Uncertain States bodytext / in_visible

Handwriting and graffiti play a crucial role in the upheavals around the world. They are used by opponents of regimes as the only method of expressing their opinions that is not subject to control. Over the last twenty years, calligraphy in Iran has also enjoyed a renaissance, and is one element in much of the graffiti. In the dance performance bodytext, developed by Berlin choreographer Modjgan Hashemian with the Iranian dancers Ashkan Afsharian, Kaveh Ghaemi and Elahe Moonessi, writing becomes legible and disappears again. The dancers become text bodies themselves – how can the space between the signs be read, and what does it mean if your system of writing is taken away from you?

For many years, Modjgan Hashemian has been in touch with Iran’s dance scene, which can only be active in the underground. Now she is presenting bodytext in the Akademie der Künste in dialogue with a lecture performance which she has developed jointly with two women artists from Iraq. For in_visible, author Aya Mansour and actress Labwa Saleh from Bagdad have collected autobiographical stories of Iraqi women struggling to create free spaces within a patriarchal society. In a parallel work, Modjgan Hashemian’s choreography reflects on the experiences of woman imprisoned in Berlin. Here, she focuses specifically on the perception of spatial constraints. What happens to a body which can only move in a very limited space? What is it like if you no longer feel any contact to any other body?

The performance is followed by a discussion with the artists and performers involved in bodytext.

bodytext is a production by Modjgan Hashemian in co-production with the Akademie der Künste and Studio Я of the Maxim Gorki Theater Berlin, funded by the federal state of Berlin´s programme for intercultural projects and the Fonds Darstellende Künste (Performing Arts Fund).





   

in_visible by Modjgan Hashemian was developed in cooperation with the TARKIB Bagdad Institute for Contemporary Art and in co-production with the Akademie der Künste with the kind support of the Goethe-Institute and Aufbruch, Kunst Gefängnis Stadt.