In the Middle of the Magdalena Marathon

It’s the middle of March and the middle of the Magdalena München Saison: six weeks behind us, six weeks ahead. Time to pause and take a breath, look back at what’s happened and gather our energies for the next stretch!

February guests Jana Korb, Deborah Hunt and Zoe Gudović have now all returned to their homes in Berlin, Puerto Rico and Belgrade. Deborah has written about her experiences here, and we are expecting reports from Jana and Zoe. For all of them, as well as for Thaís Medeiros and Kordula Lobeck de Fabris who are here for the whole three months, February was a very busy time. Performances, workshops and Zoe’s installation at das KloHäuschen, as well as social gatherings and adventures with public transport quickly filled the month. All of the events were successful, even if the audiences could have been bigger, and we achieved a lot of coverage in the newspapers. Excitingly, all of the artists made new connections and have talked of returning for future projects and collaborations.

For the local Magdalena team, it’s been six weeks of juggling our ongoing work and family commitments with organisational duties, documentation, hosting – and attending performances, participating in workshops and spending time with the visiting artists. At the beginning of March, the team happily welcomed two additional volunteers – our intern Gina Saggiante, and Vedanth Ramesh who has come all the way from India to help and participate.

March has an unofficial theme of songs and singing, with Teatret OM arriving from Denmark and presenting their song-based performance “I Maltagliati“,  Helen Chadwick from London performing “Fragments of Love” and giving a Harmoniegesangworkshop, and Elis & Catherine (from Munich and Boston) performing their Brasilian music concert “Um Gosto de Sol“. The March “Jourfix” at the Villa Waldberta celebrated song, with both guest artists and local Munich artists singing and teaching songs, which everyone joined in. At left, Helen Chadwick leads us in a two-part harmony.

But it’s not only about song. March began with Kordula Lobeck de Fabris’ multimedia installation “Unsichtbare Orte – Weil das Lebenein Geschenk ist“, featuring the work of Afghani teenagers with whom Kordula has collaborated over the last two years. The material gives a fascinating insight into their lives and how they are adapting to living in Germany. Two of the youths, Navid and Hasib, came to Munich and shared their experiences of both life and the project in a networking and exchange event. Kordula is now working with a group of women on “Unsichtbare Orte – Frauen in der Kunst“, which will follow a similar form to the previous “Unsichtbare Orte” installations but with completely new material that explores women artists’ “invisible spaces”. This will also be shown at PATHOS Theater, from 18 to 22 April.

“Feministischer Aktivismus als Performance” was the topic on 6 March, where we witnessed the performance “Tapete Manifesto“, by Thaís Medeiros and her workshop participants (Sabine Bollenbach, Cecilia Bolaños, Cordula Trapp and Zoe Gudović), with drums by Ivan Medeiros. The performance presents brutal statistics and realities about violence against women in a way that is poetic, beautiful and provocative. Following the performance, there was a panel discussion, where I dedicated the evening to the late performance artist and gender activist Diane Torr, and both Thaís and Zoe Gudović spoke about how they use performance as a tool for feminist activism, and how activism informs their artistic work. The event was moderated by Maria Fedorova and we had a good discussion with the audience after the presentations.