Intersection 3: Responsibility

If the orchestra and the school share anything more than space and encounters, it is responsibility. Both institutions wish to have a long lasting effect and to improve the outlook of the students. Both institutions consider themselves «more than they really are»: the musicians open their orchestra to new challenges and with the investment into their «Future Laboratory» they act as entrepreneurs. The school is much more than an academic learning institution because it increasingly substitutes essential features which the parents cannot provide. The question of responsibility again rises when the legal status of school and orchestra is compared: the school is a public institution, completely funded by the State of Bremen within Germany’s federal system of education and culture. The Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen is a private initiative and legal corporation in form of a so called «gGmbH». The musicians are stakeholders and share the financial risk of their own business. Because financial support from the State of Bremen is significantly low, it is not a public institution – however, with the investment into their «Future Laboratory», the musicians clearly fill in a gap which is in fact the duty of public institutions according to federal constitution. All educational activities of the «Future Laboratory» are covered through third-party funds and financial backup of the orchestra. This means, that the majority of the musicians have waived profit in favour of their educational work and the establishment of the «Future Laboratory». Consequently in all the programmes, responsibility is expected from the participants to a degree that they can grasp. «You always have a choice» became the slogan of the community-opera, because it pictures best what the programme does: encouraging to take responsibility, weighing, judging and making a conscious choice. The mission of the «Future Labaroatory» to develop individual potentials strongly calls for sense of responsibility at its inner core.

 

«Community Opera» as a professional genre

There is hardly a genre in the performing arts that interweaves the ideas of such a large and diverse group of people as the community opera. After six productions, the mechanisms slowly become apparent: A professional orchestra with its naturally high demand thrives to transmit its energy. There is no question that the standard has to be the highest that can be individually achieved – be it from a 10-year old student or from an amateur singer. The focus and the concentration in both preparation and performance are immense: everyone works at the limit and at his or her best. This attitude of performing an action, and not the action itself, conveys as «professional». The community-operas of the «Future Laboratory» have several characteristics that distinguish them from regular musical theatre. They are, first of all, part of a process that is not finished when a new production has ended. The performances of the community-operas are the tip of the ice-berg. For instance, there are programmes year round in various institutions in the district that are used as preparation-workshops for a community-opera when the time has come. More than a thousand costumes have been professionally produced by men and women in continuing education, using facilities that started as projects and are now used the year around. Community-Opera always asks questions about resources. What is available will be used; everything that is available is being interwoven into a new piece. The school has an open call for its teachers and students to participate. Usually, only complete classes will take part (typical size ranges between 20 and 25 students). Each class decides what kind of role they would like: either a technical part backstage, or as part of the orchestra, the choir, the costume team or even as actors. The management and the artistic team of the «Future Laboratory» are complemented with a stage director, costume designer, librettist, sometimes a composer or a choreograph to develop the piece according to the wishes of the students and the availability of resources in the district. The choice of the topic is free, but there is the recurrent theme to relate to a specific country. After the focus on Germany in the first year, the community-operas dealt with stories from those countries which are largely represented in the district: Ghana, Poland, and Russia. In 2014, the focus moved to Vietnam and in 2015 to Persia. The actual topic and the content of the story are of great importance for several reasons. First of all, the story has to attract the students. Second, it has to fit the diverse interests represented in the district without disturbing a certain nationality or religion. And finally, to fulfil the core vision of the «Future Laboratory», it has to prove relevance in society as a whole.