Der fremde blick
2 volumes, 1300 pages, edited with Alexander Wewerka
Get the book
https://www.alexander-verlag.com/programm/titel/roberto-ciulli-der-fremde-blick.html
Short description
In 1980, the Italian Roberto Ciulli founds in Mülheim an der Ruhr, together with the dramaturg Helmut Schäfer and the stage designer Gralf-Edzard Habben, the Theater an der Ruhr - an independent but publicly funded ensemble theatre. In over 40 years, the theatre travelled to more than forty countries - including Iran, Chile, Russia, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Iraq - and invited artists from precarious political regions of the world to the Ruhr region. It became, in the words of its founder, a theatre for all bastards of the world - those expelled, sanctioned, without "fatherland and mother tongue". For the first time, this book - published in two volumes - gathers previously unpublished archival materials, re-transcribed diaries and notebooks, new translations of unpublished essays and literary material, in over 1300 pages with more than 400 illustrations.
Read a sample pdf
https://www.alexander-verlag.com/images/verlag/medien/430-9783895814914-lp66.pdf
Reviews
Excerpts from the review of the book launch in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11/16/2021 ("So much life, so much plump life"): "Last Sunday, the 87-year-old theater director Roberto Ciulli was a guest at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. He presented, together with the writer Navid Kermani, his book. "Book" is an understatement in this case. It is two enormous books: on almost 1300 pages there are not simply memories of a young old man. One leafs through a wild, fantastic, philosophical work, rich in thought and imagery, bursting with life. It is called: "Der fremde Blick - Roberto Ciulli und das Theater an der Ruhr".
Excerpts from the review of the book in Die Deutsche Bühne:
"The double volume edited by Alexander Wewerka and Jonas Tinius, "Der fremde Blick" , thankfully does not approach this unique success story with a grand master's eulogy with lavish introspections, which, as is well known, is often published at the end of successful directorships, but in the form of an accompanied, annotated documentation. Since he is the central figure, Roberto Ciulli is given the opportunity to express himself in a variety of ways. In pictorial and written testimonies, his biography is documented as thoroughly and extensively in the first, red volume as the history and artistic output of the Theater an der Ruhr is in the second, blue volume. This ranges, imaginatively and reader-friendly arranged, from children's and family pictures to facsimile contracts to staging photos, from novel fragments to interviews to conceptual and philosophical texts. [...]Dealing with these 1250 pages, leafing through them and reading them, has an experiential character in the narrower sense. Individual sentences or sections seem to constantly detach themselves from the text, to entemalize one's consciousness as a word turned into a hook. Example pleasing? "Only then is it culture, when it has become yours", "Theater is a discourse that goes on for a lifetime", .directing is the art of enabling chance" or "I no longer have my own language". Someone knows what he is talking about and dares to say it without wanting to make himself big or small. And it is noticeable that he is still fighting: for education, for the recognition of the preciousness of knowledge, for the freedom of art and the responsibility of the artist. [...] Those who read "Der fremde Blick" and did not know all this before, will possibly awaken the desire in themselves to travel to Mülheim an der Ruhr some day."
Features and discussions
This documentary work on the Faust-prize winning director and philosopher Ciulli and his theatre has been discussed in a wide variety of media platforms in film, radio, and print, among them nachtkritik.de, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung, WDR5 Scala, WDR 3 Kultur am Mittag, Die Deutsche Bühne, Theater heute. You can find a selection of these voices on the publisher's website: www.alexander-verlag.com/programm/titel/roberto-ciulli-der-fremde-blick.html
Navid Kermani spoke with Roberto Ciulli for the book launch event at the Berliner Akademie der Künste, November 2021 (see video below and discussion of the event here: https://www.theater-an-der-ruhr.de/en/programm/stuecke/636-der-fremde-blick)
Get the book
https://www.alexander-verlag.com/programm/titel/roberto-ciulli-der-fremde-blick.html
Short description
In 1980, the Italian Roberto Ciulli founds in Mülheim an der Ruhr, together with the dramaturg Helmut Schäfer and the stage designer Gralf-Edzard Habben, the Theater an der Ruhr - an independent but publicly funded ensemble theatre. In over 40 years, the theatre travelled to more than forty countries - including Iran, Chile, Russia, Yugoslavia, Egypt, and Iraq - and invited artists from precarious political regions of the world to the Ruhr region. It became, in the words of its founder, a theatre for all bastards of the world - those expelled, sanctioned, without "fatherland and mother tongue". For the first time, this book - published in two volumes - gathers previously unpublished archival materials, re-transcribed diaries and notebooks, new translations of unpublished essays and literary material, in over 1300 pages with more than 400 illustrations.
Read a sample pdf
https://www.alexander-verlag.com/images/verlag/medien/430-9783895814914-lp66.pdf
Reviews
Excerpts from the review of the book launch in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 11/16/2021 ("So much life, so much plump life"): "Last Sunday, the 87-year-old theater director Roberto Ciulli was a guest at the Akademie der Künste in Berlin. He presented, together with the writer Navid Kermani, his book. "Book" is an understatement in this case. It is two enormous books: on almost 1300 pages there are not simply memories of a young old man. One leafs through a wild, fantastic, philosophical work, rich in thought and imagery, bursting with life. It is called: "Der fremde Blick - Roberto Ciulli und das Theater an der Ruhr".
Excerpts from the review of the book in Die Deutsche Bühne:
"The double volume edited by Alexander Wewerka and Jonas Tinius, "Der fremde Blick" , thankfully does not approach this unique success story with a grand master's eulogy with lavish introspections, which, as is well known, is often published at the end of successful directorships, but in the form of an accompanied, annotated documentation. Since he is the central figure, Roberto Ciulli is given the opportunity to express himself in a variety of ways. In pictorial and written testimonies, his biography is documented as thoroughly and extensively in the first, red volume as the history and artistic output of the Theater an der Ruhr is in the second, blue volume. This ranges, imaginatively and reader-friendly arranged, from children's and family pictures to facsimile contracts to staging photos, from novel fragments to interviews to conceptual and philosophical texts. [...]Dealing with these 1250 pages, leafing through them and reading them, has an experiential character in the narrower sense. Individual sentences or sections seem to constantly detach themselves from the text, to entemalize one's consciousness as a word turned into a hook. Example pleasing? "Only then is it culture, when it has become yours", "Theater is a discourse that goes on for a lifetime", .directing is the art of enabling chance" or "I no longer have my own language". Someone knows what he is talking about and dares to say it without wanting to make himself big or small. And it is noticeable that he is still fighting: for education, for the recognition of the preciousness of knowledge, for the freedom of art and the responsibility of the artist. [...] Those who read "Der fremde Blick" and did not know all this before, will possibly awaken the desire in themselves to travel to Mülheim an der Ruhr some day."
Features and discussions
This documentary work on the Faust-prize winning director and philosopher Ciulli and his theatre has been discussed in a wide variety of media platforms in film, radio, and print, among them nachtkritik.de, Süddeutsche Zeitung, Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung, WDR5 Scala, WDR 3 Kultur am Mittag, Die Deutsche Bühne, Theater heute. You can find a selection of these voices on the publisher's website: www.alexander-verlag.com/programm/titel/roberto-ciulli-der-fremde-blick.html
Navid Kermani spoke with Roberto Ciulli for the book launch event at the Berliner Akademie der Künste, November 2021 (see video below and discussion of the event here: https://www.theater-an-der-ruhr.de/en/programm/stuecke/636-der-fremde-blick)
Book film trailer