Bishop Black performs in Flight of the Canaries! On the occasion of the third revival of Bishop Black’s successful directorial debut, they now take to the stage themselves!
The main character in Flight of the Canaries is confronted with all the madness that is our daily life. Torn between invisibility and hyper-visibility, they, as a Black individual, feel pressured into masculinity and high performance: to be special and extraordinary. For many avant-garde strides, for styles and attitudes, they receive admiration, yet are simultaneously threatened with dispossession and disenfranchisement.
Since childhood, our hair is dealt with – confronting us with expectations as to who we are and who we should be.
It is an intimate learning of norms and codes. It is permeated by power and violence. The person that touches your hair has power.
Who is it? Is it you? Does empowerment also mean styling? But how?
Let it fro!
The choreographer and dancer Jao Moon explores the possibility of transforming his own body. This experience changes his perspective on social border regimes - he is able to burst, overcome, change or move them. In reference to the Colombian champeta ‒ the music of the periphery of Cartagena de Indias ‒ working on one’s own body turns into a practice of resistance that enables to question the predominant social order.
In Memory of Dislocation Jao Moon traverses spaces of social segregation in Colombia, of heteronormativity, precariousness, dance discipline, queerness and the Berlin club culture. The boundaries of social spaces convert into a physical challenge at the end of which stands the utopian question whether his body can become the space in which all these boundaries dissolve.
Maya Alban-Zapata makes her debut. Acting, musicals, audiobooks, films… she’s done it all, but never a PORTRAIT.
Portrait performances are risky. For the theatre and for the artists. This applies to professionals as well. And Maya Alban-Zapata is a professional: Paris bequeathed her a dramatic stage, and Berlin gave her a big mouth; in drama school, she learned fencing, everyday racism taught her to fight, and in show business, she fought her way through, enjoying everything from musicals to the opening act for MIKA; on German stages, she competes with big names, and as a mother of two, she knows that the future must be fought for. Nothing is given.
At Ballhaus Naunynstraße, around forty theatre makers of Color and Black artists came together in two groups to think about, experiment with, and produce theatre. Contributors such as director, author, and lecturer Adewale Teodros Adebisi, lighting designer Emilio Cordero Checa, sound designer Sky Deep, opera singer, actor, and director Nino Sandow, stage and costume designer Sarah Seini, and dramaturg Jasco Viefhues shared their knowledge. Texts were written, staging images were dreamed up, acting constellations were tested, much was discarded, new things were attempted, and now: Showing! We share with the audience what we have!
