Book presentation and talk| Gisela Höhne
Gisela Höhne was 26 when her first son was born in East Berlin in 1976. After that, everything is different: Moritz has trisomy 21, Down's syndrome. The actress and her partner, a promising director at the Deutsches Theater, are desperate. Due to a lack of care alternatives in the GDR, Höhne gives up her beloved profession. Reunification opens up new perspectives. After realizing a play with mentally impaired actors, it was clear that Höhne had found her way, a form of theater with and by people with disabilities that had never been attempted before. In 1991, she founded the "RambaZamba" theater, whose participants all have a "different mental order". Höhne leads the theater to world fame. While society often puts people with Down's syndrome and other disabled people away in shared flats or sheltered workshops, her actors perform on famous stages, are part of television documentaries on ARTE and ZDF, and play major roles in "Polizeiruf". With this work, she and her actors change society's view of disabled people - for which she was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit on Ribbon in 2006. Höhne looks behind the scenes of this extraordinary theater with humor and empathy. She describes the depth of emotion and the honesty that "her" actors and actresses are capable of, as well as many a challenging situation. Mitteldeutscher Verlag
"This book encourages us to develop visions again, to create hope, to align our time with the sun and to love the imperfect, to love life."
Theater der Zeit, Christine Boyde
