Hans-Werner Kroesinger and Regine Dura take their audience on a performance walk along the green border between Austria and Slovenia.

“As soon as they arrive they are: Useful / desirable / harmless / undesirable / harmful / dangerous”, says the information sign at the edge of a circular hiking trail in southern Styria. Despite the fact that these terms refer to immigrated plants, such as hogweed, inadvertently one associates them with people whose arrival in Europe is supposed to be controlled and routed through the established border management system.

In the hilly landscape of southern Styria, the border is difficult to identify both in terms of geography and culture. Even during the existence of the Republic of Yugoslavia there were neither barricades nor fences marking the border, and for decades the wine region has been working on cross-border tourism. Now all that has changed – the aim is to close the border, fence posts are being put up again and plots of land are being divided.

Invited to the 2016 Berliner Theatertreffen festival, the renowned documentary theatre team Hans-Werner Kroesinger and Regine Dura took a look at contemporary history and the potential future scenarios of this border. At several points along the border two actors and an actress tell stories that jump back and forth between international, local and very private perspectives, historical and political ambiguities and between border and garden fences.

“Willkommen in der Europaschutzzone” is a guided walk dealing with political, social and scenic interventions and impressions that raise a series of questions: How are borders manifested and how are they experienced? Where and to what extent do the refugee movements change our relationship with them? And within what borders will we be living in twenty years’ time?

Konzept / Idee: Hans-Werner Kroesinger
Konzept / Idee: Regine Dura
Mitwirkende / Mitwirkender: Andreas Kiendl
Video: Regine Dura
Tondesign / Sound: Daniel Dorsch

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