Creating a Solo Performance: Berlin Cabaret/Kabarett

About

This course is an acting course that introduces the student to the research, writing and performance techniques of cabaret performers.

Kabarett is the German word for "cabaret" but has two different meanings. The first meaning is the same as in English; describing a form of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theater (often the word "Cabaret" is used in German for this as well to distinguish this form). The latter describes a kind of political satire. Unlike comedians who make fun of all kind of things, Kabarett artists (German: Kabarettisten) pride themselves as dedicated almost completely to political and social topics of more serious nature which they criticize using techniques like cynicism, sarcasm and irony.

As Peter Jelavich stated in his book “Berlin Cabaret (Studies in Cultural History)” that every Metropolis tends to generate an urban mythology and Berlin is no exception. One of the more enduring Fables associated with that city is that it was hotbed for Cabaret.

Students will be seeking to assay that tale by examining Cabaret in Europe and specifically in Berlin from 1901-1944 while creating their own solo performance based on research of sources as such diaries, letters, memoirs, and autobiographies that relate Berlin Kabarett. Subjects can be figures such as Gisela May, Trude Hestberg, Anita Berber, Claire Waldoff, Erwin Piscator, Hugo Ball, Blandine Ebinger, Kurt Weill and are of particular interest to the student.

While studying and analyzing the techniques of a wide variety of cabaret performers through its inception, students will explore aspects of writing monologues and implementing those techniques with the ultimate goal of creating and performing their own material -sense of truth- with the courage necessary to stand-alone on stage.

Course leader

Dr. Zishan Ugurlu

Target group

This course is open to students from all disciplines and levels, though it may appeal most to students of writing, literature, media, history and acting.

Fee info