Editorial International Summer Festival 2024

While the world focuses on battlegrounds, courtrooms, universities, and, as always, football stadiums, we turn to love. “Love takes off the masks that we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within,” wrote James Baldwin in 1963, emphasizing love’s unmasking effect that makes us vulnerable yet open to the world. Only those who are willing to question themselves open up to others, becoming empathetic and capable of dialogue, thereby enabling personal growth. This becomes especially evident in the coarsening of public discourse, where dialogue increasingly gives way to resentment, delegitimization, and often dehumanization of the other. While the right increasingly chuckles to itself, cultural institutions are called upon to act. As Carolin Emcke writes, “The only way to confront hate is with what the hater lacks: precise observation, unrelenting differentiation, and self-doubt.”

The best tool, of course, to refine and heighten one’s sensibilities and perspectives, is Summer Festival, whose spellbinding program we will now swiftly guide you through. The festival unfolds with unparalleled appeal, heralded by the luminary of avant-garde dance history spanning six decades: LUCINDA CHILDS, with her company, presents four world premieres emerging from artistic collaborations with the pioneer of minimal music, PHILIP GLASS, the Oscar-winning composer HILDUR GUÐNADÓTTIR, and the seminal artist ANRI SALA. Additionally, video installations by Sala are displayed in the Vorhalle at Kampnagel (and at Hamburger Kunsthalle as part of UNTRANQUIL NOW). This exhibition also showcases video works by Lucinda Childs and presents a diverse program of performances and site-specific installations in collaboration with Summer Festival. Among these stands MAN WALKING DOWN THE SIDE OF A BUILDING, a spectacular outdoor performance by TRISHA BROWN, who, alongside Childs, once spearheaded a dance revolution at the New York Judson Dance Theater. Other highlights in this series include a three-week performance in the city center by ANCA MUNTEANU RIMNIC, a cinematic evening at the Metropolis cinema featuring TACITA DEAN, and the performance GHOST PARTY 1 at Kunsthalle.

The profound relationship between Summer Festival and the city, interwoven with the realms of visual arts and performance, gains deeper resonance with the arrival of the esteemed French choreographer SAÏDO LEHLOUH. He embarks on a comprehensive curation of a day-long performance parcours across all six major exhibition venues of the Hamburg Art Mile. It features works by other choreographers who, in the days preceding, are dancing in Lehlouh’s cosmically swirling dance masterpiece TÉMOIN. This captivating spectacle unfolds on the grand stage k6 at Kampnagel, where the festival will culminate a week later with yet another world premiere, solidifying the Summer Festival’s status as a pivotal dance hub. With his company of twelve dancers, US-choreographer KYLE ABRAHAM invigorates our cultural memory with his latest large-scale creation, CASSETTE VOL. 1. Set to the backdrop of 80s pop anthems, this piece also pays homage to recent dance history, taking inspiration from the innovative works of The Judson Dance Theater choreographers to the raw energy of urban street dance.

Standing out in popularizing dance from an urban context is IVAN MICHAEL BLACKSTOCK, a British choreographer who has worked with Beyoncé and received an Olivier Award for his piece TRAPLORD on Black masculinity. Meanwhile, in the neighboring hall, JEREMY NEDD and the South African group IMPILO MAPANTSULA reach for the stars, showcasing the Afrofuturistic dimension of dance and cosmic jazz music, including pieces by Alice Coltrane, who was sure: “The entire universe is created with Love by Love and in Love.” Demonstrating that one must first learn to love oneself, and that music and dance can be tools for world conquest, is the Hamburg “Hood-Cinderella” ACE TEE in UPSIDE DOWN, her first stage piece.

As a continuation of Ace Tee’s piece, we curated club evenings afterwards to kick off three weeks of Summer Festival club culture, featuring collaborations with party collectives from Hamburg to New York. In addition to the parties, an international concert program will be presented, highlighting pop culture as the most important source of energy for contemporary arts. While CAT POWER rewrites music history and Bob Dylan at the Elbphilharmonie, and superstar SAMPHA performs in a 360-degree setting, the club program ranges from the legendary post-punk band A CERTAIN RATIO to the agit-pop collective BONAPARTE and the brilliant folk and neo-soul singer ANNAHSTASIA. Following this preface’s line, she aptly states: “Folk music is made for collectivism, for community and for love.” Since love often includes physical contact, guests can physically indulge in the performance TOUCHING YOU. Or be touched by the full power of this medium, which can provide profound insights into political and societal realities, thus constituting great art. This comes from current Ibsen prize winner LOLA ARIAS, who portrays life and love behind female prison walls with a team of former Argentine inmates; and European star director KORNÉL MUNDRUCZÓ and his independent company Proton Theatre, who zooms in on Hungarian (and European) reality of antisemitism and queerphobia.

Seasoned Summer Festival fans know: The radical (and absolutely necessary) expansion of the theater’s pain threshold works best (and most entertainingly) through feminist performance art. Therefore, there is a beautiful stage excess with many distractions by KATY BAIRD (co-directed by Kim Noble), and a world premiere by rising star TERESA VITTUCCI. Vittucci stages a thought-provoking pact with the devil, reimagined as a feminist act of liberation. In case you missed the unforgettable talking rice cookers and remote-controlled toad by South Korean theater maker JAHA KOO, they are back in his new poetic object theater piece, HARIBO KIMCHI, where they encounter a YouTuber and an eel. And for those who have been disappointed by theater too often (or want to strengthen their love affair with it), there’s a new three-hour spectacle by NESTERVAL in a vacant school in St. Pauli about Faust and abortion-rights.

What applies to lovemaking also applies to Summer Festival: It must also be fun. That’s why AYELEN PAROLIN will end the festival with a smart dance prank to the music of “The Blue Danube”, and we’ll create a feelgood atmosphere for everyone in our large Festival Avant-Garden on the beautiful, not so blue Osterbek canal. There, festival classics JAJAJA will provide a happy firefly sea with their headphone performances; MIGRANTPOLITAN will open its doors for three weeks with a full program for long nights; PEACETANBUL will feed hearts and stomachs; and with SUVIR SARAN, an Indian food philosopher and star chef will be a guest in the festival world summit with a pop-up performance restaurant.

There are concerts every day at Waldbühne – and we will still be talking here, especially in the face of public discourse disruption: In the free of charge literature and discussion program WALLAH KRISE!, formative contemporary personalities from SASHA MARIANNA SALZMANN to ALICE HASTERS have their say, and the one and only DR. BITCH RAY invites thought-provoking people for talks every week. Our thanks (and love) goes to everyone who has generously supported us and helped turn three festival weeks into a powerhouse of social and artistic energy for the world of tomorrow.

See you soon in the Festival Avant-Garden!

András Siebold (with Corinna Humuza and the Summer Festival team)