West-Eastern Divan Festival – Weimar Dialog of Cultures.
Concept and realisation: Dr. Klaus Gallas, Weimar
At a time of worldwide globalization it is a special challenge for the politics of culture to build bridges with appropriate undertakings in order to counter ‘block thinking’ in the West and East, the Orient and the Occident. Active integration efforts are required. And that is exactly what the yearly occurring West-Eastern Divan Festival Weimar wants to accomplish. This festival is the greatest chance to actively illustrate cultural understanding among people.
The ambitious goal of the yearly festival West-Eastern Divan Weimar is: To expose and make transparent mutual fear of contact, prejudices, ignorance and misunderstandings, which exist on both sides, in order to promote understanding, harmony and accommodation among people of different cultural environments.
The Festival aim is to help dismember the ‘fear of the unknown’ by the German people as regards the Islamic world. With its West-Eastern Divan Monument Weimar honors the great poets Goethe and Hafez and is the appropriate location for such a festival, which in its content has to be close to the citizens on the one hand and on the other hand, has to fulfill high artistic expectations. With the planned media coverage the Festival will evolve into recognition far beyond Weimar and into regional and Germany-wide areas.
The programs of the cultural exchange between the partnership countries and Weimar, which have become a permanent part of the Festival, are also planned for other cities in Germany in order to act as igniter for a dialog between the Orient and the Occident.
I am looking forward to being able to share with you the adventurous meeting of music and literature of the Orient.
Respectfully
Dr. Klaus Gallas
Künstlerischer Leiter