This event is wheelchair accessible.
German, English, FrenchFetching prices
A black artist realises that he has become a soldier. He enters the stage as a cultural worker. But in the fight for representation and resources, he is given a weapon and learns that the arts are no exception: the liberation of the occupied is also the occupiers' terror. But is cultural warfare really war?
Few have written as lucidly about violence in a fractured world as Frantz Omar Fanon. A psychiatrist and Marxist from Martinique, he was convinced that the dehumanisation caused by European colonialism could not be overcome through negotiation and compromise, but only by destroying it. Fanon's justification of anti-colonial violence has been received by leftists all over the world, from the Black Panther Party to the Red Army Faction, and is still the subject of controversial debate today. When and in which circumstances is it necessary to organise violence or resistance to it?
On stage, the black artist relives his transformation into a soldier. Through the interplay of spoken word and the physical force of the drums, he interrogates the historical situation and explores his relationship to violence.
Experiences of racism are addressed in the performance. It also includes racist remarks.
Biography
Julian Warner (Concept, Text, Performance) is a German-British artist and curator. He is artistic director of the Brecht Festival Augsburg 2023-25 and publishes pop music and performances under the alias Fehler Kuti. He has co-curated performing arts festivals for the Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, the Münchner Kammerspiele, and the Sophiensaele in Berlin. In 2021, he designed a large-scale project in public space for the international theater festival Spielart on contemporary discourses of fear ("Global Angst: Parlament. Parade. Ritual.“ In 2022, he was artistic director of the Stuttgart Culture Region Festival ”Über:Morgen." He is the editor of an anthology on problems of postcolonial criticism in Germany: After Europe. Contributions to Decolonial Criticism (Verbrecher Verlag, 2021) and was a visiting professor of dramaturgy at the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design in 2022-23.
Markus Acher (Percussion) is a singer, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and music curator. Since 1990, he has played in the indie band “The Notwist,” with whom he has released international albums and toured, as well as in numerous other bands, such as the acoustic instrumental combo Hochzeitskapelle and the international collaboration band Spirit Fest.
He has been curating the Alien Disko Festival in Munich since 2016 and runs the label Alien Transistor. As a band member and solo artist, he has composed and recorded music for numerous theater plays, radio plays, and films. In 2010, he won the German Film Award in Gold for Best Film Music with The Notwist for “Sturm” (Hans Christian Schmid) and in 2019 with Hochzeitskapelle for “Wackersdorf” (Oliver Haffner).
Credits
Concept, performance, music: Julian Warner
Music and live percussion: Markus Acher
Video-Performance: Jelena Kuljić
Voice: Veronica Burnuthian
Dramaturgy: Veronika Maurer
Light & Technology: Dennis Dita Kopp
Artistic production management: Sabine Klötzer
Translations: Veronica Burnuthian, Anna McCarthy
A production by Studio Julian Warner.
Co-production: Belluard Bollwerk, Kaserne Basel, Donaufestival Krems, Burg Hülshoff – Center for Literature, Theater Rampe, Münchner Kammerspiele, studiobühneköln
Support: Kulturförderbeitrags des Kantons Freiburg