22 May 2024

UTOPIA: Keep on Moving
The Akademie der Künste presents Underground Birds, a theatre performance by the KULA Compagnie with Afghan artists

Theatre guest performance
In German, Farsi, French, Hebrew, Italian and Norwegian with German and English supertitles
Saturday, 25 May 2024, 7.30 pm
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg

To conclude the “UTOPIA: Keep on Moving” programme, the Akademie der Künste is presenting a guest performance of Underground Birds by the KULA Compagnie. Created in KULA’s transcontinental Writers’ Room together with artists from the Simorgh Theatre in Herat, Afghanistan, the play premiered in Bolzano in autumn 2022 in a production by Robert Schuster.

Taking as its starting point the Evil May Day riots that took place in England in 1517, targeting refugees from the continent, Underground Birds focuses on migration and flight through different periods and in different places. Thomas More speaks to the enraged citizens of London, moving them to compassion; a fragment of a play attributed to Shakespeare depicts the scene in a contemporary way. The dramatic journey continues on into present-day Herat – and, going beyond the play, it brings the actresses of the Simorgh Theatre in Afghanistan out from the underground and back to life. Only able to appear via video link at the premiere in the Teatro Comunale in Bolzano City, they are returning, one after another, to the stage, which is once again open to them in exile – performing at home would have meant risking their lives.

Following Malalai: The Afghan Maid of Orléans in 2018 and the co-production Journals of Exile, which premiered in 2023, this is the third collaboration between the transnational KULA Compagnie and the Akademie der Künste. A guest performance of the new production DIBBUK: Between (Two) Worlds, which had its premiere at the Ruhrfestspiele Recklinghausen on 17 May, is planned for January 2025 at the venue on Hanseatenweg.

Underground Birds
Performers: Azar, Fariba Baqueri, Mahuba Barat, Zahra Barat, Max Bauer, Hadar Dimand, Pasquale di Filippo, Ingrid Mikalsen, Sarah Merler, Céline Martin-Sisteron, Tahera Rezaie, Alexandre Ruby, Jonas Schlagowski, Peter Schorn, Sindre Arder Skildheim
Direction: Robert Schuster
Stage design and costumes: Sascha Gross
Music and sound: Max Bauer
Ambassadress, assistant director, supertitles, stage manager: Khitam Hussein
Video technology: Nicola Munerai Faes
Dramaturgical support: Zainab Qadiri, Sarah Calicotti
Lighting: Michael Bischoff
Movement: Slava Kushkov
Co-production with Vereinigte Bühnen Bozen, Hålogaland Teater Tromsø and the Simorgh Theatre Herat

Event details
Underground Birds
Saturday, 25 May 2024, 7.30 pm
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
Admission: € 15/9; ticket reservations: 030 200 57–20 00; ticket@adk.de
Online tickets: www.adk.de/tickets

Press passes: presse@adk.de; tel. 030 200 57-1514