About

The Festival Theaterformen is an international theatre and dance festival with a local focus in Braunschweig and Hanover at the same time. Our goal is to give space to perspectives that are rarely visible and audible in the local context and that question existing power structures. This newly formulated guideline builds on an initial version developed by the team lead by artistic director Martine Dennewald within the framework of a process of reflection critical of discrimination in 2018 and 2019. 
The first version of the guideline can be found here.
The newly formed team headed by artistic director Anna Mülter is also committed to this self-positioning and way of working and will discuss this guideline on an annual basis and update it if necessary. 

We want to use this guideline to transparently present what we are committed to, what we have set out to do and where the limits of our power-critical work lie. We bear responsibility for the work of the Theaterformen team and strive to empower all employees to act in a way that is power-critical through training. At the same time, the festival is part of the Staatstheater Hannover and Staatstheater Braunschweig and works with their staff, who cannot be included in our process of power-critical reflection. 

As a festival of the Global North and as a publicly funded festival, our aim is to share our privileges and resources. We want to collaborate with urban society and artists in a sustainable manner. We work to identify barriers and discrimination at individual, institutional and structural levels and in their intersectional implications, undertaking specific steps to dismantle them. 

This power-critical work is the premise the festival needs in order to be able to provide a place for eleven days where other forms of coexistence can be imagined and the utopian attempt can be made to transfer them into a practical lived practice.

Our structure dictates that we are focused on the eleven-day festival in the summer and the size of the team changes regularly: While the positions of the department heads and the artistic collaborator are filled throughout the year, other staff and assistant positions are reassigned for each festival edition and in some cases are filled on a six-monthly, monthly or weekly basis. Occasional fluctuation in permanent positions is also part of the theatre business. This leads to a new team being assembled for each festival. 

Since the festival takes place in two cities in annual rotation, we are in contact with a multitude of cooperation partners, initiatives and institutions and are able to link up with two lively urban societies. However, this also poses a challenge for sustainable cooperation. We enter long-term collaborations through dialogue, but there are limitations to the continuity due to the change of cities. 

We strive to make our guideline accessible to employees with short-term employment as well, which is why it is always included in our job advertisements and is also a topic of discussion in job interviews and during induction. Critical reflection on work structures is a collective practice. The core team of the festival comes together regularly in awareness sessions for discussing and evaluating current challenges or experiences.

Measures have already been implemented to improve the working conditions in the offices. Mobile working is also possible in consultation with the respective department head and the festival management. Further needs in terms of accessibility and working situation can be expressed at any time and will be implemented to the greatest extent possible.        

The selection and composition of the festival program has a barrier-free and power-critical approach: One of the long-term goals of the program is to highlight themes and pieces by artists who are (repeatedly) marginalized or who grapple with discrimination, as well as to strengthen the visibility of these artists and companies. A curatorial principle governs the selection of the invited productions, which is why the selection also implies the exclusion of other artists and productions.

Corresponding outreach programs are also being established that facilitate empowering cultural experiences for those who are affected by discrimination and who have not or only rarely been able to experience theater as their own space. At the same time, a broad theater audience also learns more about perspectives that may not be their own and that are too rarely seen and heard, especially in the theater.

The press and public relations department works on accessible forms of communication, which also includes the development and implementation of a barrier-free festival website. The aim across all publications (both print and digital) is to use language that is critical of discrimination, understandable and accessible, appealing to and reaching a diverse audience.

This includes establishing contact with local initiatives and institutions during each festival edition with the aim of long-term networking. The promotion of the festival program is based on a holistic approach – all productions are to be promoted in the same way. However, it is not always possible to do without direct advertising of individual productions, for example when selecting poster motifs.

The management, production and technical departments maintain close contact with the artists and companies from the very beginning of the planning process. The employees are conscious of their responsibility to be sensitive to the situation and context of the artists invited to the festival. Communication with low levels of conflict and violence, the possibilities of spaces with low levels of discrimination and equal framework conditions are strived for within the prevailing time and financial pressures as well as within the structural conditions and their deficits.       

The Festival Theaterformen commits itself to a regular self-review with regard to the guideline and its own discrimination-critical work. For this purpose, the core team consisting of the artistic director, the assistant to the artistic director, management, production management and head of press and public relations meets in a monthly awareness session. This is a protected space for internal reflection and exchange. Agreements from the meetings are carried into the departments by the respective management positions.

So far, the core team has participated in awareness workshops on Ableism Criticism and Accessibility, Intercultural Awareness in relation to Indigenous Communities in Brazil, and Audism/Discrimination against Deaf People. Other training sessions critical of discrimination are offered on a regular basis. New team members who support the core team before and during the festival are offered workshops on Ableism Criticism and Accessibility as well as Anti-Discrimination and Power Criticism at different times.

The Festival Theaterformen is supported by the independent diversity developer and awareness expert Michelle Bray from a perspective that is sensitive to difference and critical of power and discrimination. As an external contact person for situations involving discrimination, questions about awareness, coaching and empowerment, she is available to all employees throughout the year and to the invited artists during the festival.

An awareness team provides active support for those affected by discrimination, violence and breaches of boundaries during the festival. Since awareness work is still something quite rare at theatre festivals in Germany, we have to rely on learning from our own experiences. Michelle Bray was responsible for developing the concept of the Awareness Team in consultation with the artistic director, and it is further developed each year based on the evaluated experiences.

In the event that a discriminatory or boundary-crossing situation occurs and a person from the festival team is the cause of such a situation, conditions for re-employment can be imposed on this person by the artistic director and the management once discussions have been initiated. This includes, for example, participating in a workshop for raising awareness. The person concerned is also offered the chance to take up empowering measures. The activities within the framework of processing and empowerment can be undertaken in working time and are covered as part of a set budget.

If you experience or are involved in situations that are discriminatory or violate boundaries within the framework of the festival or the cooperation with the Festival Theaterformen in general, the festival management (artistic director and executive board) is always available as a point of contact by email at Malte Wegner Soller, Management: wegner@theaterformen.de

June 2022

Since 2021, the Festival Theaterformen wants to become more accessible – a plan that should not really be worth mentioning, but a given. However, since these are new offerings for the majority of our audience, we would like to briefly present our plans. 

From autumn 2020 to 2022, the disabled experts Noa Winter and Sophia Neises advised us. This accompaniment of the process took place in cooperation with Schauspiel Hannover and Staatstheater Braunschweig. Winter and Neises have given sensibilisation workshops on Ableism* Critique and Accessibility for our teams as well as for the box office and admission staff and have conducted a comprehensive structural inventory of our venues in Hanover and Braunschweig. This has resulted in a manual that not only documents the current state in detail but also outlines short-term and long-term improvement options for the future, which we are addressing together with the State Theaters. For the 2023 festival edition, Xenia Dürr has been advising us on the topic of audism**(-criticism) and offered awareness-raising workshops with this focus. Since 2024, Alina Buschmann is advising us on the topics inclusion, accessibility and anti discrimination.

A first result of this process is our accessible website, which includes detailed information about the venues, such as the dimensions of elevators and doors, access to accessible restrooms, and information about sensory stimuli, content notes and audience requirements for each play. Information about the festival and the program will also be made available in German Sign Language via video. For the 2024 festival edition of the festival, information about the festival and selected performances will be made available in easy language for the first time.

In addition, we have developed new services for audiences with different disabilities and needs: for example, we offer audio descriptions with tactile tours for selected performances to make the festival accessible for blind and visually impaired audiences. For selected performances we are offering interpretation into German Sign Language for Deaf*** people and interpretation into Spoken German for selected performances by Deaf artists. Additionally, we offer Relaxed Performances for neurodivergent audiences (e.g. autistic people) who are often excluded from the usual theatre etiquette in performance spaces (sitting still in the dark, behaving quietly). In all venues, there are beanbags as alternative seating options (e.g. for audience members with chronic pain), which, like the wheelchair seats, can be easily booked via the Staatstheater ticket store. We try to offer wheelchair seating in the front seating areas.

We are aware that at the moment we are not yet able to offer services for all accessibility needs. This is just the beginning of a long-term process. We invite you to join us on this journey!
 

* Ableism means Disabled People are marginalized or excluded. More information via the following link: Diversity Arts Culture

Further information in Easy Language via the following link:Diversity Arts Culture

** Audism means Deaf people are marginalized or excluded. More information via the following link: Diversity Arts Culture

*** Deaf is a positive self-designation of non-hearing people, regardless of whether they are deaf, partially Deaf or hard of hearing. More information via the following link: Diversity Arts Culture