50 years of moers festival

The famous international jazz festival in Moers celebrates its 50th anniversary. The festival documented its imposing and vital history with a large and beautiful publication.

Some of the English texts were accomplished by Bochert Translations.

PHANTASMAGORIA by Deepika Arwind

Mehrosh, a celebrated student activist has been invited to an isolated house in the middle of a forest to take part in a debate with a powerful political adversary from the ruling party. It’s a chance to make her voice heard. Fearful of the coming conflict, surrounded by eerie shadows and mysterious noises, and increasingly uncertain of what she is told, Mehrosh starts to feel a growing paranoia that the people around her are not what they seem…

Phantasmagoria explores the dangers of divisive politics and unbridled social media to show how fear can be manufactured and manipulated with chilling consequences.

The dense text with its strong characters will be presented in April 2021 during the GLOBAL Festival of the independent Munich Teamtheater Tankstelle, together with other plays from Bavaria’s partner region Karnataka in India. The translation from English into German is being completed by Bochert Translationsa and is supported by the Indian Embassy in Berlin and the Indian Councili for Cultural Relations (ICCR).

Robots, AI, and Co.

Foto: Euiseok Seong

Among many other productions, the “Politik im Freien Theater” (politics in independent theatre) festival in Munich presented DEEP PRESENT, a dialogue between the A. I.s Libidoll and HAL.

The translation of the englisch supertitles into German was accomplished by Bochert Translations, the titles arranged by Sprachspiel.

SPIELART – international theatre productions in Munich

In their mission statement, the international theatre festival in Munich explain: “SPIELART, however, also always concentrates on posing questions about theater itself as an art form, and on consistently re-exploring or re-establishing theater with approaches from the fringes. Important accents of the festival’s platform are also its entrenchment in the city’s cultural life and the dialogue between the city’s artistic and institutional energies.”

So the festival links unusual, pioneering forms of performative expression of international theatre artists to its audience in Germany’s third largest metropolis, Munich. This year in November, artistic teams will come from China, South Africa, Argentina, Malaysia, Korea, the Philippines, Belgium, Scottland, the U.S.A., the Lebanon, Kenia, and many other countries. Far beyond an also international, European horizon, the selection of productions is truly intercontinental.

The translations of programme descriptions into English will be provided by Bochert Translations.

Postcolonial Entanglements

The reader after the festival 2018

In the introduction for the reader after the Theaterformen Festival 2018, entitled POSTKOLONIALE VERSTRICKUNGEN, festival director Martine Dennewald writes: “This present documentation is meant to be a thank you to all contributors (…)”.

Translations for the festival blog, the website, the programme booklet in the languages Arabic, English, French, German, Portuguese, Macedonian, and also for this reader, were accomplished by Bochert Translations.

Tender Provocations

Foto: J & J

The festival Politik im Freien Theater has been existing for ten years. Funded by the Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, it happened in Munich under the motto “Reich” (“rich/empire”). Among other, the invited artists included the unusual production by James Leadbitter (the vacuum cleaner) and Jessica Huber, TENDER PROVOCATIONS OF HOPE AND FEAR, for which the two artists in turn collaborated with handicapped artists and activists.

The festival website says:


Wars in the Arab world, climate change and peak oil, the rise of nationalism and the erosion of human rights  – it is not easy to look to the future without fear. With their project “The art of a culture of hope” J & J – Jessica Huber (CH) and James Leadbitter (UK), aka the vacuum cleaner – ask: What are the causes of fear and what effects does fear have on us? What would a “space for potential” be like? What are your hopes for our future? In Munich J & J present “Tender Provocations of Hope and Fear”, one of three formats from their long term project “The art of a culture of hope”. An evening of sharing, with performances and presentations about experiences of fear and hope. For Munich, J & J have invited disabled artists and activists Katherine Araniello, Noemi Lakmaier, Hana Madness, Kim Noble and the vacuum cleaner to share their personal experiences of inequality and exclusion, and attempts at making of new worlds, aesthetics and ways of sharing. 

The numerous translations for supertitles, summaries, and information were accomplished by Bochert Translations und Sprachspiel.

Watch & Write

The international theatre festival Theaterformen, this year hosted in Braunschweig, partnered with the theatre portal nachtkritik.de to report about the productions presented in the framework of the festival. Writers with different working languages compose essays, interviews, and reviews about the productions or the thematic subjects that surface throughout the festival.

The required translations from Macedonian, Portuguese, or from German into English are provided by Bochert Translations.

Blogger at Theaterformen

Since last year’s edition, the international theater festival Theaterformen runs a blog with an editorial team of its own to accompany the festival with thematic and critical contributions. The articles are composed, among other languages, in German, Arabic, or French.

The translations into and from these languages are provided by Bochert Translations.