Private: Staging Democracy

Imagine: you’re a playwright who puts together a fictional political party. Unexpectedly, the party gets taken seriously, and its popularity skyrockets. Is it still a play, or real politics in the making? What divides politics and performance?

Democracy, one of Europe’s cornerstone values, is currently facing difficult times: think of Hungary, Slovakia, Estonia, or more recently, Poland. High time to re-evaluate our notions of democracy. Can artists provide us with an alternative perspective? What can artists mean for Europe’s wavering democracy? And how do they envision a renewed European democracy?

Political philosopher Chantal Mouffe, known worldwide for her radical notions of democracy will give a lecture. Afterwards she will enter in conversation with the Swiss-German theatre director Milo Rau, whose artistic work (from City of Change, to The Moscow Trials) allows the audience to experience the threatre as a platform upon which citizenship and democracy can be played out; and also with the theatrical duo Tiit Ojasoo & Ene-Liis Semper who founded a fake political party that managed to turn Estonia on its head. On June 4th they open the Holland Festival 2016 with their performance Die Stunde da wir nichts voneinander wussten.

Markha Valenta will moderate the programme.

This programme will be in English.