We received the following from Southern California Refuse Fascism.
May 24 On June 3, the Dresden Symphony Orchestra will perform on the US-Mexican border, joined by musicians from both countries.
“Tear Down This Wall!” is the name of an artistic project with which the Dresden Symphony takes a stand against walls – both real ones and the kind in people’s minds. The crowdfunding-financed concert could possibly give start to a chain of events along the full length of the border between the US and Mexico, hopes its director, Markus Rindt.
Markus Rindt said “we were invited to tour Mexico. Then I kept reading about plans for Trump’s wall. Nine meters (30 feet) high, it’s an abomination in our day and age. So we thought: as long as we’re in Mexico, why not to take a stand – and at the same time, draw attention to the miseries of refugees in the Mediterranean Sea and along the many borders of this world, also in Europe?”
The Kickstarter project description reads:
“On 3rd June 2017, we will stage a concert on both sides of the U.S.-Mexican border. We have invited musicians from the United States and Mexico to play along with us at Friendship Park between Tijuana and San Diego.
Become part of a huge happening!
We want musicians, bands, artists, performers and basically everyone who wants to speak up for liberty and human rights to join us by initiating their own performances along the wall on 3rd June 2017.
With this happening we are not only protesting against President Trump’s proposed border wall, but also against the isolation and nationalist policies around the world. Together, we will demonstrate that music knows no boundaries and art can help to build bridges across all barriers.
Film or photograph your own protest, concert, song, handstand or acrobatics (anything you want, really) everywhere alongside the 2,000 mile U.S.-Mexican border and post it on your Twitter account using the hashtag #teardownthiswall and we will share it on our site tear-down-this-wall.org.
Our concert will be live-streamed online and the event will be professionally filmed. The repertoire will be a wide range of famous pop songs and new works composed especially for the occasion.
About the location
Mexico and the United States meet the Pacific Ocean at Friendship Park. This is also where hundreds of families gather to catch a glimpse of their loved ones through the fence or hug one another during a brief two minute opening of the gates. With this concert we want to show that we are united, despite being divided by walls and borders.”
Markus Rindt also said ‘it will be interesting to see whether the permits will be granted by American authorities. If our American colleagues are not allowed to participate… Anyway, this is not primarily a political event but a border-transcending concert, an artistic project and a gigantic happening. If US-American authorities didn’t give permission for musicians to perform in our concert in Friendship Park, we’d really have to pose difficult questions about the state of artistic freedom in America.”
Well, at this juncture (May 23) it appears that the Dresden Symphony Orchestra will be performing on the Mexico side of the Mexico-US border. It appears that they’ve in fact not been permitted to stage their concert on the U.S. side – permit applications were denied.
Nevertheless, the Orchestra will be performing in Mexico, at the border, and are calling on artists and others to take part on the U.S. side in a myriad of ways.
Refuse Fascism in So Cal will keep you all posted on our plans and collaborations with other people and groups, and if you are reading this post and want to participate, please get in touch with Refuse Fascism, Los Angeles at 323-946-1742. We are definitely planning to be at Friendship Park June 3!