Posts tagged ‘Bochum’
American Drama Group: Romeo and Juliet
In December 2009 Pam and I went to watch a French play at the Schauspielhaus Bochum, the city’s theatre. It was a stage adaption of “The Little Prince”. Funnily enough, the play was arranged by the American Drama Group in Europe. Usually their plays are in the English language.
Anyway, in February the American Drama Group will return to the Schauspielhaus Bochum with Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet“. The stage play will be shown on February 2nd and 3rd, 2010. We’ve got tickets for Wednesday 3rd.
The last play in English language we saw was Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Considering the experience of the French play, I think I know the concept of the stage setting. The stage settings are minimalistic but arranged very cleverly. I lack the words and language to describe this further. The concept of the stage settings seems to support easy traveling and compatibility to different and even very small stages.
We are looking forward to another interesting and entertaining evening.
Carolinenschule, Bochum opened
It’s Bochum’s first private elementary school and it opened Tuesday. I already reported about the project. Therefore I won’t repeat how the bilingual Carolinenschule works. It started with four classes and 45 pupils. There is space for 80 pupils but the license for the school came only 14 days before the opening.
WAZ Bochum, 18.08.2009: “Bochums erste pivate Grundschule ist gestartet” (Christian Schmücker)
Dissappointed at German Mining Museum
Today we went to the German Mining Museum (english page of Deutsche Bergbaumuseum) in Bochum with my parents-in law – finally. I was told that they offer an English tour. Well, it’s not an audio guide. At several place in the replica mine, they installed recordings in German and English language that explain the exhibition. Here is a picture one of the machines:
information box - German and English
Well, the whole thing wasn’t very satisfying. There are two problems: The information boxes seems to be the only English language offer. There are only a few boxes and the texts are two long. It would be nicer to offer shorter – more condensed – text at more places. The exhibition halls outside the replica mine lack English language at all. When I think of the developing metropolis and being European Capital of Culture, I expect an English audio tour for the museum.
During the week, the museum offers a lot of guided tour – not on the week-end. Therefore, I think the information boxes are not really necessary for German visitors and the museum doesn’t need a German audio guide. But they should add something in English.
For now, if you want to visit the mining museum with an English language group you have to book an English tour guide. Else you’ll should go there with someone who knows about mining or did the German tour. This person can add and explain additional things to the English vistors – as well as translating German explainations. Helpful might be to go through the English website of the Bergbaumiseum. In Museum->Replica Mine you’ll find pictures of several items and English descriptions.
Anyway, I learnd and refreshed English vocabulary on mining terms.
Kasper reloaded – Punch and Judy in Afghanistan
FIDENA – “Puppet Theatre of Nations” ist the title of an institute and a festival for international puppeteering in Bochum (Ruhr). This years festival takes place from August 29th to September 4th. There will be four different plays, some premieres and a play in English Llnguage. Anyway, you can visit nearly any of the plays because most of them don’t need any language. As an exception to the rule, one play affords knowledge of English language. It’s »Punch and Judy in Afghanistan – When East meets West, who will be laughing in the End?«
“Punch and Judy” are brother and sister to the German “Kasper und Grete” (Kasperletheater). This is connected to the headline of FIDENA in 2009: “Kasper reloaded” meaning “‘Punch and Judy’ reloaded”. This “Punch and Judy” will be performed by the Australian actor and puppeteer Neville Tranter who runs The Stuffed Puppet Theatre in the Netherlands. Well, I don’t want to summarize other pages, even if there seems to be only a German article on Wikipedia. On youTube, there are two videos from two different shows. One was part of the Ruhr Trienale. Here is the other video. It helps to understand what you will expect when you are thinking about visiting the shows on September 1st to 3rd. We already ordered tickets.
Neville Tranter and The Stuffed Puppet produce this Punch and Judy for the European Capital of Culture Linz’09. There will be a festival in November. The German premiere (not language but state of first show) will be in September in Bochum (European Capital of Culture 2010). We are going to spend a few days in Linz to learn about the Cultural Capital Project.
Canada-Day 2009: The Other America
Pamela told me, Canada-Day is July 1st. Well, at the Ruhr University in Bochum it July 3rd. Looking for the English theater group “The Edna’s” I just found a conference about history and politics of Canda: “Canada-Day 2009: The Other America. Canada in historical and political reasearch” is the (tranlated) title of a conference on Wednesday, 3rd of July.
Looking at the program there seem to be some speechs and talks in English language. I wonder a little bit that they didn’t offer an English translation for the conference. I wonder even more because it is organized by the chair for history of North America.
http://www.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/canada-day/
3. Juli 2009, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Veranstaltungszentrum; Ebene 01, Tagungsraum 2
Das andere Amerika.
Kanada in der historischen und
politikwissenschaftlichen Forschung
A Tribute to Johnny Cash at Kammerspiele Bochum
Tonight we have been to a show at the Kammerspiel Bochum, one of the three stages of the Schauspielshaus (theater) Bochum. We watched ‘A Tribute to Johnny Cash’. It’s a concert with little texts between the songs about Johnny Cash’s life. The songs are all in English but the texts and little play are in German. To follow the whole thing it’s better to know at least a little bit of the other language. I mean, if you are German native speaker you should understand what the songs are about or might have listend to some Cash songs and their lyrics. The other way around, being a native speaker of English you should understand a few words to understand what they are talking about and what connects the songs. Alternatively it might be helpful to know about Johnny Cash and his life before you go. Than you should also understand the little play.
We enjoyed the show very much. It was hard to get tickets even if the show is on the program again for a long time. Last year it was at the Zeltfestival Ruhr. This year I already have ticket for ‘A Tribute to Quentin Tarantion’. The concept of this show should be similar. For the tickets tonight, we only paid €8,80 per person, for Tarantion at Zeltfestival it was about €25,–. There are different ticket at different prices.
Project of Bilingual Kindergarten in Bochum
By accident I ran into information about the project of a bilingual Kindergarten in Bochum named BiKiBo e.V. It’s not connected to any of those schools project. All of these school projects seems to think about founding own Kindergartens, pre-schools or nurseries.
First, there should be clear what the term Kindergarten means. The word “Kindergarten” is a loan-word to English. The semantics of Kindergarten [engl.] and Kindergarten [germ.] are different. Kindergarten [engl.] is only the last year before schools start. Kindergartens [engl.] are connected to the schools. At least, this is the concept my native speaker here at home explained to me. The Kindergarten [engl.] prepares for school. Sometimes the children already start learning how to read and write. IMHO a good translation for Kindergarten [engl.] would be ‘Vorschule’. The Kindergarten [germ.] ist better translated with pre-school or nursery.
The project of the ‘Verein zur Gründung und Förderung einer Bilingualen Kindertagesstätte in Bochum e.V.’ has a website named BiKiBo.de with a profile of the Kindergarten [germ.]. They want to start an institution for children between 6 months and 6 years. Therefore, I would call it a nursery and pre-school.
Like in the Carolinen-Schule, the pupils shall learn German and English via immersion
Interesting.
Toastmasters Club Bochum
I’m still on holiday in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, but I found an interesting note in today’s edition of WAZ Bochum – the local paper of the regional newspaper: Someone called Eva Masuch is going to found a Toastmaster Club in Bochum. The first meeting shall take place in the “Haus der Freunde” (house of the friends… of the Ruhr-University Bochum) next Monday, April 20th at (the articel doesn’t say).
A toastmaster is the person (man or woman) offering toast at the a dinner or some other formal meals, e.g. a wedding. There is an international organization that tries to teach people how to give public speeches. I think, it’s mainly an anglo-saxon thing. Nevertheless, the German toastmaster movement – with clubs in Berlin, Munich – focusses on giving speaches not in German but in plain English. The groups seems to aim at teaching people to speek freely – in English, with not more than school English. That sound interesting to me. I will try to have a look at the group and the way they work. Due to the newspaper article, everybody gets a manual.
The weekly appointment is the same time/day of the week the English natives speaker meetings take place in Game and Grunewald in Bochum. Well, “native speaker” are a minority there but working language is English.
According to the WAZ you shall contact the organizer:
“Infos gibt’s per Email (toastmasters-bochum@email.de) oder unter Tel. 0234/32-29368 (tagsüber).” (WaZ, 16.04.2009)
Two Days – Three Schools
In the last two days, I met people from all three projects in Bochum for founding private (public substitute) schools in Bochum: The International School Bochum, the Carolinen-Schule and the Bochumer Bildungszentrum e.V. The progress of the three projects seems to be different. Looks like the first two will start with two to four classes each in August. The last one is still looking for a building.
I will post reports on the state of all three projects here soon.
GM: Plan for Opel ’til March 31st
Finally, General Motors published some media information and its plan for restructuring, named Plan for a Viable, Sustainable Company. The main quote for Bochum and Ruhr is in the press release. It’s a quote form the plan (see link below). There doesn’t seem to be more details in the plan.
Europe – Europe is a highly competitive environment that is unprofitable for many vehicle manufacturers, and has a relatively costly restructuring environment. GM has engaged its European labor partners to achieve $1.2 billion in cost reductions, which include several possible closures or spinoffs of manufacturing facilities in high cost locations. In addition, GM is restructuring its sales organization to become more brand focused and better optimize its advertising. GM is also in discussions with the German government for operating and balance sheet support. A sustainable strategy for GM’s European operations may include support from partnerships with the German government and/or other European governments. The company expects to resolve solvency issues for its European operations prior to Mar. 31, 2009.
We know the deadline and we know the state’s first minister is in the USA. The topic General Motors and Opel will be in the media for the rest of the week. Tomorrow European and German officals will talk, we will get reactions from the USA and so on.
During 2009-2014, GM also is requesting funding support from the governments of Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Thailand, and has included an estimate of $6 billion in funding support by 2010 to provide liquidity specifically for GM’s operations in these countries.
Here’s the press release from General Motors which contains the link to the following PDF document.
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