Lemi Ponifasio

Director Lemi Ponifasio is not just a star of the international theater scene, but also a community worker and High Chief of Samoa. For the past twenty years, his company MAU – a group of artists and performers from local communities – has worked on visually stunning and tumultuous productions that often transcend conventional ideas of theatre and dance. For ‘Theater der Welt 2017’, Ponifasio is coming to Hamburg for the very first time. He will open the festival with a spectacular performance, devised for the former cocoa warehouse, which will be transformed into a stage. CHILDREN OF GODS is Ponifasio’s artistic response to countless children’s situation who live in regions affected by armed conflict, are subjected to violence and oppression, and forced to flee.Accompanied by songs of lament, children from Hamburg and the MAU ensemble conjure up captivating images. This will be followed by ‘Credo’ from the monumental composition »Apokalypsis« by Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer: a trance-like, mystical piece for strings, synthesizer and twelve choirs.With young performers from Hamburg, a project choir of over 200 singers as well as musicians from Hamburg, Ponifasio stages a transformation ritual: a collaborative ceremony of new life, hope and resistance. Involving almost 400 participants from Hamburg, this is a large-scale music theatre community project.