Talks and guest performances at Backa Teater in May.
Backa Teater is currently participating in the project "Atlas of Transitions – New geographies for a cross-cultural Europe". A collaboration between theatres, artists and academics in France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Greece and Albania.
In conjunction with this we arrange a series of talks and guest performances in May.
Backa Teater's artistic addition to the project is the performance Hierarchy of needs. Aside from this, researchers from the University of Gothenburg are engaged in the project. The research is part of an interdisciplinary collaboration between the different countries in the project. The purpose is to better understand how the participatory process in performing arts can create intercultural meeting points. During the project the researchers investigate relations and interactions between different bodies, expressions, institutions and places.
The University of Gothenburg is co-arranging some of the talks listed below.
Pre talk and performance, open to the public
From 5.30 pm and onwards
The privilege game
Board game
A board game designed for participants getting to know their different shade of privilege. Arranged by Finn Chung, University of Gothenburg and Globala Tanter.
No tickets required.
6.30 pm - 7.00 pm
Hierarchy of needs
Pre talk
Backa Teater's Artistic Director Mattias Andersson talks about working with Hierarchy of needs.
No tickets required.
7.00 pm - 8.30 pm
Hierarchy of needs
Performance
About one year ago, Backa Teater's director Mattias Andersson received a dramatic text from Adel Darwish. The text was direct, poetic and bewildering. Written in the midst of a chaotic present featured by war, frontiers and borders between people. From that text, Mattias Andersson creates a visual, musical and choreographical performance piece, modulated with the attitudes, feelings and conflicts of our mutual present.
More information about Hierarchy of needs and tickets.
Seminars, performance and concert. Open to the public.
From 2 pm and onwards
Make your own passport (Tintin Wulia, since 2014)
Workshop
Workshop by Finn Chung, University of Gothenburg
Did you know that a passport means more than travel for holidays? What does it mean to be a citizen of Sweden, or a citizen of Mexico, or of Taiwan? Not less importantly, what does it mean to be “stateless”? In Make Your Own Passport, we’ll have 150 passport templates from around the world, and each of your citizenship is assigned through a lucky draw. You might become stateless too. While making the passport by hand, we’ll discuss, read and present what it means to be a citizen, and what it might take to be a true citizen of the world.
The workshop is sponsored and supported by Center of Migration Studies (CMS), post doctoral researcher Tintin Wulia, Institution of Global Studies (SGS) and Globala Tanter.
No tickets required.
3.00 pm - 3.45 om
Body as Archive: Dancing with Hierarchy of Needs
Lecture by Astrid von Rosen, University of Gothenburg
I used my own body as a research tool to better access the dancers and the actors physical work with the performance Hierarchy of Needs. Drawing on this process I will present a theoretical discussion on dance and migration.
No tickets required.
4.00 pm - 5.00 pm
Can culture save the world?
Seminar by Students from the Master’s programme Culture and Democracy at the University of Gothenburg.
Evident in both global and local cultural expressions, culture has an important role in highlighting polarization and strengthening the intercultural dialogue. Regardless of its extent, culture has served as a think tank and been a place where society is questioned.
Cultural arrangements are often used as a political means to create dialogue on public platforms. Here, culture is represented as a tool for deeper understanding of social problems, and it is frequently called upon to protect democracy. So what happens if the influence of politics becomes too extensive? What are the following effects on cultural expressions, and what happens to the intrinsic value when culture is used as a tool for solving societal problems? Can we create an instrumental understanding of culture that allows room for its own values? We ask whether the political organization of culture risks leading to increased demands for measurability and how this affects the stated goals of the cultural institutions.
Students from the Master’s programme Culture and Democracy at the University of Gothenburg will arrange a panel discussion with invited guests about the opportunities, expectations and limitations of culture in today's context of change, polarization and migration.
Talk with: Klas Grinell - researcher at Gothenburg University and development officer at the Dept. for Cultural Affairs at the City of Gothenburg, Rasha Shaaban - Project manager and coordinator of Anna Lindh Foundation's network in Sweden at the World Culture Museum, Gothenburg, Erika Isaksson - Backa Teater, David Karlsson - historian, publicher and writer.
No tickets required.
5.30 pm - 7.00 pm
New geographies of a cultural Europe - Artist talk
Artist talk with Artistic Directors on how Europe's cultural map has been redrawn after 9/11.
Talk with: Mohammad Al Attar (from Syria but currently working i.a. at Volksbuhne Berlin), Piersandra Di Matteo, ERT Emilio Romagna Teatro Fondazione (Bologna, Italy), Pawel Sztarbowski Teatr Powszechny (Warsaw, Poland) och Spyrus Andreopoulos, Motus Terrae - Centre for Arts in Public Space (Athens, Greece), Mattias Andersson, Backa Teater (Gothenburg, Sweden)
No tickets required.
7.00 pm - 8.30 pm
Hierarchy of needs
Performance
About one year ago, Backa Teater's director Mattias Andersson received a dramatic text from Adel Darwish. The text was direct, poetic and bewildering. Written in the midst of a chaotic present featured by war, frontiers and borders between people. From that text, Mattias Andersson creates a visual, musical and choreographical performance piece, modulated with the attitudes, feelings and conflicts of our mutual present.
More information about Hierarchy of needs and tickets.
8.30 pm - 9.30 pm
Kristina Issa
Concert
Swedish-Syrian musician Kristina Issa's texts are about exclusion, longing, hope and justice. These themes permeate the intense pop music that has been taken on both Sweden and Europe tours and time and time again the audience has to dance and cry.
After three years of touring, music writing and recording in Tambourine Studios, the album "Ocean unknown" was released
No tickets required.
Talks and guest performance from Teatr Powszechny, Poland. Open to the public.
6.00 pm - 7.30 pm
Lawrence of Arabia
Performance – Teatr Powszechny, Poland
This show is an attempt of putting both participants and the public on someone else’s shoes, by looking at familiar issues from the outside, and a fantasy of theatre created for a multilingual and multicultural society. It’s also a play on viewers expectations - because what exactly do they know about Sudan? When was Poland a banana republic? Why does Zorro wear a burka? What is more remote to us: Venezuela or an Amazon warehouse?
The creators of 'Lawrence of Arabia' decided to invite newcomers, not rooted in Poland and those forced to leave their native countries, to cooperate. The goal of the show was to avoid constructing a phantom image of the Other. Expectations were contradicted, perceptions turned around in unexpected ways and the play gained its own comedic dimension. Comedy emerges as a serious, concrete remedy against generalizations and fantasies related to identity.
European cooperation project
Lawrence of Arabia is Teatr Powszechny’s contribution to the European project "Atlas of Transitions - New geographies for a cross-cultural Europe" which is a collaboration between theaters and artists in Sweden, France, Belgium, Poland, Italy, Greece and Albania.
More information about Lawrence of Arabia and tickets.
7.30 pm - 8.00 pm
Lawrence of Arabia
After talk with the director Weronika Szczawińska
No tickets required.
Guest performance from Téâtre de Liège, Belgium. Open to the public.
7.00 pm - 8.00 pm
Sortir du Noir
Performance from Téâtre de Liège, Belgium
Sortir du noir was designed by film makers Mary Jimenez and Bénédicte Liénard. This work involves a sharp and sensitive reflection on the reality of migratory flows and in particular by the question of the duty of burial. The presentation of Sortir du noir will take place in a space where the spectator will be close to the actor, including him in the scenography, thus creating a form of travel. The scenographer Sabine Theunissen will work to include the audience in an intimate reflection on the question of burial, the soil strewn with sand, projections of sea on the walls, etc. to immerse yourself fully in the sensitive and powerful universe of the two directors.
The presentation will include a sample of the stories collected in Tunisia as well as other testimonials collected by the two project leaders. The show will be intentionally short in order to best convey the intensity of the subject, creating an intimate situation without creating discomfort. The notion of an interaction between image, sound and live performance will be at the service of the delicate subject of the burial duty. The show will mix images and stories to best represent this reflection. The theatre stage becomes a place of speech for the forgotten.
More information about Sortir du Noir and tickets.
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”Atlas of Transitions – New geographies for a cross-cultural Europe” is funded by the EU-programme Creative Europe.
