Exiled Lives on the Stage: Practices of Self-Fashioning, Archiving and Decolonization

21. February 2023 - 25. February 2023

Exiled Lives on the Stage: Practices of Self-Fashioning, Archiving and Decolonization

What strategies do artists in self-exile and/or at risk develop and acquire to enter the German cultural industry, including the theatre stages? Is self-fashioning an exilic artist identity emancipating or restricting? How do we archive the affective stories, works of art, and exiled lives of artists who have come to Germany? What strategies of archiving the lives of exiled artists exist today, inside and outside the institutions? How do the works of art impact institutions and the public debate, and how can they help others?


An event hosted by ExiLives (Freie Universität Berlin) within the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme in cooperation with the Berlin Performing Arts Program. 

Curated by Dr. Pieter Verstraete (Freie Universität Berlin & Rijksuniversiteit Groningen)

With Mîrza Metîn, Barış Seyitvan, Diren Demir, Vasilisa Palianina, Shirin Ashkari, Mariia Kulchytska, Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, Babelfis, Ece Pazarbaşı, Neslihan Arol, Şirin Fulya Erensoy, Özge Çelikaslan, Philip Rizk, Belén Marinato, Christin Eckart, Pieter Verstraete and other guests.

In English and Turkish spoken language.
Translation from Kurmanji by Rojda Yaşîk.

 

Arrival and Registration:

The event takes place at
Hotel Continental,
Elsenstraße 87, 12435 Berlin.

Come as you are. No registration needed unless specified for certain formats.
Please check specifications within the different formats! 

Further information at info [at] exiledlives.eu.

Access information: Hotel Continental disposes of an elevator as well as a wheelchair-friendly restroom on the ground floor. A limited number of bean bags is available on request. The building does not have sufficient markers for participants who are visually impaired.
For further access information and requests, please contact belen.marinato [at] pap-berlin.de

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 893827. The event is organized in cooperation with the information center of the Performing Arts Program Berlin, a program of LAFT – Landesverband freie darstellende Künste Berlin e. V. The Berlin Performing Arts Program is supported by the State of Berlin – Senate Administration for Cultural and European Affairs from funds of the European Fund for Regional Development (EFRE) within the program “Promoting the Innovation Potential in Culture II (INP II)” and the European Social Fund (ESF) within the program “Qualification in the Culture Industry – KuWiQ”. 

21. February 2023 - 14:00 - 18:00
Installation

By Diren Demir

21. February 2023 - 18:00 - 21:00
Workshop
Theatre Workshop

With Mîrza Metîn

Based on Kurdish rituals and physical-vocal history of Kurdish culture and Mîrza Metîn’s dramaturgy of fire, we will explore decolonized practices with our voices and bodies. This is open for everybody but limited. We recommend wearing comfortable clothes. We will work barefoot.
Please register for free for the theatre workshop at pieter_verstraete [at] hotmail.com ().

22. February 2023 - 14:00 - 18:00
Installation

By Diren Demir

22. February 2023 - 18:00 - 21:00
Workshop
Theatre Workshop

With Mîrza Metîn

Based on Kurdish rituals and physical-vocal history of Kurdish culture and Mîrza Metîn’s dramaturgy of fire, we will explore decolonized practices with our voices and bodies. This is open for everybody but limited. We recommend wearing comfortable clothes. We will work barefoot.
Please register for free for the theatre workshop at pieter_verstraete [at] hotmail.com ().

23. February 2023 - 14:00 - 18:00
Installation

By Diren Demir

23. February 2023 - 16:00 - 16:30

With Pieter Verstraete (Freie Universität Berlin), Belén Marinato and Christin Eckart (Performing Arts Program Berlin)

23. February 2020 - 16:30 - 18:30
Workshop
Specials
Public Actor’s Workshop, followed by discussion

With Mîrza Metîn

Based on Kurdish rituals, a physical-vocal history of Kurdish culture and Mîrza Metîn’s dramaturgy of fire, we will explore decolonized practices of performance through intense vocal and physical training. Communication may be partly in Kurdish/Kurmanji with English translation.

23. February 2023 - 18:30 - 19:00
23. February 2023 - 19:00 - 21:00
Round Table

With Barış Seyitvan, Diren Demir, Vasilisa Palianina, Shirin Ashkari, Mariia Kulchytskaya, and Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu, presented by Pieter Verstraete

This roundtable explores with artists, who are ‘at risk’ or in ‘self-exile’ from different disciplines and backgrounds (Turkey, Kurdistan, Iraq, Iran, Belarus, Ukraine), the artistic strategies and solutions to situations of cultural adaptation and precarity in the new temporary home, Berlin.

23. February 2023 - 21:00 - 22:00

Acoustic performance, with Serkan Emre Çiftçi on the trumpet

babelfis is an indie/pop duo formed by musicians Sevda Hamzacebi and Cem Dinler. Founded in Istanbul, now based in Berlin, the band pursues all kinds of stories that they have grown up listening to.

With contribution for victims of earthquakes in Turkey and Syria.

See for more info: www.babelfisband.com

24. February 2023 - 12:30 - 15:30
Workshop

With Ece Pazarbaşı (curator, cultural manager)

Getting started in the independent performing arts scene is always a difficult enterprise. However, getting started as an exile artist without speaking the bureaucratic language carries infinite further difficulties in our research and application for funding opportunities. What opportunities are there, how do I approach them? How do we proceed our project development facing foreign systems? What is there to know and where do we find support? This workshop aims to give participants first tools when getting started in Berlin and aiming for funding opportunities.

In English and Turkish spoken language.

Register by February 23 to beratung [at] pap-berlin.de.

24. February 2023 - 15:30 - 16:30
24. February 2023 - 16:30 - 18:30
Network

With Neslihan Arol (Clown, Scientist, Stand Up Comedian, Meddahlık)

How do you get started as an artist in self-exile and/or at risk, being challenged by new procedures and inquiries? How do you cope with the emotional load that this big change unquestionably brings with itself? How do you use and channel your creative potential despite the challenges that you face artistically in a new country? The Host Neslihan Arol will share her experiences as an artist with a Turkish background and encourage the participants to ask and exchange about theirs, to share knowledge and encourage artistic connections and community building. 
In English and Turkish language.

Register by February 23 to: beratung [at] pap-berlin.de.

24. February 2023 - 18:30 - 19:00
24. February 2023 - 19:00 - 20:00
Specials

With Pieter Verstraete

This presentation of the ExiLives project results will speak to the need for a more pluralistic perspective on German theatre history and its archives because of the newly arriving artists at risk and/or in self-exile. It will focus on the slow process of institutions and the decentralization of the architecture of the archives, as well as the support mechanisms, in order to respond to more local developments. In recent years, structures and networks for exilic artists have been developing out of a global need. The presentation will give a mapping of those mechanism, networks, artistic practices and current reasons for leaving the home country, with a focus on Turkey.

24. February 2023 - 20:00 - 22:00
Round Table

With Şirin Fulya Erensoy, Özge Çelikaslan, Philip Rizk and others, presented by Pieter Verstraete

This roundtable explores the need for more action and memory keeping with regard to artists at risk and in exile within Berlin’s decentralized institutions. It looks at the challenges of archives in the making, though scattered through private and independent initiatives, in search for existing
institutional structures or an overarching institution. The usefulness of current programs will also be explored.

27. February 2023 - 10:00 - 18:00
Workshop

In the week following the event you can take part in this two-day workshop with Nora Amin (choreographer, dancer, author, scholar):

This workshop is intended for newcomers and professionals with intercultural backgrounds that feel as though they are new in Berlin and are searching for ways to establish themselves in the city with their creative projects. Various approaches to founding an enterprise will be presented and entrepreneurial practices will be discussed. The participants will develop strategies for how they can make sustainable contacts to communities with similar visions and challenges and use existing cooperations without having to give up the diversity of their artistic identities.

In English language, Q&A in Arabic

Register by February 24 to beratung [at] pap-berlin.de.

The event takes place at
Hotel Continental,
Elsenstraße 87, 12435 Berlin.
No registration needed unless
specified for certain formats.