across Landiwiese’s 400 meters of lakefront grounds, with the price of a ticket whatever you put in a hat. On the days I was there, with temperatures soaring above 30°C, the site resembled a mix of street market, carnival, and county fair with families, theatre aficionados, groups of friends and sunbathers mingling among musicians, storytellers, balloon artists and food vendors.
Frequently, at one end of the grounds, street performers vied for audience attention, while, at the open-air central ‘Zentral’ stages, shows ranged from circus acts to tragicomic puppet play to poetry reading to diversity-themed game show. At the same time, ticketed shows took place at temporary main stages such as Seebühne, half open and with views of the Alps; the barn-like Nord and Süd; Werft, a shipyard hall; Rote Fabrik, a former factory; and at collaborating theatres and museums throughout Zurich.
Maud le Pladec’s Silent Legacy, one of many dance works presented at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel Photo Kira Kynd
I attended a handful of ticketed performances and free, non-ticketed shows, participated in various audience-engagement events, listened to lectures, and explored performance venues throughout the city. Overall, what stood out, was the breadth of the programme. The mere presence of such disparate works communicated a point of view on the performing arts that advocates an inclusive understanding of what they are and who they are for. Indeed, being accessible to a wide range of people was a main concern of the festival programmers this year, as was explicitly noted in a one-page program spread on efforts to be ‘A Festival for Everyone.’
Beyond breadth of programming, one way Theater Spektakel aimed for this was through complementary events that gave visitors opportunities to engage with works, artists and issues in ways beyond passive consumption. Public warm-ups, such as a 30-minute krump workshop before that evening’s performance, gave spectators an embodied experience of certain works. A weekend-long dance workshop for children gave them an experience of dance making.
Nest Collective’s Return to Sender installation Photo Kira Kynd
Nightly 9pm ‘Stammtisch,’ sessions invited festival goers to share perspectives on questions that arose related to artists’ works. At each of these, over drinks at a long table, different hosts including artists, activists and socially-engaged people, offered their view on the issue in focus as a starting point for an unmoderated discussion. One session focused on Switzerland’s obligation towards artists at risk; another dealt with restitution of stolen artworks; another, hosted by the local Jewish and Muslim organization, Gemeinsam Einsam (together alone), focused on ways of sharing, listening, and being open to individuals whose viewpoints and experiences are contrary to one’s own; a focus that in many ways was emblematic of the festival’s overall aims since its inception.
“Bringing people with different backgrounds and perspectives to Zurich has been a fundamental commitment of the Zürcher Theater Spektakel since 1980,” the festival directors state in a program editorial. “The international encounter with contemporary art requires openness to other points of view and the courage to examine one’s own.”
Many festival goers may have gravitated towards artistic styles and current issues that they already cared about, rather than seeking out new perspectives. Sometimes, a few audience members walked out on what the were seeing, perhaps thereby not fully examining their own views. But it’s also true that, for juts over two weeks, a wide array of backgrounds, perspectives, experiences, and agendas mingled throughout the festival sites, creating opportunities for new encounters, ways of engaging, and possibly questioning one’s point of view.
L’Opéra du Villageois by Zora Snake Photo Kira Kynd
One striking example of this happening outside curated formats was during a tour of the exhibition, In Dialogue with Benin: Art, Colonialism, and Restitution, at the Museum Rietberg. The tour was to be followed by the Cameroonian artist Zora Snake’s performance of L’Opéra du Villageois, which condemns European museums for housing stolen African artifacts. While the museum exhibition had been a joint effort, developed by it and partners from Nigeria, and while it also included works of contemporary African artists, our initial tour guides were European and white.
Halfway through the tour, one, then two, then several more audience members questioned this choice. The organiser paused the planned programming for long enough for a debate to at least start between audience and exhibition collaborators. No consensus was reached, but perspectives were allowed to be voiced and heard, before the regular programming continued and Snake’s performance denounced the practices of establishments like the very one we were standing in and summoned to life the spirits of stolen artworks.
For more about Zürcher Theater Spektakel and what was on, click here.
Landiwiese and other venues, Zurich, August 15-September 1, 2024
Rubina De Paolis and Vanessa Morandell in LASCIAR ANDARE,
