The Hebbel-Theater

“When we were appointed to create the city of culture programme in the summer of ’86, there were no locations left for us. They were all booked out. One of the main objectives of E88 was finding new locations. But that was difficult, and for dance, which requires indoor spaces, it was almost impossible. Because of this, the state decided to hand over the Hebbel, which was still being restored at the time. Though we had our offices in the theatre’s basement, the building was by no means finished. That meant that in planning our programme we were also very dependent on the spaces (or the lack thereof) that were available, and so for the ‘TanzWerkstatt’ we rented the old Ballhaus in Kreuzberg so the people could work there. That was a difficult logistical aspect. At the same time though, we had started pestering the Senator for Culture about how the Hebbel-Theater could provide a location for presenting a new concept. It was based a little on Tom Stromberg and the Theater am Turm in Frankfurt. He was really the first person in Germany to invite and produce international productions, and we had worked closely with him. The concept was also based on, or built upon, the experience that we gained through the international ‘Programm 88’. We met colleagues in Amsterdam, Brussels, Salzburg and Paris, and became increasingly convinced that Berlin was also going to need a place where people would finally have the chance to do international work in a totally different way to in a traditional repertoire theatre. This kind of space had never existed in Berlin, because a repertoire theatre cannot and need not put on such work, and so we increasingly tried to influence the senator to bring him round to the idea that the theatre should be kept as it is and not simply turned into a German repertoire theatre.”

“He was already somebody back then, but naturally not the international star that he is today. He came to us and wanted to work with students – he wanted to try things out. And our theatre had absolutely no qualms about trying things out. I think that to him it was very clear that our little theatre pushed things to the limits, without ever complaining, really pulled out all the stops to cater for all of his experimentation. I think that was the real achievement of the Hebbel-Theater. There was no-one in the accounting department saying ‘no, that’s impossible'. We started out from the idea that everything was possible, and then came the limits, but these could also potentially be discussed. The setup offered him something completely different: direct decision-making channels. It wasn’t some giant behemoth that you had to grapple with. Back then, though he did have personal assistants by that time, he didn’t have a huge, unwieldy entourage. In fact, we were the entourage. That meant there was a very intimate working relationship, and that was really nothing but positive. There was the odd stressful moment, but there was never a point where he felt hamstrung, and I think that is what stuck in his head."