NEUKÖLLN | BERLIN | GERMANY | 2018

PERFORMANCE + DESIGN

Artistic Director and Producer: Caroline Vains | In partnership with Sven Seeger, Berlin, Germany.

A cooperation with community art and culture organisation Schlesische 27 Kunst und Bildung (and Coop Campus), Berlin, Germany.

Co-initiators: Anna Nemeth, Fetewei Tarekegn, Reem Awad, Amir Kazkaz, Nouri Almashhour, Houssam Aldeen.

Sound: Amir Kazkaz  | Video: Hendrik Rojas  |  Photography: Ze de Paiva, Caroline Vains and Ralf Bäcker

Performer participants: Amal Al Munakil, Lola Lefevre, Mohammad Mokbel, Taiwoi Ojudun, Ahmad Almohamad Alhid, Yuliia Martiukhina, Mohammed Mardini, Kira von Wedel, Fawaz Al Moustafa, Hamouda Sakka, Husam Awad, Mohamad Al Zoubi, Charlotte Kneffel, Anna, Bart Kuipers, Maya Rabie, Mattias Gormann, Lara Chahal.

Overview: Moving in-to Context was a participatory performance + design project conducted in 2018. It began with a series of movement and dance workshops and concluded with a public performance. It involved a diverse group of performers, dancers, artists and others – local, international, migrant, refugee and newcomer. We used performance methods (movement, physical and political theatre) and scenography to meet and mingle in intercultural space, interrogate notions of identity and ‘integration’, experiment with practices of democracy, and enact stories about the past, getting here, and the El-Dorado of the good life. The project is part of my ongoing research to develop new narratives around migration, hospitality, refuge, reciprocity, intersubjectivity, co-creation, identity-in-the-making, democracy, and inclusive cities.

Detail: The project started with the gathering of a core group of initiators inclusive of dancers Sven Seeger and Anna Nemeth, gardener and roving intellectual Fetewei Tarekegn, journalist Houssam Aldeen, and myself. Together we hosted a series of 14 workshops with a group of 30 participants (performers, dancers, artists and others – local, international, migrant, refugee, newcomer). The workshops culminated in the final public performance.

It was a cooperation with Berlin based community art and culture organisation Schlesische 27 Kunst und Bildung (S27) and their Coop Campus. The workshops were held in the decommissioned cemetery surrounding the Coop Campus garden in Neukölln, Berlin. Over the course of these workshops the group developed strong skills in movement, performance and scenography (two-thirds of the group had no prior performance experience). These skills led us into the co-created performance that was performed finally six weeks later for the public in the garden greenhouse.

The project was conducted as part of a 2018 artist residency at the Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) | Centre for Art & Urban Studies in Moabit, Berlin.

Top photo shows final group of performers that went on to participate in the public performance.

THE WORKSHOPS