Nordwind-Festival

NORDWIND was founded in 2006 as a festival with a focus on exploring the North European and Baltic music and performing arts scenes. For the sixth Nordwind-festival we focus on Russia and the former Soviet Union as well as the complex relationship between Russia and the Nordic and other European Countries under the title Balagan: Zones of Resistance.

We have invited artists who resist these new, conservative transnational alliances, and who seek to create an alternative view of society: Balagan!!! is a Russian exclamation meaning unholy chaos, inversion of conditions. Figures appear on stage that resist categorisation either via the absurd and grotesque, or in quieter, subtler ways.

In Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz Oleg Sulimenko combines western-urban daily life with shamanistic rituals in Meet The Shaman. In the Sophiensaele Cecilie Ullerup Schmidt and Andreas Liebmann sing of their exchange with the new europeans in sicilian refugee camps in Exodus. In Splendour Stina Nyberg seeks new freedom from the body through sound. Erna Ómarsdóttir exposes us to the primordial energy of an unconditional will to survive and Pjotr Pawlenski upsets the Russian machinery of power with his artistic interventions.

In addition to the venues in Berlin, the 82 performances, three of them are world premieres, eight German premieres, will take place in Hamburg, Dresden and for the first time in Bern.

In an accompanying art exhibition, curated by David Elliott, the focus is continued through numerous works, whose origin lies in the social and political conflicts of contemporary Russia, but which use this to imagine a better present and future.

We are looking forward to a haunting and entertaining time with you!

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Nordwind-Festival 2015 / Balagan!!! is a project by SISUTheater e.V. in cooperation with Momentum, the global platform for time-based art, and: Volksbühne Berlin, Sophiensæle, Kampnagel, Hellerau – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste Dresden, Dampfzen-trale Bern, Stiftung Brandenburger Tor, Kühlhaus Berlin, ICI Berlin, ikonoTV, Momentum. Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes, Berlin Kulturverwaltung, Kulturbehörde Hamburg, Svenska Institutet, Swedish Arts Council, Danish Arts Foun­dation, Stikk, Willy Brandt-Stiftung, the Norwegian Foreign Mnistry and Ministry of Culture, Finnland Institut, Goethe-Institut, ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen), Dans og Teatercentrum, Zodiak, the embassies of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Iceland, the Wilhelm Hansen Stiftung and the Bikuben Stiftung. Supported by: NH Hotels, Volvo and WOW Air.