The End of Documentary Theatre: Artist talk by Daniel Wetzel, Rimini Protokoll and Anuja Ghosalkar, Drama Queen.

The lecture-conversation between the two will focus on the question of what is Post Documentary theatre? Is it the end of Documentary theatre?

Daniel Wetzel of the famed Rimini Protokoll will take us through the journey of their work from a pirate copy of an entire parliamentary session performed by experts to intercontinental call centre theatre. To the audience as a writer's collective and a stage as film set for reenactments. Wetzel will offer an insight into the wide range of Rimini Protokoll's projects- from their origin in the 1990's to current times. He will discuss what happens with facts on stage, with the individual once he/she/it performs itself. What is the potential for an audience that finds itself in the position the expert?

Anuja Ghosalkar will share her journey into the world of Documentary theatre. She will look at what it means to be working towards a medium that is a counter form to mainstream modes of production and aesthetic. She will share her work and its roots in a feminist framework. Her work around a performance form she loosely calls "documentary theatre" is up for examination, open to change, malleable- rather than fix it as a category her pedagogic interest is in what are the contours of this performance practice and to work towards a form that is freeing rather than limiting.

About Daniel Wetzel:
Daniel Wetzel was born in Constance in 1969, studied Applied Theater Studies in Giessen and now lives in Athens and Berlin.

Since 2000 he forms an author and director-team with Helgard Haug and Stefan Kaegi, running under the name Rimini Protokoll. Their projects in duo or trio-constellations as well as solo works cover the fields of theatre, audio play, film and installation.

Central to their work is the further development of the respective art fields to allow for unconventional views on our reality. For example, Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel declared an annual meeting of the Daimler company a theater piece and made their audience temporary share holders (“Annual Shareholders Meeting“, Berlin 2009) and they staged “100% City“ in more than 25 cities around the world with 100 local inhabitants statistically representating their city. In Berlin and Dresden they developed interactive Stasi-audio plays (“50 kilometers of files”, 2011 or “10 kilometers of files”, 2013). Since the 90s their work with “experts of the everyday life” is described as groundbreaking and leading the path to new forms of documentary theater.

Their work “Shooting Bourbaki (2003) was awarded the NRW-Impulse-Prize, “Deadline” (2004), “Wallenstein - a documentary-play” (2006) and “Situation Rooms” (2013) were invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen. The Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis awarded “Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One” (2007) both with the audience award as well as the award for dramaturgy, “Quality Control” (2014) also won the audience award.

Further awards for Rimini Protokoll: German Theater Award Der Faust (2007), European Theater Award in the category New Realities (2008), War Blinded Audio Play Prize for “Karl Marx: Capital, Volume One” (2008), Silver Lion at the 41st Theaterbiennale in Venice (2011), Hörspielpreis der ARD (ARD’s audio drama award) (2014), Hörbuchpreis der ARD (ARD audio book prize) (2015), Swiss Grand Prix Theater / Hans-Reinhardt-Ring (2015).

About Anuja Ghosalkar: 

   Is the founder and artistic director of Drama Queen. Through her performance company Drama Queen, she is evolving a unique form of Documentary theatre in India. The focus of her art practice is undocumented narratives, archival absences and gender in performance. Research, oral history and iterations around form and process are critical to her performance and pedagogical work. Drama Queen’s debut show, Lady Anandi was written while she was an artist-in-residence at Art Lab Gnesta, Sweden in 2015. Since then Lady Anandi has travelled independently across India, Germany and Sweden. In the Reading Room, she blurs the boundary between audience and performer, where 10 strangers read personal letters alongside public ones. Her newest work, Walk Back to Look was a site -specific performance commissioned by the Serendipity Arts Festival 2018, it offered a counter beat to the frenetic rhythm of Panjim Municipal Market and Kadamba bus stand. She was artist-in-residence at Srishti Institute of Art Design & Technology in December 2017 and conceived a site specific, public art project at the Cubbon Park Metro Station called Dream Walkers. She is an Art Think South Asia Fellow (2017-18). In the past, Anuja has worked at India Foundation for the Arts, Experimenta, in curating and teaching cinema, & as an independent researcher with University of Westminster.

Daniel Wetzel is in India as part of  An international workshop series on Documentary theatre curated by Anuja Ghosalkar and Kai Tuchmann to build audiences, pedagogy & new practitioners for Documentary theatre in India towards Asia's first festival of Documentary theatre in December 2020.
[Starting Realities, International workshop Series is an initiative supported by Goethe-Institut, Max Mueller Bhavan, Mumbai]