The Mansfeld Oratorio is the first commissioned vocal-symphonic work in the young German Democratic Republic (GDR), written to mark the founding of the peoples-owned Mansfeld Kombinate and the 750th anniversary of copper mining. The premiere of the Mansfeld Oratorio took place in the open air on September 10, 1950 on the market square and the adjacent Eisleben meadows in front of almost 50,000 people.
We are planning an updated contemporary version of the Mansfeld Oratorio. Our re-interpretation is goint to be performed in the course of a station dramaturgy with the participation of the people from the region. Reminiscing appearnce and functions of medieval procession theater, we will move through the landscape with the audience. We will cooperate with active choirs of the miners, with the Pentecostal bands and  regional dance groups. In the tradition of workers' theater and following our own aesthetic practice we will create images, tableaux vivants of historical, revolutionary events and perform them in public space - on the wastelands of the Mansfeld region (in southwestern Saxony-Anhalt). We are planning our re-interpretation as an installation of crossroads that interrupt the constant flow of history, suggest new directions and function as sites of old and new political, architectural, social and theatrical ideas. In a collaborative process with artists and actors from the region and everywhere.