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Weekly letter

The calm after the storm

The start of the season is over. Now it's time to recharge our batteries and adjust our energy levels for the entire season. Weekly letter #8

Team Gessnerallee, 2 October 2024

Dear Gessnerallee visitors, dear culture enthusiasts, dear artists

Unbelievable but true. The second weekend of the season opener was just as beautiful, exciting, emotional and well-attended as the first. The audience was enthusiastic. Our favourite feedback: ‘You even put care and love into the selection of olives for the aperitif’. During the showing of ‘Mutterzunge (AT)’ by Rebekka Bangerter and her team on their research into dying languages, we lay on a sea of cushions and listened to wonderful conversations in Rhaeto-Romanic, Sorbian and Bamum and the cracking sounds of the wooden floor of the south stage. Tears ran down our cheeks during Oona Doherty's choreography ‘Navy Blue’ and we experienced the best musical trip at the concerts by WAT TAKLEAW and LA Timpa - completely sober. At the concerts on Saturday with Aho Ssan and Chuquimamani Condori, we went crazy with enthusiasm.

Now we are tired but happy. During the preparations for and during the start of the season, we communicated, decided, organised and celebrated intensively and at record speed. - That's why we're taking a short break now to recuperate. Because we have nine more months of festivals, guest performances, co-productions, artistic labs and residencies ahead of us. A time that we want to experience just as intensively, well-balanced and happily - and for that we need to pause every now and then and recharge our batteries.

We will continue on 16 October with the artasfoundation's series of talks on artistic creation in crisis areas entitled ‘Art in Conflict: Community Building in Fragile Contexts’. At the end of this week, preparations will begin for the Performance Prize Switzerland 2024, which will take place on 20 October from 11 am to 5.30 pm. Taking part are: Луcија Berlin, Sultan Çoban, Lilian Frei, Markus Goessi, Maria Fernanda Ordoñez Pinzon, Lean Rüegg and Rebecca Solari. The popular national competition will be free of charge.

If you don't want to wait that long and can no longer do without dance, theatre, performance and music in your life, we recommend a short exploratory tour through the repertoires of the other theatres in Zurich. Read our programme recommendations of the week.

Programme recommendations of the week

On 11 October, the Tanzhaus will host a sharing by choreographer Johanna Heusser, who is working on a contemporary rewriting of the waltz in her research ‘valse, valse, valse’.

Between 10 and 21 October, the Neumarkt Theatre is staging a revival of the great theatrical success ‘EWS - Der einzige Politthriller der Schweiz’. We saw the work and were thrilled.

At the Fabriktheater on 12 October, you can really let off steam at the ‘Performing Rage’ collective's workshop on rage practices.

Also on 12 October, Millers Broadway is going family style with the Close Encounters Theatre and the show ‘The Addams Family’.

On 13 October, the Schauspielhaus Zürich will present a guest performance of the fantastic work ‘Liebe, einfach ausserirdisch’ by recently deceased director René Pollesch.

And on 15 October, Rahel Wolgensinger will present the puppet show ‘Wildsau! Of humans and other pigs’. Our take: don't miss it.

Newspaper

No website, no audience

If you enjoy our website and would like to know how it was developed, we recommend the article ‘No website, no audience’ by Rahel Bains, Kathrin Veser and Miriam Walther, which appeared in our newspaper. Read the article  

Furthermore

Would you like to find out more about the Gessnerallee's programme and operations? Would you like to talk to the Gessnerallee theatre management and the association's board? Are you interested in contributing your own ideas and being an important voice in the long-term development of the theatre? Then come to the Gessnerallee's Resonanzraum on 31 October, you are very welcome. More information about the event

We look forward to seeing you again soon.

The Gessnerallee team

PS: Have you already bought the first printed edition of the new Gessnerallee newspaper? Write to Rahel Bains and order it now for CHF 7 (incl. CHF 2 postage) direct to your home. Mail to: zeitung@gessnerallee.ch

PPS: If you enjoy our weekly newsletter, please feel free to recommend it to others. You can subscribe under the following link: https://gessnerallee.ch/en/weekly-letter

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