June 6 The following are excerpts from an interview Markus Rindt, director of the Dresden Symphony Orchestra, recently did with the web site Deutsche Welle. Rindt initiated an artistic project called “Tear Down This Wall!”. On June 3 musicians from Mexico, Germany, the U.S. and many other countries gathered for a performance on the border between Tijuana and San Diego. As Destsche Welle said, “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”. Rindt had planned for performance to take place on both side of the border. U.S. officials denied Rindt a permit. As Rindt says in this interview, which he gave before the performance, a denial by U.S. authorities would “pose difficult questions about the state of artistic freedom in America”.
Deutsche Welle: How was the idea born to stage a concert on June 3 in Friendship Park, on the border between San Diego, California and Tijuana, Mexico?
Markus Rindt: 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?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQYcswjxwz4
DW: What does the border look like in Friendship Park?
Markus Rindt: The fortification is very high there, and the holes in the grated fence are just big enough to poke your fingers through. But we are also calling on other people all along the 3,200-kilometer (2000-mile) border to join in. We want peaceful protest, original artistic actions, volleyball games over the wall – at least at those locations where it’s not too high – music, dance and performance of every kind. We want to make a statement that walls are not the solution to this world’s problems. The title “Tear Down This Wall” is a quote from the famous speech Ronald Reagan gave at the Berlin Wall nearly exactly 30 years before, on June 12, 1986.
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DW: We often see concerts with musicians who come from different countries, and the thing is marketed as an example of international understanding. Sometimes the connection is a bit nebulous. But you go further. Your activities are concrete and unambiguous. Why?
Markus Rindt: Because we’ve seen that cultural activities can have an effect, be it our “Concert for Palestine” on the West Bank in 2013 or the Maya Project with artists from Guatemala and Mexico in 2012. But the biggest coup was “Aghet” in 2015. A century after the genocide of Armenians during the Ottoman Empire, we launched a reconciliation project, with our musicians joined by ones from Armenia and Turkey. After Turkey launched a formal protest, the project was suddenly noticed everywhere. I had the impression that we prodded the issue partway onto the public agenda, one that before that had fallen into obscurity.
DW: You’ve probably already spent a lot of time filling out forms. Were you given a friendly reception by the authorities?
Markus Rindt: Yes, there’s been a lot of bureaucracy, and you have to make a written declaration of precisely what will take place. We’re still in the application process and don’t know all the details yet. What happens for example if 2,000 people show up rather than 100? Actually, I don’t see many problems on the Mexican side…
DW: That of course leads to an obvious question!
Markus Rindt: It will be interesting to see whether the permits will be granted by American authorities. If our American colleagues are not allowed to participate…
DW: That news would really catch attention! Not that I’d wish for that …
Markus Rindt: 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.