Second Workshop – Summary and Results

On the second nexus Workshop participated: Fermesk Abdolrahman, Bilal Bulut, Aziz Capkurt, Hicran Demir, David Fischer, Frederike Baldin, Sevim Kesbir, Ferhat Keskin, Andreas Meidinger, and Gıyasettin Uçun, as workshop directors Mirza Metin and Frank Heuel and as an additional team, Annika Ley, Claudia Grönemeyer and Jennifer Merten supported the workshop. Translator was Nihat Mert.

In this second workshop, only practical work should be done. For this purpose, Mirza Metin chose a text that is available in German and Kurdish and also deals centrally with the topic of language resp. language prohibition. For the participants, the choice of text BERGSPRACHE / ZİMANÊ ÇİYA by Harold Pinter was well received. One of the actors, Bilal Bulut, knew the piece very well, having played it at a Kurdish theater for over two years. Also at the end of the workshop most participants emphasized that the choice of text for working under the title Heimat | Language was perfect.

The first evening was about getting to know the very short text. He was once read as a team in Kurdish and in German. Small exercises with both languages gave a first impression of how to get into a kind of dialogue with the two languages – without understanding each other.
The following day, Mirza Metin, Frank Heuel and the actors worked with the first four pages of the text. First, a bilingual version was worked out together. Dividing the participants into two choirs and one solo player has already created a scenic situation. At the center, however, was the first shared experience with bilingualism on the scene: what happens when a text is crossed in both languages? What happens to the understanding of the text? How is the content transported beyond the word language through rhythm, volume etc.? How does choral speech work in one’s own language, in another’s language? How does my common rhythm, a shared energy, find itself? What is the content of when the language is misunderstood? These topics were explored by trial and error.

On Sunday morning, we prepared a short summary of the workshop as a kind of lecture performance and presented it in the internal theater circle.

Home | Language

In the second nexus workshop, Kurdish and German actors will work together. Thematically, the language is at the center, which occupies a central position for theater actors when it comes to feel like home on the stage, expressing themselves freely.

Kurdish languages and Kurdish culture were repeatedly banned in the history of the stateless people. This created a special relationship to the mother tongue. But also in the German theater tradition the handling of language is given a high priority.

The actors of the second nexus workshop will deal with a text that is available in both languages and also deals with the topic of language prohibition and the associated sensitization for the speech act, the expression. In addition, we ask the question of how bilingualism on the stage beyond the understanding of words can lead to a very own quality.
The workshop will be led by the Kurdish author, director and actor Mirza Metin and the artistic director of the fringe ensemble Frank Heuel.

Open doors to Home | Language
Sunday, 18th of November 2018// 11.30 am at the Hansa Haus in Bonn, Bad-Godesberg
only 2 minutes from the Bad Godesberg train station

On Sunday morning we open our rehearsal room to tell and show what happens with this topic, when Kurdish and German actors work together theatrically on this topic and invite to a conversation in which a translator (kurmanci – german / german – kurmanci) communicates will support.