Funnel 40/2, Inhalt - Fulbright-Kommission

18
TITLE TOPIC
Alumni Oliver and Petra Steinmetz (left)
with Dr. Hoffmann (center) and Reiner Rohr
Harper), and complex instrumental selections
on violin (Daniella Strasfogel), trumpet
and trombone (Amy and Todd Schendel),
and piano (Yan Kvitko).
Rome grantee Joshua Palay diverted from
traditional repertoire with his riveting
“Showdown” between violin, clarinet, and
live electronics. Audience members at the
Maxim Gorki Theater were visibly awestruck
by the composition, described by the artist as
“techno meets spaghetti western.”
A final category of events on the week’s
schedule was a list of exciting tours through
THE FUNNEL • VOLUME 40 • NUMBER 2 • SUMMER 2004
Berlin. Ranging from Turkish communities
to the architecture on Unter den Linden,
the tours were led by Fulbrighters who
were experts in their subjects.
One particular tour, on Monday,
March 22nd, seemed designed especially to
conform to the theme of the meeting as a
whole. Fulbright grantee John Holmes led
a group of about twenty
conference participants on
a tour of Marzahn, which
is, he says, Europe’s largest
social housing complex.
The tour through the
massive tangle of uniform
rectangular concrete Plattenbau
buildings underscored
the challenge still
facing Germany’s capital
nearly fifteen years after
the fall of the Wall. What
was once prestige housing
for East Germany’s elite
has become a magnet for
the poor, the old, the
unemployed, the recently
Singing Czech folk songs and
accompanying on the Bohemian
bagpipe, Michael Cwach,
Fulbrighter in the Czech
Republic performs Sunday
night at the Amerika Haus.
immigrated, or, as is increasingly the case,
abandoned by all social groups and left
empty.
Holmes, who graduated from the University
of North Carolina Chapel Hill in
2003 with a master’s degree in regional
planning and is now living in Berlin on a
Fulbright fellowship studying urban development
at Humboldt University, described
how the Berlin city government is
attempting to solve the problems. By tearing
down some of the empty buildings and
renovating others, he said, the city hopes
to attract a healthier mix of socio-economic
backgrounds.
While the week proved a huge success
both culturally and academically, Fulbrighters
attending did not, of course,
neglect the social aspects of the meeting.
The Commission itself contributed by providing
a seemingly constant flow of food
and drink, supplemented by house parties,
pub crawls, and late-night debating sessions
across the city. The social highlight,
however, was the Saturday-night dance
hosted by the German Fulbright Alumni
Association, that featured music by a range
of throwback pop stars such as Blondie,
Counting Crows, and Abba—a hit list that
got all present out onto the floor.
It was, in fact, an event leading to perhaps
the only critique of the entire week:
dance lessons might not be a bad addition
to next year’s program.