They are noises that melt into memory. The crashing slats, the groaning cracking in the wood, the rustling of the flames. In addition, there is the heat, which can also be felt at a distance of more than 20 meters. Fire is a tremendous spectacle, it grows the more it devours. On Sunday on the Olympic lake it is a wooden sculpture, as high as a diving platform, which burns first at a leisurely pace, then at a brutal speed. The shore is lined with people who cannot escape this fascination, this spectacle, which is part of this year’s Spielart festivals is and also the highlight of a day on which the festival is more present than ever in Munich.
Julian Warner came up with this for Spielart, based on the thesis that nothing should be feared more than a fearful society. “Global Fear” is the title of the three-day project, which looks at various fears, including contradicting ones. The cultural anthropologist is known for his anti-racist pop under his alias Error Kuti. He was recently appointed head of the Augsburg Brecht Festival from 2023 onwards. Warner is networked in many ways, has ideas and contacts in different directions, which should definitely be an advantage for “global fear”. It was diverse, clever, and weird; it was characterized by allowing uncertainty, asking more questions than giving answers and combining very different elements.
Very different speakers were invited to the Angst Parliament
Parliament, parade and ritual, “Global Fear” was made up of these three parts. It all started with parliament, the Muffathalle conference venue. This is where the world’s fears should be negotiated. An impressive, oriental patterned seat with two levels had been set up for the President of Parliament, the social and cultural anthropologist Rohit Jain. The upper level is reserved for him, the level below is reserved for four administrators who recorded the fears, and in front of it two expansive armchairs for the discussants (equipment: Nicole Marianna Wytyczak).
Warner had invited such diverse guests as the cultural theorist Klaus Theweleit and the sociologist Paula-Irene Villa Braslavsky or the trade unionist Kai Burmeister and an activist from Extinction Rebellion. On Saturday lunchtime, for example, it will be about whether the idea of full employment is not obsolete, whether the green movement is not also elitist, about the restructuring of jobs, about the growing influence of right-wing populists in the companies. The conversation runs cross-country, not always stringent, but setting the needle once in many painful areas.
The discussion could of course have taken place in a university seminar. But Warner stages the debate. Fear should not be pushed aside, it is celebrated. To do this, the Oberammergau Krampus sneak around in front of the Muffathalle, sometimes striking the visitors’ calves with their rods. Inside there is the idiosyncratic, spherical music by Zachary Watkins and members of The Notwist. During the debate, the administrators repeatedly hand the president slips of paper, which often makes one think of Kafka. Fear is met very solemnly on this path, an unusual, surprising approach. This is particularly noticeable when, on Saturday night, the administrators read out the fears that they have gathered for minutes. Their voices overlap, music hovers over them. Fear of violence, fear of isolation, fear of not being seen, fear of the austerity measures taken by the city of Munich, fear of poor care, fear of loneliness – the concrete and the diffuse mix, but everything is sublime, of equal value. It’s like pulling fear out of its filthy corner and just looking at it.
A black rider led the parade through the city.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
Somehow that’s what it’s all about on Sunday: the parade. That night, blocks of wax – symbolically charged with fears – were packed in an ornate box. And accompanied by a long train, it is rolled through the city the next afternoon, from the Art Academy via Leopoldstrasse to Lake Olympia. A black rider leads the parade, followed by a performance group of black-clad fantasy fighters, the box of fears and then a completely inhomogeneous mixture of the Molestia fraternity, the Uyghur World Congress, the alliance #ausspekelte, the collective Chicks on Speed, the Krampussen, the refugee council and others. The fact that such different groups come together gives him hope for society, says Warner. It’s correct.
The parade often meets with perplexity among the spectators. An assignment is difficult, interpretations in many directions are possible. Anyone who looks reasonably knowledgeable here is happy to be approached. Nevertheless: Curiosity is palpable, a positive openness. Every second person digs out his or her cell phone and films, discussions are held on the side of the road, everyday life is briefly halted. It is uncertain which snippets will be left behind. Perhaps a touch of the declaration of fear that is constantly shouted into the crowd with a megaphone: fear of the dermatologist, fear of violence, fear of incomprehension, fear of breaching confidentiality, fear of sitting uncomfortably …
For the ritual, Anna McCarthy recalled brutal events such as the burning of witches, the burning of books or the goings-on of the Ku Klux Klan.
(Photo: Stephan Rumpf)
When it gets dark, the parade finally arrives at the Olympic lake. The wicker man, the wooden sculpture, and an abstract opera by Anna McCarthy as a ritual await there. It should serve to curb the fears. At least symbolically. MacCarthy has used several rituals here and manages to bring them to mind in a brutal way: burning witches, burning books, the Ku Klux Klan. “Out fear, out!” the choir hisses once, a creepy exorcism. Then the giant burns in the lake. Of course, none of the fears dissolve into fire and air. But a few sparks should have jumped off to perceive fear differently. To think differently for once. Spielart should conquer urban space more often in this way.