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Palmyra

By Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas (London)

The Best of the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe at ETB | IPAC

Selected as one of The Guardian’s Top Ten Theatre Productions of 2017

“…a brilliant piece that reflects on Syria and the breakdown of relationships.” (★★★★ The Guardian)

Palmyra is an exploration of revenge, the politics of destruction and what we consider to be barbaric, inviting people to step back from the news and look at what lies beneath, and beyond, civilization.

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★★★★★ “A thrilling tightrope walk of a show – tense yet cathartic, angry yet thoughtful. A five-star triumph.” – The To Do List
★★★★ “Weird, wonderful and strangely stressful.” – The Stage
★★★★ “It’s rare to see emerging artists with such a strong signature style … It’s a stressful watch, though, but sublime as well.” – Matt Trueman, What’s On Stage
“Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutsas have created a strong contender for “Best Piece of ‘Political Theatre,’ Edinburgh 2017. … Proper genius, this.” – Andrew Haydon, Postcards from the Gods
★★★★ “The show’s focus on broader issues emerging from Syria is its great strength. Challenging the audience constantly on our role in the conflict from spectators to global influencers, the piece covers a great amount in under an hour… Unsettling.” – The Reviews Hub

Mouthpiece

by Quote Unquote Collective

The Best of the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe at ETB | IPAC

Pick of the Edinburgh Fringe 2017 by The Guardian

“Truly astounding stuff.” ★★★★★ The Stage: Critics Pick Edinburgh 2017

In the wake of her mother’s death, Mouthpiece follows one woman, for one day, as she tries to find her voice. Interweaving a cappella harmony, dissonance, text and physicality, two performers express the inner conflict that exists within one modern woman’s head. Ranging from tender to merciless, with uncompromising precision, Mouthpiece magnifies a daughter’s contemplation of her mother and becomes a rigorous investigation of womanhood itself.

After Hollywood actor Jodie Foster and wife Alex Hedison had seen Mouthpiece in Toronto, they brought the play to the Odyssey Theater in Los Angeles: “Mouthpiece touches on every part of the female experience from birth to death using dance, music, and wicked humor with just a bathtub for scenery. The result is a new kind of feminist language which ignites pure, intravenous emotion. It’s impossible to describe and truly unforgettable.” JODIE FOSTER AND ALEXANDRA HEDISON
“There are no weak moments. Nostbakken and Sadava are powerhouses of performers: the standing ovation at the end is the topping on the cake, a well-deserved accolade to the formidable strength of this piece.” ★★★★★ Edinburgh Spotlight

 

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AMY NOSTBAKKEN | CREATOR + DIRECTOR + PERFORMER
Co-artistic director of Quote Unquote Collective and core member of Theatre Ad Infinitum UK. An award-winning playwright, performer and composer, Amy has co-created numerous award-winning productions including Theatre Ad Infinitum’s First Class (2011), The Big Smoke (2012), Ballad Of the Burning Star (2013) and Bucket List (2016). Amy co-wrote, directed, composed and performs Mouthpiece, which is currently touring the world. In 2017 Mouthpiece was published by Coach House Books and adapted into a feature film. Currently Amy is developing Quote Unquote Collective’s six-woman play Now You See Her premiering in Toronto October 2018.

NORAH SADAVA | CREATOR + PERFORMER
Co-artistic director of Quote Unquote Collective, Norah is a Toronto-based actor and creator with a background in devised physical theatre. A graduate of the MFA program at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre, she has been involved in the writing and creation of new work with numerous companies both in Canada and internationally. Norah co-wrote, created and performs Mouthpiece, which is currently touring the world, was recently published by Coach House Books and is being adapted into a feature film. Currently Norah is developing Quote Unquote Collective’s six-woman play Now You See Her premiering in Toronto October 2018.

 

Parataxe – International Literature

Parataxe – Berlin’s international literature community:

What languages does Berlin write in? For the PARATAXE series, Berlin authors, who write in languages other than German, will be introduced in discussions, readings and translations. This time with Kinga Tóth (Hungary) and Elnathan John (Nigeria).

Kinga Tóth was born in Sárvár, Hungary in 1983. She is a linguist, teaches German language and literature, works as a communications specialist and is an editor at the art magazine Palócföld. Tóth describes herself as a (sound)poet and illustrator. In addition she is the songwriter and lead singer of the Tóth Kína Hegyfalu project as well as a board member of the József Attila Circle for young writers and an active member of several projects and associations. Her articles have been published in magazines and websites like Palócföld, Prae.hu, Pluralica, Árgus, Irodalmi Jelen and Irodalmi Szemle. Tóth is a participant in the exchange program for authors between the Akademie Schloss Solitude and young Hungarian writers in Budapest. Her publications include Zsúr (Party) (2013) and All Machine (2014). Currently she is working on her newest book The Moonlight Faces.

Elnathan John is a writer and lawyer living in spaces between in Nigeria and Germany. Mostly. His works have appeared in Hazlitt, Per Contra, Le Monde Diplomatique, FT and the Caine Prize for African Writing Anthology 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016. He writes weekly political satire for the Nigerian newspaper Daily Trust on Sunday (and any other publication that PAYS him). Unless you are The New Yorker, he considers it violence of unimaginable proportions to ask him to write for free. He has never won anything.
This record was almost disrupted by the Caine Prize when they accidentally allowed his story on the shortlist in 2013 and again in 2015. Of course, both times, he did not win. He has been shortlisted and longlisted for a few other prizes, but he is content with his position as a serial finalist. It is kind of like being a best man at a wedding – you get to attend the ceremony but you can get drunk, sneak off and hook up without anyone noticing because, after all, you are not the groom. In 2008, after being lied to by friends and admirers about the quality of his work, he hastily self-published an embarrassing collection of short stories which has thankfully gone out of print. He hopes to never repeat that foolish mistake. His novel Born On A Tuesday was published in Nigeria (in 2015), the UK and the US (in 2016) and in Germany (in 2017).

 

I Am Not A Joke (Take Two)

WORLD PREMIERE

Feminism has never been so hip and trendy! We could see this as a true victory for feminism and still post a “I’m a feminist” selfie real quick. Let’s be honest. This kind of “high gloss feminism” doesn’t cover up the smell of the shit we encounter every day in the form of sexism, racism and every other kind of possible phobia.

Accompanied by a guitar, a synthesizer and drum machine, The Kill Joys sing, scream and perform against daily discriminations and the patriarchy. I Am Not A Joke (Take Two) is an appeal against this shit while simultaneously questioning the consumability of feminism.

The Kill Joys (Olivia Hyunsin Kim, Magda Drozd & Co.) examine intersectional feminist issues within the form of a theatrical concert performance. The collective was founded in 2016 and has screamed about what makes them angry in a do-it-yourself style ever since. Using songs and performative actions that focus on their own experiences with everyday racism as well as within the performing arts, they create a feminism that is relevant for them and their concerns as women, artists and immigrants that is certainly not a “feel good” marketing strategy.

Featuring a post-performance discussion on Thursday, March 1 in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin!

IMPRO 2018

The nine-day festival IMPRO 2018: Our Lives (March 17 – 25) is the climax of a two-year international theater project that has brought together actors from all 28 countries of the European Union.

It combines the energy and vitality of improvised theater with the rich biographies and experiences of the actors, who use their own lives as a blueprint for what happens on stage. Together with the audience, the directness and strength of the authentic in combination with the abundance of cultural differences results in extraordinary evenings of theater.

English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center is the center of IMPRO 2018, featuring the opening performance, three specific impro formats reflecting the lives of seven actors as well as the highlight of the entire Our Lives project: the closing night of the festival with 28 artists, who will meet together on stage that evening for the first and last time.

Dates and descriptions of all performances at ETB | IPAC are below and all shows are in English and start at 8pm!

Saturday, March 17 – Opening Show

It has become a small tradition that we ask the international colleagues to bring short country-specific improv formats for the opening evening and to show them to the other actors as well as the Berlin audience. A colorful, blazing, energetic kick-off of our Our Lives festival with no less than 14 improv artists, and that’s only half of the casts – the other one is playing at the Ratibor Theater at the same time…

Sunday, March 18 and Monday, March 19 – Our Lives: Walls

Political or geographical, linguistic or ideological, visible or invisible, borders are shaping us: each freedom is limited by a borderline. From imagination to concrete reality, we build walls to label our divisions. Our Lives could be told by naming buildings and by demolishing these walls. Our homes, our churches and our schools reside inside those walls. Other walls loom between our countries, our cultures. In between those walls, what are our actual contours?

Cast: Antonia Vulpio (Italy), Heather Urquhart (UK), Julie Doyelle (France), Kaspars Breidaks (Latvia), Malcolm Galea (Malta), Roko Crnić (Croatia), Zsuzsi Várady (Hungary).
Artistic Director: Matthieu Loos (France)

Tuesday, March 20 and Wednesday, March 21 – Our Lives: Places

We spent and spend our lives in places. When we remember our grandparents’ living room, the sound of the ticking clock, the smell of the chocolate cake, and the sunlight through the gap in the curtains will come back to us. Let’s have a guess what the artists from seven European countries could bring us: a muddy mountain path in Slovakia; a quiet intersection in a Spanish village; an old farm on the border of Romania; a hot stone on a Greek beach; a wide, white field in the north of Sweden; a busy ferry on the coast of Estonia; a crammed Späti in Neukölln-Britz. Let’s tell each other about Our Lives.

With Billy Kissa (Greece), Leon Düvel (Germany), Lukáš Tandara (Slovakia), Monica Anastase (Romania), Per Gottfredsson (Sweden), Rahel Otsa (Estonia), Raquel Racionero (Spain).
Artistic Director: Christoph Jungmann (Germany)

Thursday, March 22 and Friday, March 23 – Our Lives: Community

Life in contemporary forms of capitalism is becoming unbearable, and one survival strategy is to develop and protect at all costs small communities that offer us different relations. With art, we cannot and do not aim at causing great social change but we can make room for collective creation, a space where it is possible to survive and even have a good time. Every moment is worth asking the very important human question of “How do we actually want to live together?”. And by doing so, we are finding answers along the way.

Exquisite and daring performers from different cultural, economic and political environments dive into the topic of community: Alenka Marinič (Slovenia), Alexander Mitrev (Bulgaria), Audrius Bruzas (Lithuania), Beatrix Brunschko (Austria), Gilles Delvaulx (Belgium), Hannu Risku (Finland), Mia Møller (Denmark). Artistic Director: Maja Dekleva Lapajne (Slovenia)

Saturday, March 24 – 28 AT 7 PM!!

Actually, we cannot believe it yet – an idea has become a reality. For the first and probably only one time, 28 people will stand together on the stage. All that unites them is that they come from the 28 countries of the EU. It’s so easy to write down, but it’s actually incredible and a special moment in the history of this festival. We guarantee nothing but an exceptional evening of improvisation.

 

Celebration, Florida

GERMAN PREMIERE

Celebration, Florida is a town located right next to Disney World and was originally developed by Disney as a sort of idealistic, controlled, manicured, shiny version of what the perfect town should be. It is an actual town, but at the same time a simulation of a town. What does this town mean to Greg Wohead? What happens when we miss a person, place or time? What does the performance tell about the human connection?

Veering between reality and simulation, Celebration, Florida orbits around ideas of surrogacy; a stand-in to replace a person you miss, a re-creation of an experience you can’t stop thinking about, nostalgia for a place that never existed.

This is a show for anyone who has ever missed anyone or anything.

Greg Wohead will speak to you through two performers using pre-recorded audio and headphones. The performers will know almost nothing about the show and they will meet for the first time when they walk on stage.

Performed on Tuesday, March 13 by Carrie Getman and Andre Neely

Performed on Wednesday, March 14 by Quatis Tarkington and Saudia Young

“A moving tone poem on loss and retrieval”
★★★★ Stewart Pringle, The Stage
“A work of great sensitivity written with enviable grace and poise”
Simon Bowes, After the Lights Fade

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Featuring a post-performance discussion on Tuesday, March 13 in collaboration with Theater Scoutings Berlin!

 

 

 

Commissioned by The Albany and developed at The Yard. Supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.

Greg Wohead is a writer, performer and live artist originally from Texas and now working in London. He makes theatre performances, one-to-one pieces and audio works. His work has been seen at theatres and festivals in the UK, US and Europe including Battersea Arts Centre, London (UK), Bristol Old Vic (UK), Mayfest, Bristol (UK), Northern Stage, Newcastle (UK), Forest Fringe, Edinburgh (UK), Bios, Athens (Greece), Brighton Festival (UK), Fusebox Festival , Austin (USA) and ArtPower, San Diego (USA). He’s an Associate Artist at The Yard and Shoreditch Town Hall in London.

Bette Davis…“Fasten Your Seatbelts!”

A performance trip through the glorious ups and the dramatic downs of a Hollywood life

Bette Davis was one of Hollywood’s greatest stars. Between 1931 and 1989, she acted in more than a hundred films, won the Oscar twice and was nominated another eight times. Some of the greatest movies in motion picture history – Of Human Bondage, Jezebel, What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, or All About Eve – are Bette Davis films. She was uncompromising, fought for better scripts, had no qualms about playing antagonistic characters and always wanted to be authentic. Davis was a living example that you can have a career and stay true to yourself – if you’re prepared to pay the price of loneliness. A life worthy of a movie.

“Bettina Lohmeyer as Bette Davis in ‘Fasten Your Seatbelts’ ignites into originality and pure entertainment. An evening of blazing theatrical fireworks. Brilliant – it soars!” Joe Franklin, Bloomberg Radio, New York City, 2014

In six scenes, Bette Davis…“Fasten Your Seatbelts!” highlights a life full of triumph and successes, love, tragedies and confrontations. Bettina Lohmeyer takes the audience to a duel with movie mogul Jack Warner in his office, to a cemetery in Maine, to a lonely home, back to shooting on set in Los Angeles, to the Oscar ceremony and finally to the last chapter in Bette Davis’ life…

A dream comes true: upon the invitation of U.S. director and producer Susan Batson, Bettina Lohmeyer developed, wrote and performed her play “Bette Davis… “Fasten Your Seatbelts!” in Batson’s studio theater in New York. After intense research, including interviews with Bette Davis’ contemporaries, Bettina Lohmeyer staged the Davis myth: hard as nails, quick-witted, assertive and just as uncompromising, vulnerable and full of humor.

Bettina Lohmeyer was an ensemble member at Maxim Gorki Theater for six years and also worked at Schauspielhaus Hannover, Staatstheater Mainz, and Schauspielhaus Graz. She has acted in numerous film and television productions, such as Der letzte Zeuge, SOKO Leipzig, Der Baader Meinhof-Komplex and in a continuous starring role in Hinter Gittern.
Pics: Barbara Braun | Film still: Bette Davis in Of Human Bondage (1934)

 

Nassim

“Dear performer. I want to show you something. Did you know, in Farsi my name is written like this:  ‘.ROUPNAMIELOS MISSAN si eman yM’ ? Did you know ‘Nassim’ means ‘breeze’ in Farsi?”

From Berlin-based Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour comes an audacious theatrical experiment that explores the power of language to unite us in unknown, uncertain times.

No rehearsals. No preparation. Just a sealed envelope and an actor reading a script for the first time. Plus some tomatoes.

WINNER of the Fringe First Award at Edinburgh Fringe 2017

NASSIM follows Soleimanpour’s globally acclaimed White Rabbit Red Rabbit, which has been translated into over 25 different languages and performed over 1,000 times by names including Sinead Cusack, Ken Loach and Whoopi Goldberg including five performances at English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center in October 2013.

 “A strikingly gentle, humane and emotive consideration of the experience of an artist living and working in the diaspora.” | The Herald

“Emotionally charged theatrical experiment.” | The Stage

“An unusually vivid celebration of theatre’s liveness.” | The Guardian

“As he heightens the audience’s sense of complicity in his art, Soleimanpour makes a quietly persuasive case for theatre’s special power to foster empathy.” | London Evening Standard

Nassim Soleimanpour (playwright and performer) is an independent multidisciplinary theater maker best known for his multi award-winning play White Rabbit Red Rabbit. Nassim’s play Blank premiered in the UK at the Bush Theatre’s RADAR festival in 2015, also playing in Amsterdam and Utrecht with further performances all over the world including at the Edinburgh Fringe and in Argentina, Australia and India. Further plays include Blind Hamlet which premiered at LIFT Festival 2014 prior to a UK tour and productions in Bucharest and Copenhagen. Nassim now lives in Berlin and has been commissioned to write a new play for Teater Momentum (Denmark).
Pics: David Monteith-Hodge / Studio Doug

Latent Dreams

Latent Dreams is a performance about the future.

Or more specifically the possible futures for the human race beyond the system of capitalism. The performance grew out of the quote “it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism”, often cited to Frederic Jameson in his essay Future Cities.

Intrigued by this quote, I began to research possible alternatives to the capitalist system, and came across a “widespread lack of conviction in the possibility of transcending capitalism, and indeed, a difficulty in even imagining such a task”[1]. I wanted to encourage more discussions around alternative systems, and so I created Latent Dreams, about the futures we allow ourselves to envision, as a provocation to envision alternative ones.

Using the frame of Hollywood films, Latent Dreams unravels the inherent capitalist ideologies embodied in popular concepts of the Apocalypse. It involves a solo performer typing a “plot summary” of a disaster film, which is rewritten and rewritten, erased, repeated and deleted throughout the performance. The text is humorous, occasionally poignant, often misspelled and always human.

Latent Dreams aims not to provide a solution, but instead open a dialogue on imagined futures, and alternative systems.

[1] Hahnel, Robert & Wright, Erik Olin, Alternatives to Capitalism: Proposals for a Democratic Economy, p5.

Latent Dreams was conceived as part of the MLitt Theatre Practice at the University of Glasgow. It was first performed at the Gilmorehill Theatre, Glasgow, in September 2016. After presenting the show in its original form in the 2017 Expat Expo | Immigrant Invasion festival, we are proud to present a run of this extended, revised Berlin-specific version.

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Katrine Turner is a performance maker based between Berlin and Glasgow. She creates performance for different social contexts, settings and audiences. In November 2016, she graduated from the University of Glasgow in MLitt Theatre Practice with Distinction, where she was the College of the Arts Bellahouston Scholar 2015/2016.

Parataxe – International Literature

Parataxe – Berlin’s international literature community:

What languages does Berlin write in? Notable Berlin writers who do not write in German are presented in conversation, reading and translation.

For the collaboration with English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center, the evening features Dario Deserri (Italy / Berlin) and his translator Anna Giannessi as well as Rasha Abbas (Syria / Berlin) and their German editor Nikola Richter, hosted by Martin Jankowski.