Fotograf Jürgen Zeifang vor dem Bild  "Test the Best von Birgit Kinder" in der East Side Gallery in Berlin. Foto Rachel Clarke

West-East-West: Stories from a still divided Germany​

Curated by the Scottish International Storytelling Festival SISF

Venue: Scottish Storytelling Centre, Theatre
43-45 High St, Edinburgh EH1 1SR
Scotland

An artistic programme with autobiographical stories, featuring Carsta Zimmermann, Kristin Wardetzky, Peter Hofmann and Rachel Clarke. Hosted by Berlin-based Storytelling Arena.

The last 35 years have been transformative and turbulent times in Germany. In this storytelling show, featuring popular music from four decades of Berlin's history, artists and storytellers share their experiences since reunification and the Fall of the Wall.

 

Berlin, 1990. Carsta, a young actress, travels from Thuringia in the GDR to a squatted house in East Berlin from where she builds a theatre and a career performing Shakespeare and Grimm's fairytales with her brother Jan Zimmermann as director. Theatre in Education professor Kristin Wardetzky moves from East to West Berlin, where she creates waves pioneering a course in storytelling. At home in the independent music scene of West Berlin, Peter Hofmann now plays clubs popping up all over the city. As a student of theatre directing, Scottish storyteller Rachel Clarke participates in the heated debate and erupting demonstrations as two capital cities are fused into one.

 

What common and different narratives do they have of post-wall Germany?

 

With job, rent and price security gone with the GDR, mistakes made in 1990s still fuel tensions in Germany today. Can storytelling help heal still-open wounds?

 

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