Oktoberfest Munich: cultural program at the Wiesn – Munich

Heart Punch Tent

It may well be that the heart makes a little jump when you do that program read. Kofelschroa stands there, Oberammergau’s favorite trance folk musicians, “The Laundry”, “Baaz” and so on. Tuesday, September 27 at 8 p.m. Can’t be, because the gang has long since dissolved, only continued in personal union by Maxi Pongratz, who of course also plays in the Herzkasperlzelt (September 18, 2 p.m.). But that’s how it is, a one-off thing, only for the Herzkasperl tent and therefore a real sensation. again. Because with such unpredictable, inappropriate concerts, the fusion of discursive indie music with the marquee intoxication and beer bliss, the “temporary inn” on the Oidn Wiesn became the center of the Oktoberfest for everyone who would never actually go to this cultureless drinking festival .

The groups that Peppi Bachmaier and Martin Jonas from the Fraunhofer-Wirtshaus bring up here in the afternoons are supposed to be “rebellious, cheeky and straight out – just Munich”, like the eponymous Herzkasperl by cabaret artist Jörg Huber Holledauer Hopfareissathe Unterbiberger Hofmusik, Die Well-Buam or Zuaweziaga for entertaining and dancing, in the evening the young scene to go wild. The Japanese-born ukulele duo Coconami (30.) like the Quetschn delirium Dadaists Attwenger (28th), Indie maestro G. Rag with his Landlerg siblings (29th, 30th, 3rd) and the wedding chapel (2.) proven its suitability for a beer tent long ago, the original dialect rapper Monaco F (19.) at the latest since he once signed up for SZ Extra test-drank through all the Oktoberfest halls; and the Lunsen trio with Nick “Franz Ferdinand” McCarthy (22nd) will also exist, as it knows how to play pub rock in “69 ways”.

New here, but all the more exciting, for example adversary of all songwriters (1.) shrugging the world off with a “Jamei!” show the middle finger, and the Banda Communale (24.). This troop with immigrants from Syria, Palestine, Scotland, Israel, Brazil, Italy, Bavaria, Russia, Poland and Iraq was founded against a Nazi march, plays “dangerously foreign brass music” and shows: the heart of the Oidn Wiesn beats left and right in the right spot.

Volkssänger tent Schützenlisl

Most of the new things can be found at the Oidn Wiesn. Especially cultural things: In the afternoons, musicians play at the parade of the show booth called “Urwald Demons”; “new ghosts have arrived” in the museum tent (this is the theme of this year’s special exhibition on historic ghost trains); and in the old bowling alley there is now a cabaret stage with instruments ready for anyone who wants to make music to the rumble of the balls.

This is also new at the Oidn Wiesn Volkssänger tent Schützenlisl, which succeeds The Beauty Queen. Traudi Siferlinger, BR presenter, tavern music expert and yodel teacher, has a program here in the tradition of folk singer greats such as Bally Prell and Hans Blädel with today’s “Gstanzl-Royals” such as Renate Maier, potato herb and Baff curated.

There is also new and old folk music by Chapel Kaiserschmarrn, Hallgraf musiciansthe Cubaboarian Tradicional, Sheet 5five, Bast Scho and Tegernsee Tanzlmusi. And Siferlinger himself will be on the podium every day and encourage the guests to sing along. The cabaret artist Monika Gruber is there to tap and laugh at you.

Oktoberfest tours

One or the other may just ask how to find the reservation entrance of the hacker tent. There are many more interesting things to discover at the Wiesn that are still a mystery even for established Munich residents. What signs on the Theresienwiese, for example, point to the former royal box at the very first Oktoberfest horse race on the occasion of the wedding of Crown Prince Ludwig and Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen? Or what light did a young electrician trainee named Albert Einstein see during construction? And why did the Western hero Buffalo Bill even visit the Oktoberfest twice?

Questions that you don’t even have yourself are answered by Wiesn guides trained in the city on their tours, take their guests into the tents (even to a mass for an extra charge), show them strange beer elevators, for example at Simply Munichat the White city bird (also individually adapted) or for 20 years Universe Oktoberfest with their own stand at the Wiesn.

chapels along the way

Things really get going when musicians leave their usual place and conquer unfamiliar venues. Every year, for example, the bands leave their podiums in the festival tents on the second Sunday of the Wiesn and play a concert on the steps to Bavaria under the direction of the Lord Mayor (September 25, 11 a.m.): 300 women and men intone the “best-known songs and Marches of the Oktoberfest” – a show.

On a small scale, the phenomenon can be summed up in the 98-year-old crinoline watch, the only merry-go-round with its own “world-famous” house band (which plays daily from 2 p.m. to 11.30 p.m. on a brand new podium). In the mornings, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., the guests, who rock up and down in the boxes to the point of mild nausea, are entertained by groups that otherwise fill large halls, such as crush plate (24.), Lower Bavarian musicians’ regulars’ table (1.), G. Rag & The Landlerg Sisters (2.) and big city boazn (3.) – it’s going around.

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costume jewellery

When choosing a dirndl – at least if the aim of the costume is authenticity – you can do a few things wrong: skirts that are too short, bodices that are too bright, shoes don’t fit and so on. The selection of jewelery for the Oktoberfest is much more pleasant for everyone who doesn’t want to do anything wrong: Even the most rigid traditional costume associations have not yet come up with any rules for the selection of jewellery, everything is allowed.

In the “Wiesn windows” of the Bavarian arts and crafts association a large selection of artists who have worked on the topic of traditional costume jewelery is currently being exhibited. Hanni Weber, for example, transformed the filigree buttons of her great-grandmother’s costume into relatively classic pieces – without changing much, the finely crafted pattern of the buttons should stand for itself, Weber thought. Daphne van der Grinten creates something extravagant, putting a colorfully decorated bird on the head of the wearer of her hair ornament.

Gisbert Stach does not produce any classic costume jewelry either, who is exhibiting Wiesn hearts in a waffle look, which are suitable for a successful break in style with the dirndl. The selection made by the Munich goldsmith Anna Eichlinger is again more subtle: in her studio in the Westend, she casts light, intricate items from silver that are inspired by traditional costume motifs, such as the series of delicate braided pretzel pendants and rings.

puppet theater

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When the Wiesn begins, the curtain falls in the marionette theater on Blumenstrasse. But only to get up again on the Oidn Wiesn, to the right of the Herzkasperlzelt: There Siegfried Böhmke and his team play 20-minute pieces that change every day throughout the Oktoberfest, “There will probably be 122 performances in total, says the boss recently counted,” says puppeteer Martin Köhler. In addition to the traditional Bavarian performances “The Munich in the sky” and “The Brandner Kaspar looks into paradise”, the “Las Vegas Show” promises to be the contemporary highlight – for children and adults. In the musical “mixed program” the “four flambini from Monaco” and the two sea lions Pit and Pat from Siegfried and Roy perform, animal figures that the younger ones in particular will have fun with. Later, Sammy Davis Jr. sings “New York, New York” and Elvis belts out “Viva Las Vegas.”

So that the Bavarian part is also represented here, Bally Prell presented the “Beauty Queen of Schneizlreuth”, says Köhler. In recent years, the rush for the free screenings was “so great that we had to let people outside, especially at the weekend,” says Köhler. 120 spectators fit into the tent per performance. But now, as a precautionary measure, the upper limit should be around 90 visitors. And because the ensemble urgently needs a breather after the Wiesn, performances in the permanent Musentempelchen on Blumenstraße will not start again until October 15th.

costume history

Anyone interested in fashion and costume history sits in front of the screen on the first Oktoberfest Sunday with feverish cheeks and watches the broadcast of the traditional costume and rifle parade on BR. The commentators break down the social messages and hidden codices hidden behind the bolted hoods, fur trimmings, silver coins of dirndls and robes in a highly entertaining way. The parade starts on September 18, 10 a.m., at the Max II monument, this time it will be broadcast live on the first, and at 7.45 p.m. BR Fernsehen will broadcast another recording – for everyone who was there on the side of the road or in the middle of it.

photography

Sure, for some it’s just joke photos that the American Chris Doherty has been taking of Oktoberfest visitors since 1985; for others, they mean the continuation of a wonderful artistic tradition of the Oktoberfest. The former director of the Munich City Museum, Wolfgang Till, provided the following proof of this in 2018: “There is absolutely convincing evidence of the existence of ‘joke photographers’ at the Oktoberfest for the early 1960s. In the police museum on Munich’s Ettstrasse, (which is not intended for the public, but for the training of police officers), a life-size depiction of the nude ‘Adam and Eve in Paradise’ is preserved, with the faces of the two biblical figures cut out so that couples can photograph each other in this way After complaints from visitors to the Oktoberfest, the picture was finally confiscated, incidentally at the instigation of the notorious presiding judge in Munich at the time, Hans-Joachim Bomba.”

Photography has been an attraction at fairgrounds ever since it was invented, but especially since 1900. A famous example is the photo of Franz Kafka, who looks out of a painted airplane with his companions. These souvenir pictures have also been preserved by many other artists and writers. Chris Doherty, who is a screenwriter in life before and after the Wiesn, thinks up new motifs for the brochures every year through which visitors look – Doherty often paints references to film or contemporary history. Adam and Eve are in jail, so to speak. This year Doherty can be found with his stand at the Oidn Wiesn.

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