2003

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“This year’s graphical theme of steirischer herbst 2003 replaces the verbal mottoes of previous festivals. While many programme items in 2002 revolved around the notion of the foreign body, and the 2001 festival focused on the rebellious subject, the programme in the year of the cultural capital of Europe Graz 2003 explores key issues relating to the identity, history and future of Europe.
As an explorative festival, this year again steirischer herbst provides a forum for artistic manifestation that reflect current social and cultural change, thereby focusing on the repositioning of European identity ad the resurgent contrast to the USA. In addition to authors, it is above all composers, directors and choreographers who feature in the steirischer herbst programme, with this year’s focus on a wide range of different works of (music) theatre.”
—Peter Oswald (original booklet translation)

Graz was the European Capital of Culture in 2003, which explains the choice of Europa (Europe) as the motto of steirischer herbst ’03. The official opening was held at the Opernhaus with Olga Neuwirth as keynote speaker, music by Robyn Schulkowsky and Iannis Xenakis, performances by Neuwirth and Schulkowsky, and a concert with early works by Wolfgang and Christian Muthspiel. A high point was unquestionably the premiere of insideout, a choreographic installation by Sasha Waltz with music by Rebecca Saunders in the new Helmut List Halle, which had been inaugurated in January with the staged performance of Beat Furrer’s musical theater work Begehren (Desire). The hall made it possible for the audience to circulate freely on an open stage between twenty performers and ten musicians.

Other important theater highlights and thematic focuses were the Dry Clean Show by Lisa D., with music by Wolfgang Mitterer, as well as the musical theater piece Das Theater der Wiederholungen (The Theater of Repetition) by Bernhard Lang and Lost Highway by Olga Neuwirth, after the film by David Lynch, whose work was featured in a retrospective at the Schubert cinema. The Tyrolian author Händl Klaus was selected as young playwright of the year by Theater heute and invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen with his piece (wilde)—der mann mit den traurigen augen ([Wild]—The Man with the Sad Eyes).

In the field of visual art, the project Balkan Konsulat, which had already begun the previous year, went into its second round with a focus on Sarajevo (curator: Lejla Hodžić). An exhibition, film series, and seminar at the Grazer Kunstverein chronicled Vom Horror in der Kunst (About Horror in Art; curator: Eva-Maria Stadler).

Program