Danger Dan and Igor Levit: “Anstalt” moderators criticize ZDF’s decision on Danger Dan
After the cancellation of the appearance of the musicians Danger Dan and Igor Levit in the cabaret show “Die Anstalt”, the moderators have this ZDF criticized again. They were “stunned,” “angry” and “incredulous,” Maike Kühl, Max Uthoff and Claus von Wagner told the media magazine DWDL.
The ZDF director had intervened at short notice in the program of the show and the screening of the new song Danger Dans No fear prevented.
“Above all, that was unprofessional. ZDF had long enough to look at the text,” von Wagner told the magazine. “Because No fear contains instructions on how to resist right-wing extremist structures and lines that invite discussion, that’s exactly what we wanted to do,” he said, explaining the musicians’ original invitation. The aim was “to have a discussion within the protected space of a stage about how far artistic freedom extends and where a limit may have been crossed by the lyrics of the song,” added Kühl. »The ZDF didn’t want any of this and disinvited the artist independently, against our protest. You can see everything else in the show itself.«
On Thursday, the two musicians Danger Dan and Igor Levit made it public that ZDF would be canceling their appearance on the show at short notice Institution had canceled. They accused ZDF of “interfering with freedom of expression and freedom of art” and called the process “scandalous.” The team of Institution announced on Instagram that evening that it was distancing itself from ZDF’s decision. “We find the decision to be discouraged – especially now that right-wing extremist violence is increasing sharply again.”
ZDF is bringing a special episode of Aspects
ZDF justified the move in a statement by saying that Danger Dan had been invited to the show for a “performance of his new song ‘Keine Angst’, which deals with the topic of ‘resistance to right-wing extremism'”, as well as for a “subsequent discursive discussion of it”. ZDF further wrote: “The lyrics of the song can, however, be understood as a call to violence.”
Danger Dan distanced himself from this accusation: “I’m not calling on anyone to go into the criminal underground,” he told him Mirror. He wants his song to be understood as an “answer to the question: How do you build effective Antifa structures?” He wrote the song to show people that they are not completely powerless in the face of rising right-wing extremism.
ZDF wants to do a special episode of the ZDF cultural magazine aspects respond to the criticism and engage with the song No fear occupy. The ZDF team Institution commissioned to deal with the song and its theme of resistance to right-wing extremism. For their own show they have announced that they want to “face the blank space in Danger Dan and its text,” Kühl told DWDL. “It would have been nice if we could have done this together with the artist,” added von Wagner.