Deconfining Writers’ Residency and Artist Talk

The first Deconfining writers’ residency took place from 3 to 16 February 2023, organized by Salzkammergut 2024 in cooperation with Operndorf Afrika – Village Opera. 

Two authors, Thiemo Strutzenberger from Austria and Sidiki Yougbaré from Burkina Faso, spent two weeks exploring different places and corners of the Salzkammergut region. They exchanged views with the local population and talked a lot with each other. Their thoughts and ideas are individually elaborated in the texts produced during the residency.

These texts are the basis for the next steps and future residencies before it all comes together in a theatre performance that will premiere in Bad Ischl at the end of 2024 and then tour to Burkina Faso in 2025.

During the residency, on 8 February, the writers took part in a public author talk on the term ‘deconfining’ and its social, environmental and spatial dimensions. The discussion was moderated by Alexander Charim and took place in the newly opened Alte Kurdirektion Bad Ischl.

Participants:

Sidiki Yougbaré is the artistic director of the Association Kala-Kala Théâtre and organizer of the Rencontres Internationales de Théâtre en Langues Maternelles (Les RITLAMES). He is an actor, writer, director and film actor. In 2004, he began writing his plays in the local Moore language – the language of the people, of the majority; thus he created a kind of theatre literature that was until then new in his country, Burkina Faso. As a translator, he has adapted and/or translated numerous plays, among others Sophocles’ Antigone, William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Gustave Akakpo’s A Petites Pierres, M. Maeterlinck’s La Mort de Tintagilles, Aristide Tarnagda and Alexandre Kouchevsky’s Mam Gulsda Yamb Depuis Paris, Edoxi Gnoul’s Retrouvailles, Aristide Tarnagda’s Façon d’aimer, etc.

Thiemo Strutzenberger is an actor and director from Kirchdorf an der Krems. He studied acting at the Max Reinhardt Seminar in Vienna with Klaus Maria Brandauer, Hubertus Petroll, Susanne Granzer and René Pollesch and was already engaged at the Burgtheater in Vienna. He later played at the Deutsches Schauspielhaus in Hamburg and the Theater Neumarkt in Zürich, the Schauspielhaus Vienna and the Theater Basel. He has been a member of the ensemble at the Munich Residenztheater since the 2019/2020 season. Thiemo studied Gender Studies at the University of Vienna and was part of the Postgraduate programme in Gender Studies at the University of Basel, where he received his PhD in 2021. In the same year, he won the 3sat Award for his role in Stefan Bachmann’s play “Graf Öderland (Count Oederland)”.

Alexander Charim, born in 1981 in Vienna, studied acting direction at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst “Ernst Busch” in Berlin. He has worked as a director for drama and musical theatre at Schauspielhaus Wien, Staatsoper Hannover, Deutsche Oper Berlin, Theater Basel, Theater Bielefeld, Theater St. Pölten, Hans-Otto-Theater Potsdam, Volkstheater Wien and Theater Heidelberg, among others. He has received the Dr. Otto Kasten Prize and the Nestroy Prize, among others.