Stefan Kaegi (Rimini Protokoll): CARGO SOFIA-LJUBLJANA

East European Country Music
The Swiss theatre director and founder of the group Rimini Protokoll, Stefan Kaegi, who now lives and works in Germany, is regarded as one of the most inventive and interesting Europe anartists. “Cargo” is a project about geography, a mobile machine for stories. Kaegi developed the project together with modern nomads, Bulgarian truckers, who know Europe very well.
Once upon a time, they supplied the East with jeans and pornmagazines and the West with Bulgarian tea and Polish vegetables. Their lives resemble the most melancholic country songs. The statistics show that they live dangerously, where no less than 350 of them are involved in traffic accidents every year and on average, 20 of them die yearly on German motorways. The number of accidents will only rise, as the trafficking of cargo on the old continent will increaseby at least 60% by 2015. In his “Cargo”, Kaegi uses a remodelled truck to transport the sepoignant stories. They are related by expert drivers, who give audiences a unique experience, relaying a completely different Europe. A Europe, which doesn’t have any cities, only restingplaces alongside motorways.

Concept: Stefan Kaegi
Video: Jörg Karrenbauer
Sound: Nicki Neeke
Construction: Notker Schweikhardt
With: Ventzislav Borissov, Svetoslav Michev
Singer: Maja Djordjevič
Slovene co-ordinator: Tamara Brčič
Assistant: Špela Prijatelj
Producer: Bettina Land
Production: Goethe-Institut Sofia, Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Theater Basel
Co-production: PACT Zollverein Essen, Le-Maillon Strasbourg, THEOREM (association supported by the Culture 2000 program of the European Union)
Supported by: Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, Germany, Pro Helvetia, SwissCultural Foundation, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung, Forum Goethe-Institut

110 minutes