“Als Grundlage für ihre ebenso unterhaltsame wie tiefsinnige Performance dienten diplomatische Protokolle für Staatsbesuche.(…) Es gibt Szenen, die das Publikum zum Lachen bringen, aber auch solche, die nachdenklich machen. Sie handeln von eigenen Erfahrungen, Vorurteilen und so manchen Fallstricken, über die man unwissentlich selbst schon gestolpert ist.” Rheinische Post, Claudia Hötzendorfer, 15.03.2026

“Der ganze Abend verläuft im Modus der verschiedenen Stationen des Beisammenseins (…). Wer die Gefühle der Verlegenheit kennt (…) oder schlicht alle, die einmal ganz entspannt sitzen und einfach beobachten wollen, wie sich andere im Sozialen abkämpfen, wird hier viel Vergnügen haben (…). Zu einer Lösung kommen sie nicht. Viel interessanter als eine solche ist aber der Weg dahin, und der ist sehenswert.” Nachtkritik, Iven Yorick Fenker, 07.03.26

“Die Inszenierung ist bunt und lustig. Der Glitzer von Bollywood liegt über dem Bühnenbild, (…) spielt mit den Codes der Höflichkeit und der Gastfreundschaft, mit Dresscodes und den Regeln des diplomatischen Umschiffens von Konfliktzonen. Aber auch viel mit dem, was man zu wissen glaubt, mit den Imaginationen über das andere Land, die einem schon beim Aussprechen nicht mehr ganz geheuer vorkommen.” Taz, Katrin Bettina Müller, 07.03.26

“...man ist fast gerührt, wie zart und ernst hier jene Tugend abgewogen, erklärt, auf den Prüfstand gestellt wird, die im öffentlichen Leben heute fast nur noch als schlechter Witz oder machtpolitisches Kalkül vorkommt. (...) Jedem werden in diesem Moment die grotesken Willkommensszenen im Weißen Haus oder im Kreml vor Augen treten (…) hier wird nicht nur die sophistische Oberfläche der Dinge zelebriert, durch geschickte Bild- und Fragetechnik wird diese durchsichtig und zugleich in ihre Teile zerlegt.” Berliner Zeitung, Doris Meierhenrich, 07.03.26

"Es war wie eine Art Spiel, wie man miteinander umgeht, wie man Rituale erfindet, um die Fremdheit vielleicht ein stückweit zu überwinden und miteinander auf einen Nenner zu kommen. Und das hat wirklich auf eine sehr entspannte und sehr schöne Weise an diesem Abend funktioniert.“

Idea and concept: She She Pop and Sandbox Collective. By and with: Sebastian Bark, Johanna Freiburg, Raabiya Jayaram, Lisa Lucassen, Mieke Matzke, Ilia Papatheodorou, Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran, Berit Stumpf. Artistic Advice: Natasha Borenko, Rodrigo Zorzanelli, Artistic Advice India: Sachin Gurjale, Vinod Ravindran, Joshua Muyiwa, Stage: Philine Rinnert, Costumes: Lea Søvsø, Costumes Assistance: Rita Rozhkova, Video Concept: Benjamin Krieg, Light Design and Technical Director: Claes Schwennen, Technical Support: Marius Bratoveanu, Light, Video & Technical Management German Tour: Marius Bratovean, Manuel Louis Horstmann, Michael Lentner, Claes Schwennen, Light, Video & Technical Management India Tour: Niranjan Gokhale, Technical and Production Assistant India: Anand Samudre, Dramaturgical Advice: Foad Esfahani, Intern: Fanny Kempter, German Live Translation: PANTHEA, Documentation India: Richa Bhavanam and Anushka Meenakshi, Social Media and Hospitality India: Leya Mammen, Coaching: Anisha Imhasly, Yumin Li, Coaching Music: Max Knoth, PR & Communication: ehrliche arbeit – freelance office for culture, PR & Communication India: Sridevi Rao, Communication: Tina Ebert, Production: Tina Ebert, Aminata Oelßner, Medha Nidhi S, Elke Weber, Company Management Sandbox Collective: Raabiya Jayaram, Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran, Medha Nidhi S, Company Management She She Pop: Aminata Oelßner, Elke Weber.

A production by She She Pop and Sandbox Collective in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, FFT Düsseldorf, HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste, Kaserne Basel und SPRING Festival Utrecht. Supported by: Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research (Pondicherry) and Theaterhaus Berlin.

Funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation). Funded by the Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien (Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media). And founded the City of Berlin – Department for Culture and Social Cohesion Berlin.

This production was supported by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore as part of the project Space for Freedom and Feminism.

She She Pop is a Berlin-based feminist performance collective that emerged in the 1990s from the Giessen Institute for Applied Theater Studies.

The members see themselves as authors, dramaturges and performers of their stage action. The inclusion of their own autobiography is above all a method, not a purpose of the work. She She Pop practices a form of theater that is committed to experimentation. They use the stage as a place of acute public: here decisions are made, ways of talking and social systems are tried out, speech gestures and social rituals are rehearsed or discarded. She She Pop sees its task as a search to find the social limits of communication – and to go beyond the protective space of the theatre, in both specific and artistic terms. The theatre is turned into a space for utopian communication. The audience, too, is often given a special function: all of She She Pop’s works are experiments or demonstrations of evidence that would be invalid without spectators.
 

Members are Sebastian Bark, Johanna Freiburg, Lisa Lucassen, Mieke Matzke, Ilia Papatheodorou, Berit Stumpf, and Elke Weber. Former group members are Fanni Halmburger, Claude Jansen, Katharina Oberlik and Anja von Steht.

In the production office at Kunstquartier Bethanien in Berlin-Kreuzberg, Tina Ebert, Aminata Oelßner and Elke Weber are responsible for management, administration and finance, production, acquisition, distribution, communication and touring.

The international production house HAU Hebbel am Ufer has been She She Pops continuous co-producer and cooperation partner in Berlin since 2003. In addition, there is a wide network of cooperating houses in Germany and abroad: Kampnagel Hamburg, Forum Freies Theater in Dusseldorf, Mousonturm Frankfurt / Main, HELLERAU – European Centre for the Arts, Residency Schauspiel Leipzig, Kaserne Basel, Theatre de la Ville / Festival d’Automne de Paris, Festival Kyoto Experiment, ACT Festival Sofia, Hängo Teaterträff, SPRING Utrecht, Prague German language Festival and Festival delle Colline Torinesi Turin / TPE – Teatro Piemonte Europa.

Sandbox Collective is a women-led, feminist performance group composed of women from a wide variety of backgrounds, working at the intersection of art and gender. We are based in Bangalore, India. We began in 2013 with the goal of creating greater access to the arts. Along the way, we have taken on various roles, such as creative producers, curators, and performers, as well as hosts of theater festivals throughout India and internationally. Over the years, our ideas about what art means to us, the place it occupies in our world, and the responsibility we have toward it and toward society have constantly evolved—along with the paths we are forging together with a multitude of incredible artists and fellow human beings. Our hope and our dream is a compassionate feminist world with more communally run art spaces where artists work for and with one another. As women who have sought to build an art organization far removed from the commercial and mainstream—on the margins of society, so to speak—our goal is to create safe and supportive spaces for solidarity through our work. Artists cannot and must not function as isolated islands, for our task is to build bridges. As an anti-discrimination and feminist art collective, we want to advocate for a more equitable, kinder, and more compassionate world, because we believe it is our right to shape the world in which we want to live—not the world in which we are forced to live. We look forward to a gentler, more compassionate future, toward which we aim to work with courage and conviction in the transformative power of art. www.sandboxcollective.org

There are scenes in which there is very little light, but not total darkness. Special effect in form of stroboscope light, used as foto flash light.

If you have any specific questions about content notes, a venue representative will be available on the evening of the performance. What are Content Notes??

Together with Art of Intervention, we're bringing the table talks back to Kaserne Basel! Once a month, we meet at the bar at 7:15 p.m. to get in the mood for the upcoming theater or dance evening in a relaxed atmosphere.
In dialogue with invited guests, we take a queer-feminist look at an aspect of the respective production. And after the performance, we open the space again for a brief exchange: sharing impressions, developing thoughts, shifting perspectives.
Come by, be inspired, and join the discussion!

https://artofintervention.ch/