28/04 – 01/05 & 06/05 – 08/05/2010
KREMS A. D. DONAU

The agony in Western democracies and their societies, which become increasingly opaque and resistant to change while drifting off towards the right, is not a good fertile soil for revolutions. The systems have long developed strategies instrumentalising protest, revolt and anarchic excess. The significance of revolution has lost in value as a result of the ongoing invention of fake revolutions, and a look back on the cruel failure of attempts for change in recent history leaves a bad, helpless aftertaste. In post-revolutionary, post-heroic societies, every revolutionary idea seems to be already nipped in the bud, degenerating into a fashionable application. But the desire for change, for liberating excess is slumbering underneath the surface. Who will be kissing it awake, and how, when, why and where this will happen, is left to your imagination...

At two weekends, the donaufestival 2010 will deal with the agony and potential for change in our post-revolutionary society with more than 70 individual events from the fields of performance, new forms of theatre, media art, film & video, fine art, installation, sound art and advanced pop music formats.

An artistic image of a time with all its hopes, frustrations, desires, retrospective sentimentalities and possible utopias. But also an artistic counter-image of our time that formulates questions differently to how we usually do, thus letting possible approaches to answers shine through.

Deichkind’s colourful masses are social catalytic rituals, a fusion of hysterically exaggerated hedonism with references to revolutionary gestures and symbols. At the opening, they will stage their already highly animated concert together with guests, transforming it into a discourse-operetta: a spectacle like the feverish dream of a society which in its anarchic excess might plummet into a revolution. Also the 16th century was marked by collective panic when the persecuted Anabaptists fled to Münster in order to live out their utopia. Their new society was characterised by salvation rituals, free love and mass orgies, until it was brought to the ground. Showcase Beat Le Mot use this scenario not only to bathe Hieronymus Bosch and Lucas Cranach in neon colours; above all, they reveal the Middle Ages as a laboratory of the present.

Two messianic figures who relentlessly challenge traditional gender themes will infuse the festival theme with sex and revolution. Peaches will revel in her highly sexualised show with band and laser harps, and as curator she has engaged the likes of electro-beserkers Cobra Killer, the young glamour performer Theo Adams and the queer performance-party collective Ssion, amongst others. As an iconic, highly stylised art dandy, the “Gay Messiah” Rufus Wainwright has succeeded time and again in driving a spear in the flesh of mainstream American society. The immaculate messianic body appears in the midst of the illegal, queer, migrant bodies of the border-crossing cyberpunks from La Pocha Nostra and within the William S. Burroughs special, which offers a new artistic interpretation of the literary revolutionary. The artist collective Implied Violence was born in the milieu of Parenthetical Girls, Xiu Xiu, Former Ghosts and Deerhoof. Following their huge success in New York, they will be in Europe for the first time with the further development of the performance “The Dorothy K.”: a hybrid of installation, performance and happening that goes to the performers’ physical and psychic boundaries; an approach not unlike that of Julius Deutschbauer and his “Theater des Verhinderns (Theatre of Prevention)”.
A performative-musical mega-project will take place in the framework of the Franz Graf exhibition in the Kunsthalle. With “Iceland Hits Danube” the artist, together with Franz Pomassl, invites important representatives from the Icelandic art network. In collaboration with the Kunsthalle, various exhibitions, installations and performances from Thomas Palme and Christian Jankowski will be realised; with the arthouse cinema Kino im Kesselhaus an art and short film programme curated by the Diagonale and the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen will be screened; and the Galerie Stadtpark will exhibit two installation works by the British artists Haroon Mirza and Richard Sides.

At some moments the festival theme will step to the background, but only seemingly: for example, with the outward-oriented internalisation scenarios of Tindersticks, múm and Carla Bozulich, or with the psychedelic and electronic border-crossings of Panda Bear, Fuck Buttons, Dan Deacon, Max Tundra or Akufen. At other moments it will again be very present: for instance, in the case of Gob Squad who will stage a media mega-revolution with the audience in “Revolution Now!” And 400asa Sektion Nord who carry us off on a psychedelic journey through time, from the fall of the Berlin Wall and the legendary Pink Floyd concert on Potsdamer Platz through the Balkan War to the here and now. Or Alec Empire who on the occasion of the 1999 1st of May demonstration in Berlin proved together with Atari Teenage Riot that the slogan “Riot sounds produce Riot” is not just an empty catchphrase. In the company of Nic Endo, CX Kidtronik and The Ex, he will again celebrate Labour Day: “So comrades, come rally!”

A re-enactment?

donaufestival 2010
JA, PANIK (AND OTHERS): EINE ENTGIFTUNG/DETOX (28.04.) | DEICHKIND IN MÜLL. EINE DISKURSOPERETTE/DEICHIND IN RUBBISH. A DISCOURSE-OPERETTA (28.04.) | BONAPARTE (28.04.) | CHRISTIAN JANKOWSKI. OPENING PERFORMANCE (28.04.) | IMPLIED VIOLENCE. THE DOROTHY K. (28.04.- 01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – STILLUPPSTEYPA & BJ NILSEN, INGÓLFUR ARNARSSON, FRANZ GRAF (29.04.) | XIU XIU & DEERHOF PLAY JOY DIVISION’S „UNKNOWN PLEASURES“(29.04.) | MAX TUNDRA (29.04.) | FUCK BUTTONS (29.04.) | DAN DEACON (29.04.) | PANDA BEAR (29.04.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – MAGNUS ARNASON (29.04.) | SHOWCASE BET LE MOT: 1534 (29.04. - 01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – AUXPAN (30.04.) | FORMER GHOSTS & PARENTHETICAL GIRLS (30.04.) | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS SPECIAL- MUSSURUNGA (30.04.) | RUFUS WAINWRIGHT (30.04.) | THE SOFT PINK TRUTH (30.04.) | LA POCHA NOSTRA: CORPO-ILICITO: POST-HUMAN SOCIETY 6.9. (30.04. & 01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – MATMOS (01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – KRÍA BREKKAN (01.05.) | TV BUDDHAS (01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE – ANNA CEEH & AUXPAN (01.05.) | GLENN BRANCA & ENSEMBLE (01.05.) | THE EX (01.05.) | ALEC EMPIRE (01.05.) | AKUFEN (01.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - WHALE WATCHING TOUR FEAT. B. FROST, N. MUHLY AND V. SIGURDSSON (06.05.) | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS SPECIAL PATRIK LECHNER: U+0259 (AUDIOVISUAL PERFORMANCE) (06.05.) | THOMAS PALME & FRIENDS: ROTTEN HOME. EINEN BESSEREN KÜNSTLER HABT IHR NICHT VERDIENT/YOU DON’T DESERVE A BETTER ARTIST (PERFORMANCE) 06.05 | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - HOWIE B & HÚBERT NÓI: MUSIC FOR ASTRONAUTS AND COSMONAUTS (06.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - MÚM (06.05.) ICELAND HITS DANUBE - GHOSTIGITAL (06.05.) | DINOSAUR JR. (06.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - BRYNDRÍS HRÖNN RAGNARSDOTTIR NEAR BUILDING (AUDIOVISUAL INSTALLATION) 06.05. | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - SNORRI ASMUNDSON: BLOODY BEAUTY 2 (PERFORMANCE) 06.05. | GOB SQUAD: REVOLUTION NOW! (PERFORMANCE) (06. – 08.05.) | 400ASA SEKTION NORD (06. – 08.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - GHOSTIGITAL & FINNBOGI PETURSSON (07.05.) | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS SPECIAL BORIS KOPEINIG: SUBSTRINGS (07.05.) | THE KLINGT.ORGESTRA (07.05.) | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS SPECIAL ONNO ENNOSON: PERSISTENCE-SHOW (07.05.) | TINDERSTICKS (07.05.) | CARLA BOZULICH‘S EVANGELISTA (07.05.) | WOLF PARADE (07.05.) | JULIUS DEUTSCHBAUER: THEATER DES VERHINDERNS/THEATRE OF PREVENTION (PERFORMANCE) 07.05.-08.05. | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - REPTILICUS (08.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - HILDUR GUDNADÓTTIR & BJ NILSEN (08.05.) | ICELAND HITS DANUBE - GUNHILDUR HAUKSDÓTTIR & JÓHAN EIRÍKSON (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - THEO ADAMS (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - SONJA EISMANN & CHRISTIANE ERHARTER SOUND LECTURE. BORN IN FLAMES (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - SSION (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - SANDY KANE (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - COBRA KILLER (08.05.) | CURATED BY PEACHES - HUNX & HIS PUNX (08.05.) | PEACHES (08.05.)

EXHIBITIONS/INSTALLATIONS:
FRANZ GRAF / CHRISTIAN JANKOWSKI (28.04. - 08.05.) | RELATIVELY PRIME (28.04. - 08.05.) | PAUL DEMARINIS (28.04. - 08.05.) | WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS SPECIAL – SPRACHBOX AKTIVIERT/VOICEMAIL ACTIVATED (28.04.-08.05.) | THOMAS PALME (01.05. - 08.05.)

FILM UND (GESCHEITERTE) REVOLUTION/FILM AND (FAILED) REVOLUTION (29.04., 01.05., 07.05., 08.05.)