Rimini Protokoll

Rimini Protokoll is the label for the works of artists Helgard Haug (female, German, b. 1969), Stefan Kaegi (Swiss, b. 1972) and Daniel Wetzel (German, b. 1969) in various team constellations (related to theatre, live art, radio plays and installation), often mentioned as inventors of a new wave of documentary theatre. They met during their Applied Theatre Science & Performance Studies at the Giessen University, Germany. This team of authors, directors and designers of sound, stage and videos of their performances works in this constellation since 1999 and created the label in 2002. It is not named after the so-called Rimini Protocol of 2003. However, "Protokoll" (protocol) is a programmatic term marking reports and (their own) protocols to be their their sources of inspiration and stage text, rather than drama.

They have been invited twice to Berliner Theatertreffen, Germany's most important festival featuring the 10 best performances of Austria, Switzerland and Germany. Since 2003 their projects rather take place in the framework of big national theatres like Vienna's Burgtheater or Schauspielhaus in Zurich. However, they are often announced as the inventors of a new form of documentary theatre, exploring a theatre of performers who are not professional actors but experts or specialists out of their particular spheres of life—professionals of a theatre of the real world. So, inxtead of presenting actors performing characters as parts of drama texts they present people whom they find through elaborate research and casting procedures and with whom they develop theatre performances according o their abilities and skills to convincingly and stongly present themselves in front of a national theatre crowd used to watch the perfect fake instead of the unperfect but real. “Rimini Protokoll brings real life to the stage", states German newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau, "in a way that no other theatre form has been able to. The unmistakable strength of these performances lies above all in the fact that in spite of the proximity to the persons whom they portray a rift appears between the role and the personality, and with it an awareness of the risk, that life could gain the upper hand, and theatre could lose control over itself.”

"Call Cutta", one of their recent works, was based on outsourcing: The performers were located in Salt Lake, Calcutta, India, providing the audience in Berlin, Germany with individual cell phone performances, with each call center agent guiding just one spectator solely through the remote maze of lanes of Kreuzberg, Berlin, narrating the story of Mahatma Gandhi's political opponent Subhash Chandra Bose.

Recently Rimini Protkoll took the risk to cross their method of research based theatre with experts who generate their own lines in contrast to drama based theatre with great texts - as Friedrich Schiller's Wallenstein trilogy (2005), and Karl Marx' Das Kapital, Vol.1. (2006, rewarded with the national German drama award Mülheimer Dramatikerpreis 2007). In 2008 they've received the European Theater Award Premio Europa.

elected Productions

* 2000 „Kreuzworträtsel Boxenstopp“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Künstlerhaus Mousontum, Frankfurt am Main, Germany)
* 2001 „Apparat Berlin“ (Haug / Wetzel, Prater der Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin, Germany)
* 2001 „Torero Portero“ (Kaegi, Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes Córdoba, Argentinia)
* 2002 „Shooting Bourbaki. Ein Knabenschiessen“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, luzerntheater Luzern, Switzerland; coproducing theatres in Switzerland, Germany and Norway)
* 2002 „Deutschland 2“ (Haug / Ernst / Kaegi / Wetzel, Festival „Theater der Welt“, Bonn, Germany)
* 2002 „Sonde Hannover“ (Haug / Ernst / Kaegi / Wetzel, Kröpcke-Hochhaus, Festival „Theaterformen“, Hannover, Germany)
* 2002 „Matraca Catraca. Uma viagem REM“ (Kaegi, Goethe-Institut Inter Nationes, Fundação Cultural Estado da Bahia e Empresa Farol da Barra, Salvador)
* 2003 „deadline“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg / Neu)
* 2003 „The Midnight Special Agency“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Kunsten Festival des Arts, Brussels, Belgium)
* 2003 "Markt der Märkte" (Haug / Wetzel, Theater Bonn, Germany)
* 2004 "Zeugen! Ein Strafkammerspiel" (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, schauspielhannover, Hanover, Germany)
* 2004 „Hot Spots“ (Haug / Wetzel, Thesseum A Theatre for the Arts, Athen / Goethe-Institut Athens, Greece)
* 2004 „Sabenation. go home & follow the news“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Kunsten Festival des Arts, Brüssel / Festival „Theaterformen“, Braunschweig, Germany)
* 2004 „Brunswick Airport. Weil der Himmel uns braucht“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Festival „Theaterformen“, Braunschweig, Germany)
* 2004 „Schwarzenbergplatz“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Kasino im Burgtheater, Vienna, Austria)
* 2005 „Call Cutta. A mobile phone theatre“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Star Theatre / Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe-Institut) Kolkata, Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin)
* 2005 „Mnemopark“ (Kaegi, Theater Basel, Switzerland)
* 2005 „Wallenstein“ (Haug / Wetzel, 13. Internationale Schillertage, Nationaltheater Mannheim, Deutsches Nationaltheater Weimar, Germany)
* 2005 „Cameriga. A Metabureaucracy“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Festival „Homo Novus“, Riga, Latvia)
* 2006 „Blaiberg und sweetheart19“ (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Schauspielhaus Zürich, Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin)
* 2006 "The Police Training Opera" und "The Memory Job" (Wetzel, X-Wohnungen Caracas, Venezuela)
* 2006 "Cargo Sofia-X" (Kaegi, div. Orte in Europa, UA: Theater Basel, Switzerland)
* 2006 "Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Band 1" (Haug / Wetzel, Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus u.a.)
* 2007 "Breaking News" (Haug / Wetzel, HAU Berlin, Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus, Schauspielhaus Frankfurt and others)
* 2008 "100 percent Berlin" (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, HAU Berlin)
* 2008 "Call Cutta in a Box" (Haug / Kaegi / Wetzel, Calcutta, Berlin, Zurich, Mannheim, Paris, Helsinki, Wroclaw, Dublin and others)

External links

* [http://www.rimini-protokoll.de Rimini Protokoll website] parts in English
* [http://www.call-cutta.in „Call Cutta“ website]
* [http://www.ericsson.com/ericsson/corpinfo/publications/telecomreport/archive/2006/october/call_cutta.shtml on Call Cutta]
* [http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/prj/cak/enindex.htm good documentary on „Call Cutta“] Goethe Institut
* [http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/prj/cak/thd/enindex.htm New Paths in German Theatre] Florian Malzacher, Goethe Institut 2005
* [http://www.goethe.de/kue/the/reg/reg/mr/rim/por/enindex.htm 50 VIP Directors of Germany Portrait: Rimini Protokoll] by Peter Michalzyk, published by Goethe Institut
* [http://arts.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,1943016,00.html The Guardian: "collective puts Marx' Das Kapital on stage"] The Guardian review "Karl Marx: Das Kapital, Vol.1", Nov. 2006

literature

Experts of the Eyeryday. The Theatre of Rimini Protokoll. Ed. Florian Malzacher and Miriam Dreysse. Alexander Verlag, Berlin 2008. ISBN: 978-3-89581-187-6