German premier

»Dear citizens, this is your city radio station. A group of people will be arriving in our city. They are actors. They have big ears, pollute our air, and leave rubbish and bottles lying around. They want to perform drama in the city. We don’t like these actors, we do not want them in our city – today will be drizzly. Slightly cloudy. The leaves are falling off the trees. There is a cold wind. 15-17 degrees. Autumn.«

These opening lines lead directly into the piece, »Mesto« (»City«): actors as a synonym for the foreign and disturbing. Actors who play themselves and at the same time represent a world – actors who are different to other disabled people. The Divadlo z Pasáže (Theatre Passage) is the only disabled theatre in Slovakia. In images full of poetry and simple beauty, the actors sensitively perform a topic that strongly reflects the festival motto »Framing Identity« – a fringe group, outcast from society and yet hoping for new opportunities.

The Theatre Passage receives no public sponsorship and is an ambitious project at the cutting edge of European social and artistic life. The work with mentally handicapped adults in eastern Slovakia, far away from the capital Bratislava, is constantly pushing back the boundaries of integration and recognition. Since it was founded in 1995, the number of actors has risen from 8 to 16, including professional theatre artists, social workers, psychologists and lay people. The current repertoire consists of 8 pieces. What we in the west take for granted as long-standing tradition is just beginning to be established here and slowly freed from the consequences of the communist regime.

Through »City«, the euro-scene Leipzig has a link to the 2001 and 2003 guest appearances of the RambaZamba Theatre from Berlin, and is once again opening its doors to alternative theatre.