The international symposium DRAMAQUEEN. New Theatre by Women from Central and Eastern Europe (6^th - 8^th May 2010) will discuss and reflect on the functions of theatre and those involved in it in the countries that underwent transformation after 1989. The topography of contemporary Central and East European theatre culture could not be more diverse and has left behind the clichés of a homogeneous “Eastern Block”. Twenty years after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe numerous female authors are emerging who yield a significant influence on European drama. In their works, through the use of dramatic images, they show the unflattering reality of deformed societies, their moral decay and their meaningless yet unbridled consumerism. The stage becomes a medium that transforms inner turmoil and aggression into creativity and that speaks a “language of the streets”. The three-day symposium will illuminate this phenomenon of a new theatre aesthetic and its backgrounds while reflecting on the role of the theatre as a memory reservoir. Through panels concentrating on the themes Generation Dramaqueen – The Stage in the Spotlight – Aesthetic of Language – Provocations – Memory-Reservoir Theatre –  Crossroads, as well as presentations, discussions and staged readings, the symposium will highlight the work of young female dramatists from Central and East Europe, bringing them together with theatre experts from German-speaking Europe, and will reveal the perspectives of a common and transnational Theatre.

The project is supported by the Capital Cultural Fund  and the Robert Bosch Stiftung, in cooperation with the Sophiensaele Theatre, the Berlin Literary Colloquium and the Freiburg Literary Bureau.

Idea and realisation: Katarina Tojić, Kateryna Stetsevych and Stefanie Stegmann