transonic is a new series of musical events which explores the unoccupied notes of different musical traditions. It is a place of production and experiment. Each year for three weeks in January, international projects are presented which sound out the relationship between avant-garde, experimental music and the different forms of our musical heritage: Western European meets contemporary music from outside Europe, global developments meet local positions, new composition meets classical, traditional forms.
The transmediale is one of the most successful international festivals of electronic media art and media culture in Europe. With its presentation and the choice of its topics constantly being updated, it has developed into an interactive platform for artists, media theorists, scientists and interested laymen over the past 15 years. The transmediale.03 will be focussing on the artistic and cultural consequences of globalisation. Its slogan will be “Play Global!”, and it will present a varied and critical discussion about the extent to which economic and political globalisation also brings about new forms of cultural expression, allowing the individual’s actions to become effective globally.
The BERLINALE TALENT CAMPUS will take place in the House of World Cultures from February 10 – 14, 2003 in co-operation with the Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the U.K. Film Council. With the Campus the Berlinale is offering young talents a forum of its own for the first time. Here film students, young scriptwriters, directors and camera men from throughout the world meet established professionals and take part in a week-long winter academy focused on essential aspects of filmmaking.
The Youth Programme in the House of World Cultures will have two new focal points in 2003. Firstly, the work focused on city districts and the conceptual co-operation with other organisations that do youth cultural work will take greater precedence. These community arts projects introduce new approaches from outside Europe. Secondly, a central theme of all the youth programmes will be the exchange with an artistic genre: Photography. In the process, own programmes – such as DisORIENTation, Visual Culture Network and the focus on India – will be supplemented by exhibition projects in co-operation with other institutions.
The program of DisORIENTation provides Germany's first comprehensive introduction to a new generation of Arab artists and intellecutals. In the concrete encounter with this art scene, DisORIENTation will open up new perspectives on the Mideast.
The new international platform for the performing arts
Taking the performing arts as a starting point and working with dialogue between artists, IN TRANSIT is developing a new form of festival. The focus is on the artistic process and on intercultural dialogue between artists, intellectuals and curators from Asia, the Pacific, Africa, Latin America, Europe and the Arabic world. The encounters, both conflicts and co-operations, become a resource for new artistic productions. Moving beyond notions of exotic or anthropological interest, IN TRANSIT seeks to redefine contemporary performing arts.
popdeurope is the House of World Cultures' summer music festival. With weekend Concerts on the Roof, Club Nights and a Summer Music Camp for young people, popdeurope will focus on sounds and inspirations originating outside Europe which are now an integral part of the European musical world: Indian break beats from England, West African soul from Portugal, Brazilian grooves from Andalusia or Turkish hip-hop from Berlin. Popdeurope 2003 presents the "Sounds of the City", the newest trends and fusions from the cities of Europe.
Mumbai/Bombay, New Delhi, Bangalore and Colcata are not only among the mega-cities of the world, but they also represent increasingly important cultural and intellectual centres. Here, a whole new world of images, sounds and gestures is evolving and gaining in significance outside India as well. Bollywood, Bhangra Beat und Asian Dub are influencing the global pop culture to an increasing extent, a lively contemporary art and theatre scene has developed in the past few decades, and India has become home to a large number of outstanding intellectuals and authors. State-of-the-art technology and ancient forms of culture meet and merge in India. In autumn 2003, the House of World Cultures will present this new forward-looking India as a culture which is as popular as it is intellectual, and it will make it the centre of an aesthetic, culturo-political and post-colonial debate.
A project of the Asia-Pacific-Weeks-Berlin 2003 - Focus India. Supported by Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin
At the House of World Cultures in Berlin, Advent every year is very much a time for sacred music. The Festival of Sacred Music is dedicated to the aesthetic and spiritual experience of great musical traditions of the most varying religious character. As a continuation of the World Festival of Sacred Music initiated by the Dalai Lama for world peace at the turn of the millennium, the musical series brings the dialogue between people from different cultures up to date in a way very appealing to the senses.
