Битеф
Photo / Foto: Stefan Kaegi
STEFAN KAEGI Stefan Kaegi (born 1972 in Switzerland) is a theatre director who instead of staging dramas, discovers theatricality in everyday life. The approach to his subjects is documentary: what one finally sees on stage are living ready-mades or transplanted excerpts in the greyzone between reality and fiction, montages of documentary material, theatrical interventions, and real people as experts of special situations. Stefan Kaegi studied visual arts in Zurich and performance studies at the University of Giessen, Germany. In Argentina, Brazil, Austria, and Poland he worked with local performers in urban contexts, producing motor cycle tours, audio walks, chasing channels, pet ceremonies, or bus trips. His Argentinian piece Torero Portero toured Munich (Spiel Art Festival), Frankfurt (Mousonturm), and Berlin (HAU) as well as Bogotá, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo. For his paperchase Skrot. The Krakow Files, the cities of Frankfurt, Gießen, Munich, and Krakow became stage sets. In 2005, Stefan Kaegi's mini-train world Mnemopark was awarded the jury prize at the Festival Politik im freien Theater, Berlin - and is invited to the Avignon Festival in 2006. In 2000, Stefan Kaegi joined forces with Helgard Haug and Daniel Wetzel in founding the theatre-label Rimini-Protokoll. Since then, they directed documentary pieces like Kreuzworträtsel Boxenstopp - whereby 80-year-old ladies were confronted with Formula 1. For the Schauspielhaus Hamburg they let a crew of funeral masters, graveyard musicians, surgery students, and gravestone producers
perform Deadline. This piece got invited to the Theatertreffen (Berlin) in 2004. In Sonde Hannover, the audience could watch the city as a theatre piece through binoculars. Political furore ensued when they doubled a whole 18-hour-session of'Bundestag'live with 200 citizens of the ex-capital Bonn in the piece Deutschland 2 at the Theater der Welt Festival (2002). In 2004, Rimini Protokoll created Sabenation for the Künsten Festival in Brussels and Schwarzenbergplatz for the Burgtheater Vienna (nominated for the Nestroy prize, 2005). For Call Cutta they founded a call centre in Calcutta, India, that remote-controlled audiences in Berlin by mobile phone. Latest works include: Cameriga in Homo Novus Festival Riga (2005) and Blaiberg und sweetheart! 9 for Schauspielhaus Zürich. 'ln the grip of Rimini Protokoll, everything becomes both real und suspicious. No given dramaturgy ensures the difference between art and reality; it is rather the spectator who becomes a specialist in the criteria for authenticity. [...] The theatre should again become the observatory of "what's going on out there'". (Milo Rau, "Neue Zürcher Zeitung") Throughout 2006, Kaegi will be working on projects in Berlin, Zurich, Sofia, Düsseldorf, and Säo Paulo.