Felix zu Löwenstein
As part of SOMMERBLUT we will show FOOD CRASH on May 10 in Cologne. – The world population grows and grows and grows and eats and drinks and eats and drinks some more. At some point, the planet will probably be empty. And then it was probably… – Food Crash, over and out.
Concept and realization : Severin von Hoensbroech
Music: Christian Padberg and Peter Böving
Stage: Eduardo Seru
Dramaturgy: Claudia Grönemeyer
Premiere: February 21, 2014, theaterimballsaal, Bonn
Selected: west off 2014
Lecture-Performance
Or is there another way? Felix zu Löwenstein, an agricultural scientist, organic farmer and chairman of the German Federation of the Organic Food Industry (BÖLW), addressed this question in his book “Food Crash”. In it, he analyzes the global interrelationships of food production and feeding the world: at the economic, agronomic, political, and ecological levels. He searches and he finds ways out of the dead end.
The decisive question, namely how the people on our earth can be satiated, is easy to answer at first glance: Of course, this can only be done with industrial food production, with an increase in productivity per square meter. Everything else is romantic nonsense. Because: How do you want to feed cities with millions of inhabitants with small-scale farming structures and nice organic agriculture?
Zu Löwenstein comes to a different conclusion: And he not only has good arguments, numerous expert opinions and the World Agricultural Report on his side, but also knows the conditions of agriculture, here as well as in Haiti, in Africa or in the political business.
The material must be put on stage, thought director, actor and also organic farmer Severin von Hoensbroech. In his scenic-musical reading of the same title, he follows Löwenstein’s thoughts very impressively with strong images and a portion of pleasant anarchism, asking the question both factually and emotionally: How does the city become full?
Es klappert die Mühle am rauschenden Bach, im Märzen der Bauer… The two musicians Christian Padberg and Peter Böving (Dad’s Phonkey feat. Ostböv) prepare the topic musically and find amazing material on the subject of food and agriculture in the canon of German folk songs. In their interpretations, the audience can experience them all over again, while set designer Eduardo Seru gradually transforms the space into our increasingly populated world.
A staged musical reading, “Food Crash” reveals in equal measure how our food system works, where it doesn’t work and how it would work in a breathtaking, fact-filled and entertaining way.
A production of Raum01 GbR/fringe ensemble.
Sponsored by: City of Bonn, Ministry for Family, Children, Youth, Culture and Sports of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia
