this is not the first time that i wish i was in berlin *sigh* – i’d have totally loved to see this piece and decide for myself whether bondage is really represented just as a technique to “shackle” people, because for me it is mainly quite the opposite (the paradox of release through restraint etc) and i could probably also say a lot about the sexyness of covering&uncovering, veiling&unveiling etc but then (with probably every piece of art) a lot is left to the eye of the beholder ;).
but as i’m afraid i probably won’t be able to see it and write about my own impressions, i’ll just post their official press release and photos here and keep my fingers crossed for it to come to someplace where i’ll be able to catch it after all (eg Vienna *hinthint* ;))
BurkaBondage – no ordinary experience
by Helena Waldmann
With „BurkaBondage – no ordinary experience“ director and choreographer Helena Waldmann (Letters from Tentland) brings another provocative production with current political references onto theatre stages. It premiered 9. October 2009 at the Haus der Berliner Festspiele, further shows in Germany and in Salamanca, Spain are already scheduled (see Tourdates below).
Afghanistan, March 2001: after pointlessly firing guns and missiles for 26 days, the Taliban militia destroyed the world’s two largest standing Buddha statues in the valley of Bamiyan, using 3 tons of explosives. They left behind only rubble and the enormous gaps in the rock.
After having travelled to Kabul for the first time in 2007 to show her production „return to sender“, choreographer Helena Waldmann made a discovery in the following year: the young Afghan actors she works with call themselves “Generation Rain”. A generation that even without the reign of the Taliban is disoriented and stuck in the rut of fundamentalist history.
In Japan, a highly industrialised, rich country that couldn’t be further from Afghanistan in many ways, Helena Waldmann experiences something similar: young people who have no faith in a self-chosen future, bound by the oppressive traditions of a rigidly structured and hierarchical society, call themselves “Lost Generation”, and take the destruction of the Buddhas in distant Afghanistan personally.
Once the choreographer had established channels of communication between those two groups, the blasting and disappearance of the Bamiyan Buddhas became the starting point for the conversations. Both the Japanese and the Afghan side recognise themselves in the forced disappearance of the bodies. And both arrive at corresponding questions. Are the empty niches that remained after the explosion the framework of something that has no right to exist? And what must we detonate in order to become free – the frame or what is contained within?
Helena Waldmann has found a virtually iconic image for the parallels between both generations, for the fight for visibility and unleashing: Burka and bondage. The burka is an Afghan gown that covers people up. Bondage is a Japanese technique that shackles them.
Helena Waldmann sets out on a search for the body without a face. With two female dancers who love extremes, a video animation artist and a genius on the drums.
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Helena Waldmann, born in 1962, is one of the most unusual artists in the field of theatre. She studied her craft with Heiner Müller, Gerorge Tabori and Gerhard Bohner, amongst others and graduated in Applied Theatre-Studies. Since 1991 she is working as theatre director and choreographer in Germany and abroad.
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17. November 2009: Lörrach, Burghof
21./22.November 2009: Jena, Festival “Theater in Bewegung”
Beginning of 2010: Nürnberg, Tafelhalle im KunstKulturQuartier
May 2010: 20. Potsdamer Tanztage
26. May 2010: Münster, Pumpenhaus
28./29. May 2010: Düsseldorf, Tanzhaus NRW
June 2010: Spanien, Festival Internacional de las Artes de Castillia y Leon
