Olga Feger is an actress who has received several awards for her intercultural productions. After her studies in Berlin and Paris, acting jobs brought her to the Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin and the “Staatsschauspiel Dresden”. Here, in addition to her work as an actress, the first stage plays developed under her directorship, and have also been followed since 2014 by dancing and theatre productions with people with and without experience as refugees at the “Festspielhaus Hellerau” – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Feger started the Café International and established the “Montagscafé” of the “Staatsschauspiel” as a Federally-renowned cultural centre for refugees. Her productions were distinguished with the “Starter-Engagement” Prize of the German Academic Scholarship Foundation and nominated for further prizes. Since 2020, Feger has been initiating African-European cooperation schemes for dancing and drama.
Im&ExportMoves
Im&ExportMoves is a transcultural theatre and dancing project. With the aid of drama and contemporary West African dancing elements, it creates a space of intercultural encounter and exchange between people with a wide range of origins. For seven months, the participants examined societal and inter-human topics in an interdisciplinary context and developed a play which they presented at the “Festspielhaus Hellerau” – European Centre for the Arts, Dresden. Im&ExportMoves is a cooperation scheme between the “Festspielhaus Hellerau, Dresden” and the “Verein Afropa e. V.” which was developed and is directed by Olga Feger. For this production, she brought together an international team of directors consisting of artists some of whom had a migration history or experience as a refugee of their own.
What have you taken home from this project for your artistic activities?
This work showed me even more clearly how important it is to create and maintain a protected space as a basis for a creative process – and just how much more exciting live acting is in comparison to artisanal perfection. The interdisciplinary fusion of dancing, drama and music as well as the different ways of working in the international team were also very fulfilling for my work as an artist.
Which topic turns up again and again in your artistic activities?
My work as an artist usually deals with socio-politically relevant topics. My latest activity addressed power, power structures and handling any type of otherness, as well as the issue of what we ourselves refer to as “normal”, and how absurd this can appear to be from another perspective.
What do you seek to achieve with your arts education activities?
Arts education activities open different doors for each individual. Doors to oneself, to handling oneself, others and society. With my arts education activities, I seek to encourage people to open up new spaces for themselves and others and try themselves out in them. I want to create a place in which one can deal with a wide range of questions, shift perspectives and further develop as an individual.
What, in your view, is the essence of an artistic intervention in arts education?
To me, an artistic intervention in education features a creative moment. Empowering oneself, developing one’s own creative skills and effecting a self-defined transformation process. I regard artistic intervention as a moment of freedom in which I can newly discover and position myself in relation to myself, the other and the world.