Vote

A well-fed white performer and five thin orphan children from Lagos; the youngest about eight, the oldest perhaps fifteen. What they do with each other and especially against each other is contemporary, disturbing, ambivalent, at times almost too much to bear and inspires contradiction. The initial image alone: a gaunt child lies dead on the ground, the white man sits next to him and eats a bar of chocolate undisturbed, lifts the child up, who suddenly comes back to life, throws himself at the man like a vampire and bites him. Later, this image is repeated an agonizing number of times with the question being who is sucking the life away from whom; Europe from Africa or Africa from Europe.
Monster Truck from Germany and The Footprints from Nigeria have mutually explored the (im)possibilities of an African-European encounter as peers. Together, they have created images and choreographies which at times have a European feel to them and at times, at least to us Central Europeans, are reminiscent of African dance. Taking on the wide-spread clichés about Africa, sometimes admonishing the exploitation that still persists today in a shameful manner or creating associations with the long-since re-repressed migrant catastrophes in the Mediterranean.
The visual language, selection of music and the offensive charm of the children create a maelstrom that one can scarcely escape as a member of the audience – until one suddenly finds oneself at the limits of one’s own ability to judge, confronted with images that no one actually wants to see because they contain an unbelievable amount of truth. With images which demand answers to questions, which tear open scars, which destroy and provoke.
Art in the best sense of the word: as an impressive, societally relevant statement, as a stimulating and exciting experience which will hopefully be the starting point for discussions which are long-since overdue: for questions about migrant and postmigrant theater, about racism and neocolonialism in our society and the position of theater for young audiences on the topic of an immigrant society. SORRY provides the opportunity to conduct these discussions not only theoretically, but also on the basis of sensory perceptions and experiences – and, hopefully, with references to the practical experiences with and in our society.

Christian Schönfelder