Participants: Maja Das Gupta, Volker Lüdecke, Mirza Metin, Wajiha Said, Ulrike Syha, Helim Yusiv

Interpreter: Nihat Mert

Team: Frank Heuel, Jennifer Merten, Hicran Demir

In the third nexus workshop, Kurdish and German authors encounter, because the focus of the joint work was on text, communication and dramaturgy.

Mirza Metin asked the guests in preparation for the meeting to write a monologue, which should refer to the sentence “And then a stranger person came in…”. The workshop started with getting to know the invited authors. After Jennifer Merten presented the development, the previous cooperation and the objectives of nexus, the attendees started talking about their culture, their way of life and work. It turned out that the authors pursue very different approaches – regardless of their origin or language. The first evening ended with stories from different myths and fairy tales of the two cultures.

The second day of the workshop began with the reading of the monologues in Kurdish and German – they had already been translated in the run-up to the workshop. In the subsequent conversation, the various text rhythms, characters and contents of the monologues were in the center. Despite their individuality, the authors found similarities in their interest in particular topics.

This was followed by a working phase of interactive writing: Mirza Metin presented a format in which the authors were to come into a dynamic exchange about writing letters in defined time windows: they wrote to each other – both in their own person and as an avatar of their characters from the monologues. In everytime getting shorter intervals, letters were written, recited, translated and answered.

On the third and final day of the joint work, further cooperation as well as a possible way of presenting the resulting texts was discussed and planned. In addition, Mirza Metin encouraged the authors to write another monologue after the workshop – inspired by the common work and the exchange of content. This abundance of texts now serves as the basis for the fourth nexus workshop, which will conclude with a public presentation of the texts by Kurdish and German actors. This workshop will take place from 26 to 28 April 2019.

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“And then a stranger came in”
German and Kurdish theater authors

In the third nexus workshop, Kurdish and German authors will meet. In preparation of the workshop, the authors write a monologue based on the sentence “and then a strange person came in”. The resulting Kurdish monologues are translated into German and the German monologues into Kurdish. In the workshop, the authors will write new texts together and exchange ideas about the writing-process, the written and the performance of writing in a theatrical context and try out formats together.
Thematically, writing is at the center of the workshop. We are looking for expressions, topics, encounters. But the form of writing will also be part of the workshop. The fringe ensemble brings in its accumulated experiences with live-writing formats and with the interaction between authors and actors on the stage and together the multilingualism and topic of the network is further developed. What other possibilities arise in dealing with different languages, beyond the understanding of words, on stage? Which thematic references do the different authors look for each other?
The 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.