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© Annemie Augustijns The famous opera The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny , in short Mahagonny , with the libretto by Bertolt Brecht and music by Kurt Weill, tells the story of a city where, if paid for, there are no rules for entertainment (food, sex, boxing and drink), everything is permitted for entertainment. In this artificial city, people are prevented from realizing that their lives are empty and meaningless by spending their time with entertainment, so much that people are made to forget that they are human by dulling their feelings. So, the plot of the Mahagonny can be read as a critique of American society, so Mahagonny may represent Las Vegas, for example, or it may also describe the corrupted Berlin of the 1920s of the Weimar Republic. Mahagonny, which premiered in Leipzig in 1930, was the culmination of a six-year partnership between Brecht and Weill. Like all cult and timeless works, it was met with protests (organized by sympathizers of the National Socialist

In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who will perform in Fringe Festival Istanbul 2022. Our second guest is Eleni Papaioannou from A(r)CT. Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer What is the essence of performance in your opinion? A performance, for me, is life magnified, reproduced, represented, reoccuring in front of your eyes. The essence of a live performance is the exchange of energy and ideas through movement or words, through images, music and aesthetics. A performance is filled with emotions and motions. It is a shortcut to the creator’s soul and a window to his/her creative mind. That’s why, in my opinion, to watch a performance is something sacred. Something we should really admire, whether we get attracted to it or not. Do you believe in the transformative power of art? How? I deeply believe that art has the power to transform people and societies and it has been proven many times in the past, in both politic

© Andrea Behrends In this series of interviews we try to get to know the artists who will perform in Fringe Festival İstanbul 2022. Our first guest is Becca Hoback from Enactor Productions.  Ayse Draz, Art Unlimited Performing Arts Editor & Mehmet Kerem Ozel, Writer What is the essence of performance in your opinion? Enactor’s solos are exploring what it means to be a human being having a relationship with your body. As I was beginning to curate the collection of solos, the spark was wanting to understand how to better integrate my relationship with my body into my identity. I realized there was a strong separation between the times when I was aware of my body - usually in the dance studio - and the rest of my life. As I began exploring this topic and having conversations with others, I realized that each person’s body-relationship is going to look different - sometimes drastically. I knew I wanted to work with others to gain more perspective and explore just that. How do we think