In many parts of the world the people think, that especially the women are the worse car drivers. In Russia, they go one step further. In order to reduce the accident statistics, not everybody will be allowed to get a driver’s license in the land of Putin.
Mental disorders are listed and can lead to a driving ban. These include also transsexuals and transvestites. It’s new that the sexual orientation decides on the fitness to drive and that minorities are an danger to the traffic.
Besides this obvious discrimination there are more potential troublemakers on the traffic in Russia, according to the interdiction catalogue there are also pedophiles, kleptomaniacs and gambling addicts a danger on the roads. A sexual minority is lumped together with people having mental disorders and criminals.
But Putin even abides by an official list of the WHO. Disorders of adult and behaviour are listed in the ICD-10 under subsection F60 to F69 . Besides a number of mental disorders, transsexualism and transvestism are also listed. Although, the list will be edited in May it gives rise to some questions. Even homosexuality was listed for many years.
Missed the last TEDDY-news? No time to check our daily updates on our blog and social media? Don’t worry! Here’s everything you shouldn’t have missed.
The Berlinale is getting closer and closer. The films for Panorama and the competition are selected and we can expect many stars and starlets on the red carpet. And many great films and filmmakers as well, obviously. Here at the TEDDY office, we are also working hard to make the next Berlinale a great one. Right now we’re working on the TEDDY program magazine.
This year, we’ll have lots of great numbers with the dancers and the orchestra of the Komische Oper Berlin featured in the TEDDY Gala. The opening number is a piece from Jacques Offenbachs crazy opéra bouffe La Belle Hélène. We are looking forward to two great soloists.
Agnes Zwierko is a world-renowned mezzo-soprano, who has sung in Milan, London and Buenos Aires. She performs the Tangolita in piece from the iconic operetta Ball at the Savoy.
The second soloist is Katharine Mehrling, who sang the lead in countless musicals. Berliners should especially know her name from the production of Cabaret at the Bar jeder Vernunft, where she performed the part of Sally Bowles more than 250 times. At the Gala she will perform the piece “Kangaroo-Fox” from Ball at the Savoy.
Foto @ Jim Rakete
There are news from SchwuZ club as well: POP:SCH will perform live at the Closing Party! Many of the great SchwuZ DJs are there as well: Gloria Viagra & Pa$cha, Black Cracker & Friends and Disco Gessner & hintergrundrauschen will play many genres of music. We can hardly wait.
For everyone who wants to read more, Audrey has written a piece about the perfect work of art that is Udo Kier and Sebastian about his love for Tocotronic and Rainer Werner Fassbinder. More information about the artists performing at the TEDDY AWARD Gala can be found here.
Our website and blog will be updated with news about the program, the lazy ones can read the next Last Week in Review with all the important news.
When I think about Fassbinder, I don’t think about Germany but about Kraut Rock because Rainer Werner began for me with Tocotronic. Despair heißt auch eine Reise ins Licht*, sang Dirk Lowtzow once. Despair is also a journey into the light. Does despair thus finally lead to the light, to enlightenment? Or is the way to enlightenment, which lets us realize and in makes us desperate? All in all Lowtzow gave no answer.
Jochen Schropp is the host of numerous German TV-Shows. In 2011 he was awarded the Bavarian TV Prize for his presentation. In 2010, 2011 and 2014 he was nominated for the German TV Prize in the category Best Entertainer. He is also a successful actor: His breakout role was in the series Sternenfänger alongside Nora Tschirner. Among many other appearances on television, he played the pathologist in the crime series Polizeiruf 110. For his role in Zwei Engel für Amor he was nominated for the Grimme Prize. Jochen Schropp hosts many charity-events like the Kölner Aids-Gala and the Rosenball in Vienna. He is hosting the TEDDY AWARD Gala since 2012.
The SPECIAL TEDDY AWARD for Artistic Life Achievement 2015 will be given to the actor Udo Kier. With Rainer Werner Fassbinder, he got to know the cinema and became the international energy which emerged from the Fassbinder-Clan. For five decades he has been oscillating between trash, pop, art house and two continents. He worked together with Warhol, von Trier, Schlingensief and Madonna. He participated in Blockbusters and high-grade trash and set standards for non-stereotypical male characters.
INGRID CAVEN
Ingrid Caven embodies many roles: She is a singer, the hero of a novel, an actress. And she was one of the closest confidents of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, whom she was married to for two years. Fassbinder called their relationship a “Wahlverwandtschaft”. As a student Ingrid Caven met the director in Munich and joined his antiteater-group. She acted in more than 40 Fassbinder-productions. In the late Seventies, she came to fame as a chanson singer in Paris, with compositions by Peer Raben. Sophisticated changes of voice, a black Yves Saint Laurent velvet robe and her passionate performance made her an icon of chanson. In 2000 the novel Ingrid Caven by Cavens life-partner Jean-Jacques Schuhl was published. The novel, which describes the life of Caven, was awarded with the Prix Goncourt and turned Ingrid Caven into a true cult figure.
KATHARINE MEHRLING
Fotot @ Jim Rakete
Whether as Evita Peron, Edith Piaf or Fanny Brice, Katharine Mehrling shines in every role. Before she gave her stage debut at the Londoner West End in a production of Hair, she studied acting and musical theatre in London and New York. She played the leads in Some Like It Hot, Die Dreigroschenoper and Les Miserables. Mehrling performed Sally Bowles more than 250-times in the Cabaret production at the Bar jeder Vernunft in Berlin. French chanson is her great love and for her first solo-show she followed the tracks of Edith Piaf in Paris. Katharine Mehrling is internationally known for her great voice and her touching acting. She won the Prize of the Deutsche Bühnenverein, the Lale-Andersen-Prize and was awarded the theater prize Goldener Vorhang twice.
AGNES ZWIERKO
The mezzo-soprano Agnes Zwierko was born in Warsaw and initially studied computer engineering and electronics before she dedicated herself to opera singing at the Chopin University of Music. She sang in all the big opera houses of Poland as well as in international houses such as the Teatro Colón in Buenos Aires, La Scala in Milan or the Royal Opera House in London. The repertoire of Agnes Zwierko is big and versatile, the Amneris in Aida, Mrs. Quickly in Falstaff and the Eboli in Don Carlo are just a small selection of her roles. This season Agnes Zwierko is a guest soloist at the Komische Oper Berlin, where she plays the Tangolita in the iconic operetta Ball im Savoy.
The two soloists Katharine Mehrling and Agnes Zwierko will be accompanied by the house orchestra at the Komische Oper. In a segment from Barrie Kosky’s rendition of Jacques Offenbach’s La belle Hélène (The Beautiful Helen), ensemble dancers will demonstrate what overwhelming star power is gathered in the Komische Oper’s ensemble, aside from great voices. Peter Christian Feigel conducts, Otto Pichler choreographed.
POP:SCH
Whether it’s a hair fetish, the romance between two police officers or the general obsession with beauty, POP:SCH are singing about it. The foursome from Vienna produces Electro-Pop with queer-feminist contents. They mix electronic music of the 80s with hymnic sing-along-pop and intelligent lyrics. Their music is catchy without being simple, their lyrics aggressive without being offensive. POP:SCH describe themselves as a mixture of Kim Wilde and Peaches. Their first album TOP OF THE POP:SCH came out in 2011. Their new single shut up haters is an anthem against homophobia, directed to all the “small-minded hypocrites” out there.
FELIX AND FLOW
Straight from the menagerie of the Cirque de Demain in Paris, the figure cycling duo Felix and Flow hits the stage at the Komische Oper Berlin with fine cycling artistry of the superior sort, featuring distinctive elements unparalleled in the international Varieté scene. The brothers Felix and Florian were also successful as competitive sportsmen: they are double vice world champions and former world record holders in the discipline of artistic cycling. This unique act was forged in collaboration with the BASE Berlin talent works, which has been responsible for a number of artistic highlights seen onstage at the TEDDY AWARDS in recent years.
L’ENSEMBLE TRANSES CONTINENTALES
The TEDDY AFTER SHOW LOUNGE showcases the newly founded L’ensemble transes continentales, who will take us through an evening of our dreams to the tune of music from five continents. Trumpet, saxophone, clarinet, vibraphone and piano are just some of the instruments the ensemble will play in order to make us yearn, dance and laugh.
DAS BLAUE WUNDER FEAT MAGNUS UND NORBERT
The DJ Duo Das blaue Wunder feat. Magnus und Norbert will play at the TEDDY AFTER SHOW LOUNGE. They will spin decades of collected vinyl delicacies in a musical selection one could almost call eclecticist. Magnus and Norbert are resident DJs at the Kreuzberg institutions Südblock and Möbel Olfe.
WERNER WITTPOTH
The barrel organs of this passionate organ grinder hold up to 160 pipes and 48 pitches. With his ambitious and varied repertoire Wittpoth can be found since more than 30 years defying the weather between the domes of Cologne and Aachen. Occasionally he also plays at the Berliner Ensemble, the Ballad of Mack the Knife or Brecht’s Canon Song, accompanied by Nina Hagen.
Madonna once called him a meanman. He plays his characters without any inhibition and a lot of passion. He is completely absorbed in his roles. Udo Kier, who never visited a classic drama school and is living in Palm Springs today, can look back on a 50 years career. We honor the man who phones his dogs, when he is travellling, with this year’s Special TEDDY AWARD.
