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Stimmen aus dem Off

Voices Offstage: ensemble / together

by Monika Gintersdorfer

In early March 2020, after our last performance of Nana ou est-ce que tu connais le bara? in Paris we split up, tired and more or less happy, and everyone went “home”. For some this just meant catching the next Métro, others had to board planes to Abidjan, Berlin, Bremen, Vienna, New York, L.A. or Mexico City.

So we said goodbye, bisou bisou, and weren’t that sad since we were scheduled to play the next Nanas four weeks later in Bremen.

Then came the cancellation of tour dates, corona curfews and the travel ban. The consequences: Residency permits could no longer be renewed on time; they expire in the same way as previously booked flights to the next performances do. Gone in a puff – some of us have been without papers and work since April.

What has become of the transnational group we built up over four years?

At present it is being blown apart by the nationally minded controls that have won through everywhere, at least for the time being. Current corona regulations once more really bring home how dependent we are and how fragile our conditions are. We have practice in dealing with restrictions: maybe some visas and titres de séjour couldn’t be acquired on time, forcing us to substitute disappointed performers. Except that affected just one or two, not everyone at the same time.

Being unable to travel for the foreseeable future will crash our lives between the continents, the very heart of our work and, by now, also of our artistic and personal identities.

A highly unpleasant vision that shatters the edifice supporting not only the individual artists, but also their immediate and their extended families, their personal relationships and financial security.

For us, returning to a local existence is a nightmare; we want to continue our transnational work so as to counter a Eurocentric world and notion of culture with our many-voiced alternative. Not only on a theoretical level, but also in each moment we spend together. We are an ensemble, an ensemble without a fixed venue. No one is responsible for us, no city, no institution. We can only be together when we are allowed to travel, and we can only travel when we have work and the borders are open.

In times of corona, formalities and conformity gain the upper hand. Married couples, salaried employees, taxpayers, registered residents who are insured members of the Künstlersozialkasse, the artists’ security fund in Germany, can be counted and will, at best, also receive support. For many of them, things nonetheless remain difficult. But what about those who drop through the net, those with double and triple identities without clearly legible status, those who fit into no category?

How can you prohibit young La Fleur members like Alaingo, Ordinateur or Annick from travelling for climate reasons? Travels they weren’t even able to make until recently, travel that connects them to their work and their families? Travel that European closed-door policies have repeatedly impeded? Transnationality and climate concern should not be played off against each other; instead, we need to find new ways of balancing them. To protect the climate we would be glad to travel less: This would be possible if the various theatres coordinated their schedules among each other. This would be possible if we were given grants and accommodation so we could stay for longer in certain places and not have to constantly rush back and forth.

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