HELENA WALDMANN

BURKABONDAGE - STRATEGIES TO AVOID BEING UNHAPPY -

In “Letters from Tentland“, one of Helena Waldmann‘s recent productions, she used dancing tents to lift the ban on dancing in Tehran, and went on a world tour.
Now she ventures further east: during a number of trips to Kabul and Japan Helena Waldmann has attempted to plumb the depths of the dangerous issues of freedom and courage. The responses by Japanese and Afghan women were strikingly similar. Freedom must be bound. You need courage to fly away. In her new piece “BurkaBondage“, female performers from both countries compare migration and escape in the Middle East‘s poorest nation with strategies of escapism in rich Japan. In both nations, the mythological figure of phoenix, called Simurgh in Asia, plays an important role. It is prepared for self-destruction. Whoever has in mind kamikaze, hara-kiri or suicide bombers will find a cultural context in “BurkaBondage“. On the search for the “bird of insight“, “BurkaBondage“ lifts the cover and breaks the bonds by taking the cover (the Afghan burka) and bonds (of Japanese bondage) very seriously. Both signify the strength of fear and longing by Asian women, who are ready for a risky and dangerous game. For all the oppression, they push their desire for freedom to the limits, giving it a political voice.

BurkaBondage – strategies to avoid being unhappy –
is a production by
Helena Waldmann and ecotopia dance poductions

co-produced with Berliner Festspiele, Burghof Lörrach, Fabrik Potsdam, Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf, Festival Theater in Bewegung Jena, Festival Internacional de las Artes de Castilla y Leon (E), Tafelhalle im KunstKulturQuartier Nürnberg, Theater im Pfalzbau Ludwigshafen

supported by Hauptstadtkulturfonds

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