(in German with English surtitles)

– Please note that strobe lights will be used during performances!

Because I grew up here, I dream. Whose dream?

Just because one grew up in this system, doesn’t mean that one feels good in it, that one supports it. Or does it? Just because one holds the society in one’s own body, doesn’t mean that one dreams the same dreams. Or does it?

The Afro-German protagonist of Abdruckkörper (Imprinted Body) navigates his body within and away from the predetermined course. For the direction is marked. German society is a labyrinth: walls create visibility and exclusion, while paths trodden by others form networks of relationships and clusters of capital. Whiteness is inscribed in the social disposition. The protagonist, the ego, lurches.

One’s own body is the stake on the path to the top. It’s going up, isn’t it? It follows the course and at the same time senses the centrifugal forces, the risk of breaking out. Your own body is the tool. It can be shaped from the inside and from the outside. And society – is it also malleable? With what input?

Abdruckkörper is the theater debut of film director Yatri Niehaus. This dramatic script was created as part of the Unconventional Signs writing workshop at Ballhaus Naunynstraße during the 2020/21 season. The premiere of this script marks a unique continuity: After Schwarz Tragen (Elizabeth Blonzen, 2013), Mais in Deutschland und anderen Galaxien (Olivia Wenzel, 2015), Jung, giftig und Schwarz (Amina Eisner, Thandi Sebe, 2015), Walking Large (Toks Körner, 2017), Call me Queen (Thandi Sebe, 2017), Aesthetics of Color (Toks Körner, 2019), Courageux! Furchtlos! (Amina Eisner and Atif Mohammed Nor Hussein, 2021) it is the eighth Afro-German drama created and performed at this theater.