| News Archive of The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
| News Archive 2016 |
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Monday, December 19, 2016, at 7.30 pm
Karl Jaspers Society
Unter den Eichen 22
26129 Oldenburg / Germany |
A School that is a Theater – a Theater that is a School
Erwin Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the New School and Piscator’s contribution to the American Theater
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Michael Lahr will talk about Piscator’s time and work in exile. Erwin Piscator (1893 – 1966), founder of the Political Theater, was one of the most original and influential directors and producers of theatre in the 20th century, not just in Germany, where his career began in Berlin during the 1920s, but also in the United States of America, where he took refuge in 1939 from the persecution through the Nazi regime.
After his original hopes to direct “War and Peace” on Broadway had been disappointed, Piscator focused on founding the Dramatic Workshop as a professional training course for aspiring actors and a laboratory of experimentation. This undertaking was in some ways a continuation of Piscator’s ideal of a “political theatre”, in others a departure from his previous work. Despite many obstacles, the Dramatic Workshop generated a number of famous artists, such as Harry Belafonte, Marlon Brando, Tony Curtis, Ben Gazzara, Judith Malina, Tony Randall, Elaine Stritch, and Tennessee Williams.
When the political situation worsened in the course of the Cold war and the anti-Communist witch-hunt of McCarthy, Piscator felt impelled to hurriedly leave New York in 1951 |
| In a first step the lecture reconstructs the social and political circumstances which Piscator came upon when he arrived in America. In a second step the lecture exemplifies, how Piscator tried to prepare the ground for political theatre in the United States, by means of his teaching methods and especially through the selection of plays he produced. |
| Admission: € 7.00 / € 5.00 (reduced) |
| presented by the Karl Jaspers-Gesellschaft e.V. |
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Thursday, December 15, 2016, at 7.00 pm
Erwin Piscator House
Biegenstrasse 15
35037 Marburg / Germany |
Political Theater catches on:
Erwin Piscator in Exile in New York…
… and how Elysium – between two continents keeps the legacy of this theatre pioneer alive on both sides of the Atlantic
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| Michael Lahr gives a lecture on Erwin Piscator’s time and work during his exile in New York. Gregorij von Leitis, Founding Artistic Director of Elysium and Chairman of the Erwin Piscator Award Society, recounts how Piscator’s ideas of political theatre have shaped him and his own artistic work, and how his meeting and cooperation with Maria Ley Piscator, the widow of the revolutionary theatre pioneer, has led to the founding of the Erwin Piscator Award, which has been presented regularly since 1985. |
Admission: € 6.00
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| presented by the city of Marburg |
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Tuesday, October 18, 2016, at 7.30 pm
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022 |
Viktor Frankl
Nevertheless Say “Yes” to Life
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| In the 1920s, Viktor Frankl (1905 - 1997) founded the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy", the so-called logotherapy or existential analysis. In his approach to therapy he focused on meaning and value. Having survived the Holocaust as the only one of his immediate family, Frankl reflected upon his experiences in the concentration camps in his famous book "Man's search for Meaning" which has become one of the ten most influential books in the United States of America. Lesser known is his play "Synchronization in Birkenwald: A Metaphysical Conference ", which he wrote in 1946. On the occasion of Frankl's 85th birthday in 1990, Gregorij von Leitis, Founding Artistic Director of Elysium, presented the world premiere of this play in New York. |
Soon after the Holocaust, Frankl advocated for reconciliation as the only way out of the destructive catastrophe of war. The experience of meaning even while suffering, and reconciliation with oneself and with the world as a precondition for healing the world and society: those aspects of Frankl's work are more important than ever in today's broken world.
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Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Admission: free – However, reservations are required. To reserve tickets, please click here |
Presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents and The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Thursday, September 15, 2016, at 6.30 pm
IBB (Conference Hall)
Pr. Gasety “Prawda” 11
220116 Minsk / Belarus |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony
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| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The wave of terror attacks on the one hand and of right-wing hate crimes on the other hand have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
Admission: free
Opening Event of the German Cultural Weeks
Further Information: www.minsk.diplo.de |
presented by the German Embassy Minsk
in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Tuesday, September 6, 2016, at 7.00 pm
Maisel Synagogue
Maiselova 10
110 00 Prague 1 / Czech Republic |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony
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| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The wave of terror attacks on the one hand and of right-wing hate crimes on the other hand have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Admission: free |
presented by the German Embassy Prague and the Jewish Museum Prague
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
 
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Thursday, June 2, 2016 at 7.30 pm
St. Ursula München
Parish Hall
Kaiserplatz 13 A
80803 Munich / Germany |
Elysium’s Young Singers Academy Program
„Wanderlieder“
Rediscovered Treasures from World War II
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| Catherine Laub, Soprano, and Rita Attrot, Piano, will present the German premiere of the song cycle “Wanderlieder“ by Bernd Graf von Schwerin (1885 – 1945), as well as songs by Viktor Ullmann, Ilse Weber, and Egon Lustgarten, composers who were persecuted and silenced by the Nazis. |
| Michael Lahr introduces the program. |
| Admission: free – donations for the ongoing project „Art and Education without Borders“ of The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive are welcome and appreciated. |
| Presented by The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive and Elysium – between two continents e.V. in cooperation with St. Ursula München |
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Tuesday, May 24, 2016, at 7.30 pm
Karl Jaspers Haus
Unter den Eichen 22
26122 Oldenburg / Germany |
Nietzsche: From his Protestant Origins to the Anti-Christ
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| Raised in a Protestant rectory and marked by the spirituality of pietism, Nietzsche first enrolled as a student of theology and philology. But already during his first year at the university in Bonn he turned away from Christianity and decided to focus solely on the studies of philology. During his years as a professor in “pious Basel” he again encounters the Pietist variety of Protestantism which was dominant among the urban middle class. Nietzsche’s reading of Hölderlin, his studies of antiquity, his encounter with the philosophy of Schopenhauer and finally his friendship with Richard Wagner spur a process of emancipation: Nietzsche becomes one of the great critical diagnosticians of his time, a moralist and brilliant proponent of the enlightenment, but at the same time one of the most pronounced critics of Christianity. |
| For his contemporaries Nietzsche seemed to be the Anti-Christ, mostly because of his dictum „God is dead“. As the “prophet of the overman” he assailed the philistine lifestyle of his bourgeois contemporaries and tried to lay a new foundation for morality “beyond good and evil”. And yet, in his most polemic book “The Anti-Christ”, the figure of Jesus was spared all criticism. |
| Friedrich Nietzsche regarded himself as the „thorn in the side“ of the decadent society and culture of his time. He was a stranger to his own era, and called himself a “posthumous thinker” whose hour would come in the future. |
Michael Lahr will try to outline and reconstruct the extraordinary train of thought of Nietzsche
Gregorij von Leitis will read key passages of Nietzsche’s works. |
| Admission: € 7,- / € 5,- (reduced) |
presented by the Karl Jaspers Society
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents and The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Tuesday, May 17, 2016, at 7.00 pm
Embassy of Lithuania to Germany
Charitéstr. 9
10117 Berlin / Germany |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
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| A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony |
| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The terror attacks of November 13 in Paris have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Admission: free - reservations are required and can be made by sending an e-mail to veranstaltungen-botschaft@mfa.lt |
presented by the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania to Germany
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Tuesday, May 10, 2016, at 4.00 pm
University of Daugavpils
Concert Hall
Vienibas iela 13
5401 Daugavpils / Latvia |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
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| A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony |
| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The terror attacks of November 13 in Paris have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Admission: free |
presented by the University of Daugavpils
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
  
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Thursday, May 5, 2016, at 5.30 pm
Centre of Tolerance / Vilna Gaon Jewish State Museum
Naugarduko str. 10 / 2
01309 Vilnius / Lithuania |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
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| A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony |
| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The terror attacks of November 13 in Paris have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Admission: free |
presented by the Centre of Tolerance
in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
 
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Tuesday, April 26, 2016, at 7.30 pm
Künstlerhaus München
Lenbachplatz 8
80333 Munich / Germany |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
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| A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony |
| under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl and Prof. Felix Kolmer (Prague), Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
| The terror attacks of November 13 in Paris have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash. The artists who were incarcerated in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination. With their artistic fantasy, their creative power, their inventive energy they continuously proved wrong the national-socialist dictum, that Jews were sub-human and as such incapable of any real culture. The life-affirming words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Gregorij H. von Leitis reads those texts.
Concept & Introduction: Michael Lahr |
Admission: € 18,- / € 9,- (reduced)
Advance tickets can be bought at Münchner Künstlerhaus, phone (089) 59 91 84 14, info@kuenstlerhaus-muenchen.de
or München Ticket, phone (089) 54 81 81 81, www.muenchenticket.de |
presented by Künstlerhauses München
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents und The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Wednesday, March 30, 2016, at 2.00 pm
The New School
Theresa Lang Community and Student Center, Arnhold Hall
55 West 13th Street, Room 1202
New York, NY 10011 |
Remebering Erwin Piscator
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| March 30, 2016 marks the 50th anniversary of Erwin Piscator’s death. On this occasion, The New School, in partnership with Elysium – between two continents and The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive, presents two talks exploring the theatre impresario’s enduring legacy. |
Erwin Piscator (1893 – 1966) was one of the most original and influential directors and producers of theatre in the 20th century, not just in the German-speaking lands where his career began, but also in the United States, where he took refuge in mid-century New York.
More than just a man of the theatre, Piscator was an exemplary man in dark times – his passion for fierce art forms that challenged the status quo was never dimmed by his episodic struggles against political persecution. His friend Bertolt Brecht once said that “Piscator is the greatest theatre man of all times. He will leave a legacy which we should use.” |
Prof. Erika Fischer-Lichte will speak about “Inventing New Forms of Political Theatre: Erwin Piscator’s Theatre Work in Germany”
The focus of this talk will be on three different periods of Piscator’s work – the first being his political revues and his productions at the Volkbühne in the early 1920s, the second the productions at the Piscator-Bühne in the late 1920s, and the third, his invention of the documentary theatre in the 1960s. In each of these periods he responded to a changing political situation by inventing a new form of political theatre. Each of these forms proved to be aesthetically highly demanding and set new standards for political theatre. |
Michael Lahr will talk about “A School that is a Theatre – A Theatre that is a School: Piscator’s Dramatic Workshop at the New School and his contribution to the American Theatre”
This talk will examine Piscator’s work during his exile in the United States (1939 - 1951). After his original hopes to direct “War and Peace” on Broadway had been disappointed, Piscator focused on founding the Dramatic Workshop as a professional training course for aspiring actors and a laboratory of experimentation. This undertaking was in some ways a continuation of Piscator’s idea of “Political Theatre”, in others a departure from his previous work. |
| Welcome Remarks by Prof. James Miller, Chair of Liberal Studies and Professor of Politics at the New School for Social Research |
| Erika Fischer-Lichte is Professor at the Institute of Theatre Studies at Freie Universität Berlin / Germany. She has published widely in the field of aesthetics, theatre history and contemporary theatre. A number of her books have been translated into English. She is the recipient of this year’s Erwin Piscator Life Achievement Award. |
| Michael Lahr is Executive Director of the Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive, and Vice Chairman of the Erwin Piscator Award Society. |
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Tuesday, March 29, 2016, at 12.00 noon
Lotos Club
5 East 66th Street
New York, NY 10065 |
29th Annual Erwin Piscator Award Luncheon
to benefit our International Educational Programs
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| The American theatre director Bartlett Sher will be presented with the Erwin Piscator Award. The New York Times described him as "one of the most original and exciting directors, not only in the American theater but also in the international world of opera." Most recently, Bartlett Sher directed Otello for the Metropolitan Opera, and before that The King and I for the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center where he is resident director. His production of Fiddler on the Roof will open on Sunday on Broadway. Internationally he directed Charles Gounod's Faust in Baden-Baden and Gounod's Romeo et Juliette for the Salzburg Festival and La Scala. Mr. Sher received both the Tony Award and the Drama Desk Award 2008 for his direction of the Broadway revival of South Pacific. |
| The philanthropist Sachi Liebergesell will receive the Honorary Erwin Piscator Award in memory of Maria Ley Piscator for her great support of the arts and culture. She is currently the president of the Licia Albanese-Puccini Foundation, president of the Liebergesell Foundation and vice president of the Zuzana Ruzickova and Viktor Kalabis Foundation. Mrs. Liebergesell has been working tirelessly to foster and enhance the careers of young singers and musicians. |
| Prof. Dr. Erika Fischer-Lichte will recieve the Piscator Lifetime Achievement Award. She is director of the International Research Center "Interweaving Performance Cultures" and Professor of Theatre Studies at the Freie Universität Berlin. Ms. Fischer-Lichte is a member of the Academia Europaea, the Academy of Sciences at Goettingen, and the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences. She has published widely in the field of aesthetics, theatre history and contemporary theatre. Among her numerous publications are The Transformative Power of Performance: A New Aesthetics (2008), and Theatre, Sacrifice, Ritual. Exploring Forms of Political Theatre (2005). |
Admission: $ 325 (tickets are tax-deductible for the full amount less $ 85)
To receive an invitation please contact Michael Lahr via e-mail ml@lahrvonleitisacademy.eu |
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Thursday, February 4, 2016, at 6.00 pm
German House
Auditorium
871 United Nations Plaza
New York, NY 10017 |
Hate is a Failure of Imagination
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| A Literary Collage – An Encouraging Testimony |
under the patronage of Former German Chancellor Dr. Helmut Kohl,
and Prof. Felix Kolmer, Advisor / Foundation for Holocaust Victims |
| with texts by Alice Herz-Sommer, Georg Kafka, Paul Aron Sandfort, Leo Strauss, Viktor Ullmann, and Ilse Weber |
The terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, CA have drastically reminded us, how hatred can blind people and how much destruction and violence an inhuman ideology can unleash.
The artists who were imprisoned in Theresienstadt have defied the Nazis’ hatred and contempt for them in their own way. They countered this hate with a powerful offensive of imagination.
The words of these artists can encourage us today, to break through the spiral of hate, violence and destruction. |
Recitation: Gregorij H. von Leitis
Concept and Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Free admission – however reservations are required; please register by sending an e-mail to rsvp-gk@newy.auswaertiges-amt.de or by calling 212-610 9721 |
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Wednesday, January 27, 2016, at 7.30 pm
Austrian Cultural Forum
11 East 52nd Street
New York, NY 10022 |
| On the Occasion of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day |
“Are there miracles? There are only miracles!”
Egon Lustgarten: Composer in Exile
A Musical-Literary Portrait
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| in memory of our late advisor Maestro Kurt Masur |
Today the Austrian exiled composer Egon Lustgarten (1887 – 1961) is almost totally forgotten – unjustly so. In 1938, the “Anschluss” thwarted the planned world-premiere of Lustgarten’s opera “Dante in Exile” at the Vienna State Opera. Egon Lustgarten fled to New York with his wife and daughter. There, at the age of 50 he had to start from scratch again, giving music lessonsand working hard to earn a living. Against all odds he was quite productive and wrote four more operas.
After World War II, Lustgarten tried in vain to get his operas produced in Austria or Germany. Egon Lustgarten died on May 2, 1961 in Syosset, NY. Not only did he leave a big musical oeuvre, but also numerous diaries and a rich correspondence with his contemporaries.
In 2005, Elysium premiered a shortened version of “Dante in Exile”. The German daily newspaper “Süddeutsche Zeitung” worte: “New birth of a forgotten work of opera […] passionate production under Greogrij von Leitis’ sensitive leadership.” |
Concept and Introduction: Michael Lahr
Piano: Dan Franklin Smith
Soprano: Jeannie Im
Recitation: Gregorij H. von Leitis |
| Admission: free |
| However, reservations are required. To reserve tickets please go to http://www.acfny.org/event/reservation/elysium-between-two-continents-1/ |
Presented by the Austrian Cultural Forum New York
in cooperation with Elysium – between two continents and The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive |
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Thursday, January 21, 2016, at 7.00 pm
Lithuanian Consulate General
420 Fifth Avenue, 3rd Floor
New York, NY 10018 |
Defending Democracy
A Meditation on Basic Democratic Values in Times of Political and Economic Insecurity
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| under the patronage of Kerry Kennedy, President Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights |
| Literary Collage with texts by Mahatma Gandhi, Robert F. Kennedy, Hermynia zur Mühlen, Erich Mühsam, Alfred Polgar, Carl von Ossietzky, Joseph Roth, Hans Sahl, Kurt Tucholsky, Lasantha Wikrematunge, and others |
| After the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, the victory parade of democracy seemed unstoppable. 25 years later, the initial euphoria has given way to great disillusionment. Globalization, rising unemployment, retrenchment in social programs, marginalization of large societal groups: all this has led to shrinking trust in democracy and its institutions. |
| Since 2008, social and economic upheavals have been further aggravated by the bank crisis and the sovereign debt crisis. The economic crisis has developed into a crisis of democracy. In many places, the expression "post-democracy" has been used. |
| Today, the Western system of an open society based in democratic values is threatened from many sides. Especially in these times of political and economic uncertainty it seems more important than ever to remind ourselves of the great achievement democracy is, and that it is worth fighting for. The program “Defending Democracy” presents texts of authors and thinkers who, in their time, fought against undermining tendencies of dissolution and the erosion of the republic by totalitarian forces. The cry for simple solutions, the longing for a strong man who liberates us from the complex trap of a globalized world, is growing louder. The program "Defending Democracy" wants to take a stand against that. |
Recitation: Gregorij H. von Leitis
Concept and Introduction: Michael Lahr |
| Free admission – however reservations are required. Please register at ny.renginiai@urm.lt or by calling 212-354 7850 |
Presented by the Lithuanian Consulate General New York
in cooperation with The Lahr von Leitis Academy & Archive and Elysium – between two continents |
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More information on the readings and literary collages you find under  Projects. |
