etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

What does a newly arrived Sikh delivery driver in Berlin have to do with the rising level of the ocean? Where do avocadoes and billionaires and yoga meet, and what do they eat for lunch?

Why I Want to Be White is the opposite of a TED talk. It is a factually sort-of-accurate history of how “whiteness” – the world’s most successful group project – continues to manage the algorithm of supremacy and send us down mental health spirals.

This searing, funny and personal performance travels geographies and centuries, returning again and again to the disturbing “brilliance” of the masterplan of whiteness and the cost of believing in it.

Deepika Arwind is a writer and performer based between Berlin and Bangalore.
Her work looks at etching a psychological and emotional map of gender and politics in the current (already moving) moment. Her theater has been performed in various countries including the UAE, USA, UK and Singapore, and of course, across India and Germany. Her most recent works include The International Conference of Insecurity (2022, 2023) Phantasmagoria (UK, Kali Theatre 2023), I Speak to Sita (Forecast Forum, 2025), This Thing is about Everything (Stuttgart, 2023, 2024, Munich 2025). Phantasmagoria will have its Swiss premiere in Bern in August 2027.
She is the recipient of various fellowships and residencies including most recently Weltoffenes Berlin. In 2026, she will be one of six mentors from around the world at the ITI Academy for Theater Der Welt, Chemnitz. She is also the author of the children’s book Sarayu.
Her debut novel is called Good Arguments (Simon & Schuster India 2026) and draws from her 15 years of experience in theater.

Sophia Stepf is a theater maker, curator, dramaturg and the artistic director of Flinn Works (Berlin). She has been devising and co-creating research-based performances for the last two decades, focusing on feminist and postcolonial issues. Her shows have toured internationally and won various awards in Delhi, Zürich, and Berlin, most recently the Tabori-Award by Fonds Darstellende Künste (Germany) and the prize of the International Theater Institute (Germany). As a dramaturg /curator she has worked with Theater der Welt, Vienna Festwochen, Linz 09, Schnawwl Mannheim and Theaterfestival Schwindelfrei Mannheim, amongst others. Sophia has been designing experiential learning spaces for dramaturgy, devising theatre, theatre pedagogy, and transcultural competencies for 16 years, e.g., for Goethe-Institutes in India. She holds an MA in Dramaturgy and has trained in Betzafta (democracy training), DasArts Feedback Method, Anti-Bias, diversity training methods, new work and feminist leadership. She lives in Berlin with her family.