Who was/is Grips Theater ? - CDs, Vinyl LPs, DVD and more
GRIPS THEATER
"'Mutmach Theater' is my favorite word for GRIPS, by the way." (Volker Ludwig)
"'Mensch Mädchen!' was the title of a record from the Berliner Grips Theater. I always put it on when I wanted to annoy my brother; he didn't like the record because the boy was an idiot in the story. The girls hit him with a bloody nose, covered him with flour and stole his scooter. Then he realized that girls are as smart as boys and was admitted to their secret club of secret moon and star riders." A voice from the 2005 SWR2 radio programme 'Marx, Mao und meine Mama - Die Kinder der 68er melden sich Wort'. Another remembered the song Trau dich: "Well, I've heard a lot of children's songs, but mostly Grips-Theater songs. [...]... and one that was such a courageous song - 'Dare you - dare you, even if it goes wrong, dare you, dare you, it's never too late'." The Grips Theater in Berlin, which emerged in 1969 from the Theater für Kinder im Reichskabarett founded three years earlier by Volker Ludwig, was one of the pioneers of children's songs in Germany in 1969. Ludwig, whose real name is Eckart Hachfeld, has been head of the Grips Theater since 1972. With the musical head Birger Heymann he wrote the two songs recorded here.
The Grips Theater had already infuriated conservatives at an early stage. In 1975, the Steglitz CDU youth city councilor Friedrich banned a guest performance of the 'Mensch Mädchen' programme, and in a debate of the Steglitz district council, the Grips Theater was described by CDU deputy Tietze as a "representative of this whole Bolshevik cultural revolution". The 'Berliner Morgenpost' was able to report a year later that Volker Ludwig was breeding "a bunch of political psychopaths with his plays, poor guys who will one day break themselves; before that they will have broken other things. And in 2004, the writer Sophie Dannenberg triggered a new discussion with a polemic in Berlin's 'Tagespiegel', in which she blamed the Grips Theater for the destruction of the family, among other things. Stefan Reisner, the Grips playwright living on Bali today, reacted as follows: "... the merit of the Grips is to have opened up new dimensions in children's literature. It is understandable that some parents cursed Volker Ludwig's records. The kids played these records around the clock, especially on Sunday mornings and in the car, on their way to vacation. I live far away, in a society that has other priorities. But I would like to know from our critic, what is worth mentioning after the Grips came. Harry Potter?"
www.grips-theater.de
Extract from
Various - songwriter in Germany
Vol.2, For whom we sing (3-CD)
/various-songwriter-in-Germany-vol.2-for-who-who-we-sing-3-cd.html
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