By: Magdalena Barile, Ivo Briedis, Kristín Eiríksdóttir, Jens-Martin Eriksen, Goran Ferčec, Lothar Kittstein, Alexander Molchanov, Marie Nimier, Andreas Vonder

A production as part of the two-year project VÖLKERSCHLACHTEN by fringe ensemble/phoenix5, Bonn/Münster, and Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig, in cooperation with theaterimballsaal, Bonn, and Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster.

With: Andreas Meidinger, Bettina Marugg, David Jeker, David Fischer, Ismail Deniz, Justine Hauer, Laila Nielsen, Maciek Brzoska, Manuel Klein, Philine Bührer
Director: Frank Heuel
Dramaturgy: René Reinhardt
Stage and costumes: Lisa Schiller-Witzmann, Annika Ley
Music: Gregor Schwellenbach
Assistance: Ilona Schaal

Premiere
March 01, 2014, Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig
Bonn premiere
April 04, 2014 at theaterimballsaal, Bonn
Nominated
Movement Art Award Leipzig, 2014
Festival Edition on July 10, 2014 at Schaubühne Lindenfels, Leipzig
Selected
west off 2014
Performance on November 12, 2014, studiobühneköln

Europe, endless battlefield. The year is 2014 – it is 100 years since the outbreak of the First World War and 75 years since the beginning of the Second World War. And now? The dogs come from everywhere, are after you, show their teeth and threaten not only with a calf bite.
How can theater tell of the wars and fronts of our day without itself becoming an image machine in the media war?
In the theater evening BEFORE THE DOGS we follow the tracks, stories and characters of nine European authors along the front lines between war and non-war, man and beast, community and pack. The setting is Europe, the time today.

When man faces a beast that he himself has created, the war has long since begun. When it’s just a matter of not going to the dogs yourself, of not being the last one, the one they bite, then it’s war: bank wars, labor battles, terror maneuvers, fighting prices, Playstation…
The authors reveal conflicts of very different kinds. Their theater texts offer an artistic stocktaking of the trouble spots on a political, economic and social level, which can be experienced in all its force in VOR DEN HUNDEN. An evening of theater composed from the texts, which bundles and amplifies the various energies of the authors.
Among the authors are such renowned and successful ones as Alexander Molchanov from Russia 2012 awarded at the Biennale New Plays From Europe, Marie Nimier, awarded by the Académie française, or Jens-Martin Eriksen from Denmark, laureate of the State Art Fund.
After Leipzig, VOR DEN HUNDEN will also be shown at the Theater im Ballsaal in Bonn and the Theater im Pumpenhaus in Münster, among other venues.
The texts were written as part of the two-year project VÖLKERSCHLACHTEN, which went through various successive stages of collective work between authors and actors, including campus phases of several weeks in Leipzig, Bonn and Münster in 2013. (More about the project at www.voelkerschlachten.net)

Production by Völkerschlachten GbR/fringe ensemble/phoenix5 and Schausbühne Lindenfels.
Funded by the Fonds Doppelpass of the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Sponsored by: Kunststiftung NRW, City of Bonn, City of Münster, Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sport of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, City of Leipzig, Bürgerstiftung Leipzig.

In cooperation with: theaterimballsaal, Bonn, and Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster.