Invitation to a Press Conference
Tuesday, May 20 2003, 11 a.m.
The House of World Cultures, Restaurant

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The international performance festival IN TRANSIT will enable encounters with artists who work on the fringes of cultural and social development, redefining the performing arts. For the second time, the artistic director of IN TRANSIT will be Ong Keng Sen, theatermaker from Singapore, together with Johannes Odenthal from the House of World Cultures. The theme of this year’s festival is "Customs – Nothing to Declare". The age of migration and mobility is marked by borders and controls. Yet customs are also traditions and ways of life brought into juxtaposition by globalization.

IN TRANSIT opens with Koffi Kôkô’s latest production "Les feuilles qui résistent au vent", which translates spirituality from Benin into contemporary dance. One focus is on artists from New York such as Ping Chong, who will stage a new version of his oral history project "Undesirable Elements" with Berliners. Ong Ken Sen will premiere "Global Soul – The Buddha Project" in Berlin, a performance about material and spiritual travellers embodied by stars of the contemporary performing arts scene such as Sophiatou Kossoko and Charlotte Engelkes.

You are warmly invited to our press conference on Tuesday, May 20 2003 at 11 a.m. in the House of World Cultures. Johannes Odenthal and Ong Keng Sen will present the program to you. And artists from this year’s program such as Koffi Kôkô (Benin/Paris), Ping Chong (New York) and Charlotte Engelkes (Stockholm) will be present to answer your questions.

We look forward to seeing you, and ask that you confirm your attendance by telephone or e-mail.

Yours truly
Annette Schäfer
Press and Public Relations
The House of World Cultures
John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10
10557 Berlin
Tel.: 030-397 87-253
E-mail: schaefer@hkw.de