On April 21, 2012, the Berliner Philharmoniker, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle, will play Bizet’s Carmen at the Philharmonie, in aid of Operndorf Afrika. An additional charge of 5 euros per ticket that evening will be donated to the project.

This generous support was initiated by Martin Hoffmann, general manager of the Berliner Philharmoniker.

We are most grateful for this generous financial assistance!

Further information available at: www.berliner-philharmoniker.de

frieze: What are the museums you’re currently most excited about?

Chris Dercon: (…) For the moment my favourite is Christoph Schlingensief’s opera village, a cultural centre in Remdoogo in Burkina Faso. Museums will become different – they will become community centres and art schools. You have to be radically different and to rethink the notion of the museum, not just in its physical substance but as a social organization.

You can read the full interview here!

Christoph Schlingensief's artistic centre in Burkina Faso opens with a new school

BURKINA FASO. The first phase of late artist Christoph Schlingensief's African opera village was completed on 8 October with the opening of a school in Burkina Faso. The remaining two phases are the building of an infirmary and a festival hall.

In 2008 Schlingensief, who died in August 2010, and architect Francis Kéré created the foundation Festspielhaus Afrika and the plan to build an opera village near Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso was born. The intention was to establish an artistic centre outside of Europe, in one of the poorest countries of the world.

After Schlingensief's death, the project was chosen for the German pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale. It promptly won the the Golden Lion, a decision very much opposed to by artists such as Gerhard Richter who thought of Schlingensief as a performer rather than an artist. Indeed, Schlingensief had turned the African project into a stage production, “Intolleranza II”, for which he was posthumously awarded the 3Sat award in May 2011.

Schlingensief's widow, Aino Laberenz, who worked with Schlingensief as stage and costume designer, took on the African opera village project. Laberenz opened the school in Burkina Faso, which is meant to create a space for the region's young people and to initiate a dialogue between European and African artists. The school aims to take on 50 local children each year, offering classes in film, art and music in addition to other subjects.

The opera village has been supported by the German political and social establishment, including the Foreign Office, the Federal Cultural Foundation and the Goethe Institute, as well as the Swedish author Henning Mankell and the Berlin lawyer and art patron Peter Raue. Former German president Horst Köhler also took up patronage following Schlingensief's death. The project has cost around €500,000 so far.

Alongside the German board of advisors that is representing the opera village, an artistic committee has been founded in Burkina Faso, which includes film-maker Gaston Kaboré, sculptor Siriki Ky and several other members of the Burkinabé cultural scene.

“Christoph would have been incredibly happy. With the opening of the school, part of his vision has become reality,” said Laberenz.

© The Art Newspaper, 01 November 2011
By Rita Pokorny

The idea would become Christoph Schlingensief’s last big dream: an opera village in the West African country of Burkina Faso – with a school, infirmary and festival hall. Now, the idea is taking shape. Raise the curtain for act one!

Christoph Schlingensief would have enjoyed the spectacle. More than one hundred African children with drumsticks, animal masks and wild costumes perform a mythical looking dance. In the scorching heat of the midday sun in Burkina Faso, their faces are dripping with perspiration, but for over an hour they are fully involved, full of earnestness and enthusiasm.

They are celebrating the opening of the school in the African opera village planned by Schlingensief. A good year after the death of the film and theatre-maker, his idea has become a bit of reality.

“Christoph is sadly not here today. But, I am certain that he’s sitting somewhere and watching us,” says his widow Aino Laberenz. Her voice is firm; she is wearing her husband’s large, heavy wedding ring on a chain around her neck.

Approximately 500 people came to the opening of the school on Saturday – chieftains and elders from the region, women and their children, many artists, the mayor as well as the cultural and educational ministers from the capital city of Ouagadougou 30 kilometres away. “What would have made Christoph most happy, is that you have made his dream your dream,” says Laberenz.

School began last week for 50 children. They come from the six surrounding villages. There are about an equal number of girls and boys – unusual in the poor and very male-dominated country. Lessons follow the country’s general curriculum, but there are additional classes in art, dance and music. A number of artists have already agreed to start up their own projects here.

Outside, it is almost 40 degrees, but in the two long school buildings it stays a pleasant 25. The award-winning Burkinabe architect Francis Kéré, who Schlingensief was able to gain for the project early on, has developed an exemplary natural cooling system for other schools in the country.

The walls of red brick are 30 centimetres thick, the double arched roof fends off the heat, ventilation slits and tilting wooden jalousies ensure a supply of fresh air. “The architecture may look complicated, but we prepared all of the materials on the building site,” says Kéré.
“At the beginning we thought this Schlingensief is crazy”

The opening of the school completes the first of three construction phases; the next will be an infirmary and finally the opera house. Aino Laberenz explains, “Christoph liked the image of a snail’s house gradually spreading out around the centre point of the festival hall.”

Following his death, the future of the project appeared uncertain, but Laberenz, with the aid of a prominent team of supporters, got it up and running again. Former German President Horst Köhler took up the patronage. The Berlin attorney and art patron Peter Raue is also among the driving forces. “The school cannot be the last word,” he says. “That would be like performing only one act of a three act play.”

The project has cost about 500,000 euros to date. “Our goal is not to make little artists out of all of our pupils,” says the teacher and artistic director Abdoulaye Ouedraogo. “But we are sure that the children very much prefer learning when it is creative and is done with fun.” The journalist Richard Tiéné from the local station Pulsar admits, “At the beginning we thought this Schlingensief is crazy. But Burkina Faso needs just such a place where the wealth of our culture can evolve.”

The Goethe-Institut, which is among the supporters together with the German Foreign Office and the Federal Cultural Foundation, also regards the opera village as a good docking station for stimulating dialogue with African artists. The responsible institute director, Katharina von Ruckteschell, says, “It is a risk, but a wonderful risk. And if we all believe in it, then it will happen.”

Copyright: dpa, 9 October 2011

Christoph Schlingensief's vision of an Opera Village has finally begun to come to life. The first phase of the planned centre for artistic education and exchange, a school, was inaugurated on October 8 in the town of Laongo.  Burkinabe and Germans met to celebrate this event and were treated to special performances in honour of the occasion.

A little boy draws a guitar, others are busy with papers and pencils. Children hand their paintings one after the other to visitors in the first ranks. This was one of many moments of creativity in Laongo, at the opera village site, where the late Christoph Schlingensief's grand idea of supporting artistic education and exchange in Burkina Faso finally materialized through the first school buildings ready to receive pupils. Schlingensief had introduced his opera village project as "social sculpture", as a place of encounter.

As the school doors opened on October 8, the first phase in his opera village in Burkina Faso was completed. At the same time that classes restarted all over the rest of the country, the opera village school building was inaugurated. Burkinabe and Germans met to celebrate this event, which took place roughly eighteen months after the first stone was laid by Christoph Schlingensief himself in February 2010, and just a little over a year after his death in August 2010.

The day-long ceremony included tree plantings, speeches from government officials, the local mayor and artists, as well as a guided tour by project director Aino Laberenz, Christoph Schlingensief's widow. "Today we celebrate and life in the village is starting", she said. "Tomorrow we will continue to construct."

Burkina-born architect Francis Kéré from Berlin elaborated upon his drawings of the opera village which have now taken shape. A film was screened describing Christoph Schlingensief's direction of "Via Intolleranza II" which included Burkinabe artists. A panel of German and Burkinabe cultural representatives discussed the state of the project.

Fifty primary school pupils are due to start lessons, with special classes in artistic expression. More classes will follow in the years to come. Construction of a medical centre is also on the agenda. Project organisers raised private funds, adding to the support from the German government, and are still active collecting further resources through various websites.

Special performance for inauguration
With funding from the Goethe Institut, Wilfrid Bambara, renowned Burkinabe rapper, prepared the spectacle DODO OPERA CONNECTION with youngsters from around the Laongo site. Bambara was a participant in the Goethe Institut's Cultural management programme in Africa. He completed an internship in Düsseldorf's Kabawil theatre.

For this event, five villages cooperated in Bamabara's project to honour the inauguration in workshops which linked local tradition to cultural techniques. Dance, music, masks and story-telling in the Griot tradition joined forces with contemporary performance techniques in theatre and opera.

Little girls moved their arms, bodies and hands in a delightful ballet. Other children performed with animal masks covering their heads, while recorded animal noises were played. Finally, youngsters in full body costumes as giraffes, elephants or lions met on stage, including a small child in a rabbit costume (which represent cleverness in Burkina Faso / Western Africa).

Visitors sat under tents in two semi circles to observe the programme in the Laongo arena, while many local women and children watched from a distance. A market place had been put into place, with fresh sorghum, vegetables and flour and textiles for sale. Trade and commerce seemed to flourish while villagers stocked up on the latest news through murmured comments and chat. Media interest from both the German and Burkinabe press was high.

The concept of the opera village continues to evolve through a German Advisory Council under the guidance of Aino Laberenz and an advisory board of Burkinabe cultural figures and experts. This council has started work on modules designed to promote the creativity of the students and put the focus on the exchange of artistic knowledge.

by Marianne Lange © GIC Pretoria, Oct 10, 2011