It was taboo. Women were not allowed to touch the traditional drums in Rwanda. In her language, drum means the same as power, says Odile Gakire Katese, and she also says: “I like to cross borders.” 18 years ago, the author and director founded the first female drum group in Rwanda, the “Campagnie Professional Dreamers”. She wants to write down this story, says Gakire Katese. The artist tells this with great liveliness and witty humor in the stables at the “World/Stage” evening. Breaking the taboo may have cost her a lot, but she outshines that. If all of this is included in her text later, it will be great.
Gakire Katese is here to write the lyrics. The Ukrainian author and director Oleksandr Seredin is also planning a writing project. Both received a three-month residency at the Bayerisches Staatsschauspiel in cooperation with the Goethe-Institut. In January the author, director and actress Deepika Arwind from India starts her stay. The Residenztheater has now presented all three together on a “World/Stage” evening with texts – in the case of Seredin a very topical one – and in discussions. More “World/Stage” evenings are to follow, followed by a festival in the summer, the artistic direction of which is to be placed in the hands of the Munich writer Albert Ostermaier. The program, which has existed since 2016, will therefore be intensified and upgraded. You could see in the Marstall that it was worth it.
The concept of reading, conversation, and subsequent discussion, which at first seemed a bit rigid, works out there thanks to the three exciting personalities and their different artistic approaches and realities of life. In front of Gakire Katese, whose work is influenced by the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 (on December 13 there will be another “World/Stage” evening with her), Seredin and Arwind bring other topics onto the stage. In the case of Seredin, it is dealing with the war. He comes from Kharkiv and tells how after the initial shock when the war broke out, the everyday routine became more and more. How worries about his family are now growing in the distance, how he wants to create something with his work that will help his country to counteract the destruction of its culture.
The Indian Arwind, on the other hand, comes with her political piece “Phantasmagoria”, which is based on her reality and examines whether opposing ideologies can come closer at all. She’s amazed to be in a country where theaters can criticize the apparatus that also finances them, she says. Such reflections are the refreshing impulses of the evening. Under what conditions does theater emerge? And what ideas does it stand for? All three authors share a strong grasp of their culture, which is also impressively conveyed here. Would like more of that.