CHALLENGES AND PERSPECTIVES FOR A THEATRE
PRACTICE FREE OF DISCRIMINATION ‒ DISCUSSION

Culture is usually regarded as an area free of racism ‒ especially in the land of poets and thinkers. But just taking a look at the German contemporary theatre is enough to recognize the contradictions in this self-perception. Apart from black-, brown- and yellowfacing as well as the use of obviously racist terms, anti-Asian stereotypes are also recurrently present on stage. In the past years, post-migrant cultural agents and activists of colour have exposed the problems of unquestioned institutional procedures and artistic conventions from a critical race perspective. Nevertheless, the structures have hardly changed so far. Theatre as a cultural institution is facing the challenge of reflecting on its whiteness and of reinventing itself interculturally in a fundamental process of transformation.