Note on the US Election

November 9, 2016

I am shocked. Stunned. Worried about the likelihood of a catastrophe. The United States is a conservative nation, and I think it was too much for them to have a black president followed by a woman president. It is unbelievable to me that we have a president-elect who is endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, who has an open contempt for women, who is homophobic, who is openly hostile to people of color, immigrants, the disabled, and Muslims, who encourages hate and allows it to flourish. His election allows him the possibility to act on this hatred. When necessary, we must find ways to resist him, to protest, and to vote in 2018 and 2020. We must carefully protect the defenseless. It will be a difficult fight, but as US Citizens, we must find ways to resist the divisions between us.

In her diary, Anne Frank wrote "Despite everything, I still believe that people are basically good at heart."

The work remains.

Robert Wilson
Berlin, November 9, 2016

Bob is turning 75! Join us in celebrating his birthday in Berlin (Oct. 4) or New York (Oct. 14-16)

September 13, 2016

This fall's main event will undoubtedly be Bob's 75th Birthday! The Byrd Hoffman Water Mill Foundation, and its European partner, the Robert Wilson Stiftung, will honor Bob first overseas, on his actual birthday, and again in New York, when Letter to a Man premieres at BAM. The proceeds from both will benefit the Watermill Center, which Bob has frequently called his most important artistic legacy.

October 4, 2016, from 6 PM, Berliner Festspiele
HOUSE OF MADNESS - A Watermill Celebration in Honor of Bob's 75th Birthday
featuring Marianna Kavallieratos, Boomerang and many other Watermill artists
Tickets from € 50 to € 7,500
Buy tickets by using the form below.

October 14 - 16, 2016, BAM, The Watermill Center and other locations in New York
BOB'S 75TH BIRTHDAY | New York Patron Weekend
Tickets from $1,250 to $10,000
Click here for more information and to buy tickets.

For both events, please direct any inquiries or ticket orders to birthday@robertwilson.com or use the order form below (Berlin only). We would be delighted to welcome you to one or both occasions.

REPERCUSSION by Boomerang (Photograph by Mark Davis)

LETTER TO A MAN is touring. And coming to the US!

June 6, 2016

Letter to a Man, Robert Wilson's solo for the one and only Mikhail Baryshnikov, which premiered last year at the Spoleto Festival dei due Mondi (Italy), is currently touring Europe. After successful performances at Madrid's Teatros del Canal in May, it can be seen in Lyon and Montecarlo later this month.

Post-summer the production - Wilson's second stage collaboration with Baryshnikov after The Old Woman - will come stateside, touring both coasts:

Photograph © Lucie Jansch — Photograph © Lucie Jansch

Today I gave my actors only one direction:

June 5, 2016

"Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

For Zaha

April 2, 2016

Tower of Babel, Robert Wilson's 2nd Radio Play, to premiere in April

February 19, 2016

After Monsters of Grace II, which was produced by the SWR and hr Broadcasting Services and presented as a Live Radio Play in Karlsruhe, Germany in 2013, Robert Wilson and a large team of fellow artists have created a second work for the radio. It is based on the biblical story of the Tower of Babel, and features the voices and talents of Fiona Shaw, Edith Clever, Daniel Hope, Traute Hoess, Jürgen Holtz, Inge Keller, Jonathan Meese, Cécile Brune, Stefan Kurt, Lydia Koniordou and many more.

The story is told in just ten lines of ancient verse, yet the mythical construction and failure of the Tower of Babel has become an iconic motive in art and cultural history. Robert Wilson's radio play uses material from different periods in his career, and is influenced by an illustrous group of friends, contemporaries, colleagues and critics such as Susan Sontag, Christopher Knowles, Heiner Müller or Ted Carpenter.

Tower of Babel will be broadcast four times in April on different German stations (click on the names to access the live streams of each station on the internet):
April 3 at 2:05 PM on hr2kultur (Hessia)
April 10 at 6:20 PM on SWR2 (Baden-Württemberg and Southwest Germany)
April 13 at 8:05 PM on NDR Kultur (Hamburg, Bremen, Lower Saxony, Schleswig-Holstein and Mecklenburg-West Pomerania)
April 24 at 2:04 PM on rbb kulturradio (Berlin and Brandenburg)