John Rabe – final destination Siemensstadt

17.10.2021
Beginning: Sunday 6.00 p.m.

Price 18 € (reduced: 12 €)

Concert performance for historians, flute, percussion, string quartet and electronics (world premiere)

/ Further events on 15.10.2021, 7:30 p.m. and on 16.10.2021, 7:30 p.m.

 

/ Admission: 18 €, reduced 12 € (no box office)
/ Tickets at eventbrite
/ Duration: approx. 90 minutes
/ Location: ZAK – Center for Contemporary Art, Hall A and B

 

Who was John Rabe? Human rescuer and hero on the one hand, member of the NSDAP, profiteer of colonial structures and defeated man on the other. The Japanese composer Mayako Kubo, who lives in Berlin, has long had the idea of ​​illuminating the ambivalent personality of John Rabe artistically. For the modern art ensemble she has developed a sequence of scenes based on diary entries under the title “John Rabe – Endstation Siemensstadt”, which traces the person of John Rabe. The Historikerlabor e.V. creates the framework for the historical facts and sources about the contradicting living conditions of this Spandauer. A musical-documentary search for traces.

 

 

About John Rabe:

In 1908, John Rabe moved to China, which after the first opium war had to open some ports for the colonial value chain and enable free trade for foreign merchants. China became more and more a colony of Europeans. Since 1931, John Rabe has been managing director of the Siemens branch in Nanking, where he campaigned for the protection of the civil population there in the 1937 Japanese-Chinese war and, as chairman of an international committee, played a key role in saving thousands of Chinese from murder by the Japanese army was involved. At the same time he was a member of the NSDAP, was ordered back to Germany, interrogated by the Gestapo, forced to remain silent and lost his previous position at Siemens. In 1945 he experienced the end of World War II in his apartment in Siemensstadt.

 

 

 

Contributors
Mayako Kubo – Concept / Composition | Ilka Seifert – concert design / dramaturgy
Axel Vent – sound design / electronics / videos
Historikerlabor e.V. | Massih Chopan, Yvonne Ebeling, Frederic Lenz, Olaf Löschke –
Research / Performance | Beate Niemann, Silke Struck, Anja Zok – research
Simon Köslich – direction / dramaturgy
modern art ensemble | Klaus Schöpp – flutes / actor | Almut Lustig –
Percussion / Actress | Theodor Flindell – 1st violin | Michael Yokas – 2nd violin
Kirstin Maria Pientka – viola | Cosima Gerhardt – cello
Press work | Sarah Rosenau
“Endstation Siemensstadt” and “Siemensstadt und John Rabe” are co-productions of the modern art ensemble with the Historikerlabor e.V.
Supported by the Spandau Fund for decentralized cultural work, inm – initiative neue musik berlin e.V., Socioculture Fund “Neustart Kultur”, the Federal Commissioner for Culture and Media, the Spandau District Office – Culture Office, “Initiative DRAUSSENSTADT”, the Friede Springer Foundation, the Spandau Citadel as well as by the Siemensstadt district office. John Rabe – Endstation Siemensstadt is a composition commission from the modern art ensemble, financed by the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation.
Fig .: John Rabe at his desk © Archive John Rabe Communication Center e.V.