FIRST INDABA CONFERENCE - OF BLACK CULTURAL WORKERS 31. January and 01. February 2015, 12noon - 6pm Curated by Philipp Khabo Koepsell DANCE & PERFORMANCE: PERFORMING BACK 21. + 22. November 2014, 8pm Performing Back is an artistic engagement with the continuity of Germany’s colonial past. The centre of the performance is constituted by Simone Dede Ayivi’s meticulous search for traces in the seemingly unremarkable cityscape between motorway and swan pond. Accompanied by the voices of Black German activists and creative artists, she travels to the sites of former human zoos, colonial monuments and colonial street formations, chronicles resistance and visions, offers outlooks and retrospection. In a compilation of past, present, and future artefacts, hegemonic processes of historiography are called into question, colonial and racist imageries are deconstructed, ultimately inventing a new, post-colonial aesthetic. Produced by Simone Dede Ayivi and team. COLORED WOMAN IN A WHITE WORLD - WORKSHOP PRESENTATION 29. November 2014, 8pm Workshop presentation by Annabel Guérédrat In 2013 Annabel Guérédrat opened the festival Black Lux – Home Festival from Black Perspectives at Ballhaus Naunynstraße with her trio Women Part II – you might think I’m crazy, but I’m serious. In November she starts developing a new project here, titled Colored Woman in a White World, with female artists from Berlin. Her main source of inspiration is the autobiography with the same title by Mary Church Terell (18631954). Women of color are invited to describe their impressions of their current lives. After 130 years – are they still “women of color in a white world”? Do they still feel that’s what they are and how do they deal with that? On stage, Annabel Guérédrat is concerned with intimacy and honesty – focusing on the women’s very personal stories as well as the motivation to relate experiences as Black women. A FREAK SHOW FOR S. 17 +18 December 2014, 8pm A Freak Show for S. is a solo performance. It is a tribute to Sarah Baartman, the “Black Venus,” a woman of Khoisan heritage who in the 19th century was exhibited naked and against her will as an exotic curiosity for the amusement of a European audience. Annabel Guérédrat enters the process of exploring the scope of action of a sexualised Black woman. Guérédrat experiments with eroticism and surrender, with control and resistance, and the question, if these things cannot actually be the same thing after all. She breaks the mould of self-perception and external perception of the sexualised body, of the exoticised. And in doing so, she simultaneously criticises the shocking normality of sexist and inherently racist viewing habits. A Freak Show for S. is the attempt of a performative transformation for both the audience and the performer; from the dehumanized object of sexual desire to a resistant and self-determined Black woman right up to a state of pure dancing energy. Created by and featuring: Annabel Guérédrat STILL / life 13 & 14 Januyra.1205,8pm Danceperformance by Qudus Onikeku THEY ARE, THEN WE ARE 16.+ 17 January 2015, 8pm Staged reading by Branwen Okpako Lecture Performance /Artist Talk 18. January 2015 7pm with Branwen Okpako and Wendy Sutherland COLOR ME B 23 + 24 January 2015, 8pm Performance by Mmakgosi Kgabi andStompie Selibe DECOLONIZE BODIES! MINDS! PERCEPTIONS! 6 +7 February 2015, 8pm A project of the Academy der Autodidakten Ballhaus Naunynstraße Theater CORN IN GERMANY AND OTHER GALAXIES - world premiere 19 February 8pm + 21 February 7pm 23 -25 February 8pm by Olivia Wenzel Text: Olivia Wenzel Director: Mohammed Nor Atif Hussein Dramaturgy: Katja Wenzel With: Asad Schwarz-Msesilamba, Dela Dabulamanzi, Theo Plakoudakis, Lisa Scheibner, Toks Körner, Isabelle Redfern, Atilla Öner SPECIAL ISSUE: KIEZ-MONTH REVIEW - 130 Years Berlin Conference 20 February 2015 , 8pm A project of the Academy der Autodidakten Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Excellence, Audacity and Transgression​

We are tomorrow - Visions and memories at the Berlin Conference in 1884

Excellence, Audacity and Transgression