The Maxim Gorki Theater’s 7th spring salon takes the 1915 Armenian genocide as its subject – a topic whose long shadow extends into the present, and not only vis-à-vis Azerbaijani aggression. To think through past, present, and global significance of the genocide – and the subsequent Armenian diaspora – Gorki intendant Shermin Langhoff, along with lead curators Anahit Bagradjans and Vigen Galstyan, has composed a wide-ranging programme of art, literature, film and theatre.
The salon opens with a theatrical concert from Tigran Hamasyan, The Bird of a Thousand Voices, which offers a new representation of a classic Armenian folktale. The great Canadian-Armenian filmmaker Atom Egoyan brings Donation to the mainstage, which turns the attempt by actor Arsinée Khanjian – his wife and collaborator – to donate costumes from Egoyan’s Ararat to Germany into a reflection on art’s potential to change the world.
Along with numerous readings (there is a strong literary emphasis to this salon), look out for Regine Dura and Hans-Werner Kroesinger’s new staging of Franz Werfel’s unlikely bestseller, The 40 Days of Musa Dagh, a 1933 work of historical fiction whose account of Armenian persecution resonated both then and now for its specificity and its multidirectional memory.
- Maxim Gorki Theater, Am Festungsgraben 2, Mitte, Apr 24 through May 31, with English surtitles, details.
