“Real life stories, empathetic moments, admirable characters and real emotions meet the necessary pinch of humor – that’s ‘WeltRaum’,” says social worker Thomas Rauch. The result of this project, which he oversees together with the Ebersberg theater teacher Andrea Kilian for the Altes Kino Ebersberg, is to be presented to the public in spring in the form of a city walk in Ebersberg. Andrea Kilian formulates the goal as follows: “Building bridges between worlds.”
The Ebersberger Kleinkunstbühne had conceived the “WeltRaum” as a theater project. With the support of the Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, she wanted to bring together as diverse a group of people as possible to stage their reflections on differences and similarities: the world in one room. Corona forced the team, which includes Violetta Ditterich and Max Weis from the Altes Kino, to rethink “world space”. The first phase culminated in a book and film release in December 2020, which was accompanied by extensive digital material and showed how people connected despite the isolation in the pandemic, while playfully dispelling prejudice and stigma. “It was like a testimony from the year 2020, a small reflection of how society dealt with the pandemic in these months,” says Violetta Ditterich.
Working with masks: Violetta Ditterich, Bärbel Körner, Gerhard Leitner, Jutta Bethmann.
(Photo: organizer)
Some participants from this first phase have remained loyal to the project and have embarked on something new over the past year: biographical theatre. What is on her mind? Which topics are important to you? Which – sometimes very personal – moments are you willing to share with an audience? “What emerges in ‘WeltRaum’ does not come from a ready-made direction, but from the values, influences and fantasies of the participants,” explains Thomas Rauch. In groups and individually, initially digitally, recently in presence, with role-playing games and physical exercises, painting, singing and dancing, the nearly dozen Ebersbergers have dealt with dialect and school failure, community and cheating, water and values, speed and images in their heads.
Without a sign language interpreter, an exchange would not be possible
They now want to use these snippets to put together a city walk that will allow guests to discover personal stories at various locations in Ebersberg that are part of the city. Working title: “Behind the windows”. The program will also include a deaf radio play. The city walk should be a sensual experience for non-hearing and hearing alike.
This is due to a special feature of the group that characterizes the whole process: two of the participants are deaf. “Without a sign language interpreter, an exchange would not be possible,” says Andrea Kilian, explaining the special challenges of this work: “Deaf people in a theater group require more careful communication from the whole group: you have to speak more slowly, also for the interpreters, sometimes the fast chatter of the Slow down the hearing, keep looking and not just listening.” The process takes time.
None of the hearing people had ever dealt with the deaf, the initial skepticism was great. Over the past few months, they have been surprised and dismayed to realize that hearing and non-hearing live in parallel worlds. “The disability is not visible,” explains Andrea Kilian. That’s why the group’s discussions “repeatedly come back to the topic of exclusion,” says Andrea Kilian. “I hope this project will bring visibility to the non-hearing community.” And Thomas Rauch adds: “The project shows how important exchange is in a heterogeneous and diverse society like ours.” The conclusion of the two: “The project in its form is probably unique as such.”