October 4, 2024. As the Berliner Tagesspiegel reports, the duo Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller will take over the management of the Volksbühne Berlin.
Dem Article (€) According to the two, they will be given three-year contracts that are valid immediately. Berlin’s Senator for Culture Joe Chialo announced in May that a new long-term directorship should be preceded by an interim. With Vinge and Müller, the suitable candidates have now apparently been found. The Volksbühne press office did not want to confirm the Tagesspiegel’s information, but nachtkritik.de believes it is very likely correct based on its own findings.
Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller met in the noughties while studying at the Berlin University of the Arts. The Norwegian Vinge studied directing there, and Ida Müller studied stage design. They have been working together since 2008, including at the Volksbühne Berlin and at the Berlin Festival. They became known for their elaborately designed, immersive theater works, which primarily deal with the work of Henrik Ibsen.
Vinge sometimes attracted attention through offensive provocations. During performances of the production “The 12 Division House,” he threw feces at the audience and sprayed the stage manager with a fire extinguisher. The joint production of Ibsen’s drama “John Gabriel Borkman” at the Volksbühne lasted up to 12 hours. The production was invited to the Theatertreffen in 2012, just like “Nationaltheater Reinickendorf” in 2018, her last work in German-speaking countries. Since then they had worked in Norway, Vinge’s home country.
The replacement of the directorship became necessary because René Pollesch, who took over the management of the Volksbühne in 2021, died unexpectedly in February. Pollesch had already wanted to bring Vinge and Müller to the Volksbühne, but the two were not signed. According to Senator for Culture Joe Chialo, a decision on who will take over the house on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in the long term cannot be expected until the summer of 2025 at the earliest.
(Tagesspiegel / miwo)
Night critiques on productions by Vegard Vinge and Ida Müller:
Media review
“It can be assumed that the Volksbühne will be stressed to the brink of collapse. But if there is a theater on this planet that can take on such a challenge, then it is this steeled and courageous house, which was also founded by Frank Castorf or Christoph Schlingensief was plunged into crises and often experienced his best phases at the same time,” commented Ulrich Seidler for the Berliner Zeitung (online October 4, 2024). Vinge/Müller “are known for art sessions that strain the players, the audience and the company to the utmost and seek to overwhelm them.” After an introductory description of the two’s provocative staging style, it says: “With these means, which admittedly sound repulsive and childish, the two were nevertheless able to trigger middle-class needs and fears and achieve cathartic effects.”
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