The festival Black Lux – Home Festival from Black Perspectives fires the starting pistol for Ballhaus Naunynstraße?s new repertory season with an in-house production, international guest performances as well as dramatic readings, accompanying exhibitions, video art and sound installations.

In many respects Germany is way behind in the international discourse on Black identity, and not only because this country has an ambiguous relationship with its colonial past, as is evident in the recent debates being held regularly in the arts sections of newspapers – for instance regarding the use of “blackfacing” on theatre stages or racist vocabulary in children?s books. Especially in view of such current debates, Ballhaus Naunynstraße will place the main emphasis on Black and Afro-German perspectives in the upcoming repertory season, thereby expanding the artistic involvement with post-migrant narratives and perspectives.

The festival opens on August 28 with the German premiere of Women Part Two – you might think I?m crazy but I?m serious by Cie Artincidence from Martinique, choreographed by Annabel Guérédrat. The dance performance, inspired by Nina Simone and other strong women, explores the female body as a political body and examines fantasies projected onto it.

In her solo performance Krieg der Hörnchen, Simone Dede Ayivi uses the spreading of the grey squirrel within Europe as a parable for current processes of displacement and the implications these have for our society.

A double act combines two short performances dealing with the body and power: Victor D?Olive?s Repitologia describes the creative process of a dancer repeating one single movement again and again. In Shoot First, Ricardo de Paula sets out from Trayvon Martin?s death and connects the experience realm of a teenager with the concept of the body as a physical presence moving with and within all of its gender specific, ethnic and social significances.

September 24 marks the premiere of Ballhaus Naunynstraße?s theatre production Schwarz tragen by Elizabeth Blonzen under the direction of Branwen Okpako. The story of a Black flat share in Germany examines a phenomenon typical for Berlin – living in a flat share as a way of life, an everyday utopia where the limits of community are negotiated between the kitchen table and old apartment walls.

The series Arriving In The Future by and with Philipp Khabo Koepsell and Asoka Esuruoso, which has been featuring since the last repertory season will among other items present the forthcoming anthology of the series.

Another focus of the festival is the identity of Black people in Turkey. Until the late 19th century, many Black slaves were brought into the former Ottoman Empire. Today, several thousand Afro-Turks live on Turkey?s west coast. On September 7 and 8 there will be a reading as well as talks on this topic – with writer Mustafa Olpak, sociologist Lülüfer Körükmez, activist Serkan Do?uluer, academic Onur Suzan Kömürcü Nobrega and others.

The akademie der autodidakten is producing an issue of Kiez-Monatsschau on the same topic, mentors are the filmmaker Janine Jembere and the journalist Michael Götting.

For the duration of the festival, installations and exhibitions will be supporting the programme: Homestory Deutschland – Schwarze Biographien in Geschichte und Gegenwart (in cooperation with the Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland – ISD e.V./Initiative of Black People in Germany) is a collective self-portrait taking up African, African-American and Black German traditions of remembrance. In her photographies of the exhibition Community, On Common Ground, Deborah G. Moses-Sanks presents images from everyday life in Black communities in the US and Germany, portraying people in moments that express their vulnerability as much as their pride, their dignity and their resistance.

Featuring: Amewu, Jamika Ajalon, Chririkure Chirikure Simone Dede Ayivi, Thomas B. Hoffmann, Maroula Blades, Elizabeth Blonzen, Jean-Paul Bourelly, Victor D?Olive, Asoka Esuruoso, Ghyslaine Gau, Annabel Guérédrat, Michael Götting, Sheri Hagen, Ernest Allan Hausmann, Janine Jembere Grada Kilomba, Philipp Khabo Koepsell, Onur Suzan Kömürcü Nobrega, Raja Lubinetzki, Deborah Moses- Sanks, Label Noir, Melody LaVerne Bettencourt, Branwen Okpako, Mustafa Olpak, Ricardo de Paula Anna Pi, Juli Rivera, T ayo, Thabo Thindi, Sinethemba Twalo Tyron Ricketts, Noah Sow and many more.

Programme overview:

28 August 2013
6 pm Festival opening (opening of the exhibition Community, On Common Ground, a video installation curated by Asoka Esuruoso, as well as a sound installation by Noah Sow)
8 pm German premiere Cie Artincidence:
Women Part Two: You might think I?m crazy but I?m serious

29-30 August 2013, 8 pm:
Cie Artincidence: Women Part Two: You might think I?m crazy but I?m serious Q & A on 29 August 2013

31 August 2013,
Arriving in the future by Philipp Khabo Koepsell and Asoka Esuruoso
5.30 pm book presentation
8 pm performance followed by party

1 September 2013, 8 pm
Dramatic reading: Label Noir

3 September 2013, 8 pm
Zwischen Solo und Kollektiv short film night (curated by Janine Jembere)

5 and 6 September 2013, 8 pm
Simone Dede Ayivi: Krieg der Hörnchen Q & A on 6 September

7 September 2013, 8 pm 
‘20 Olivenbäume und ein Haus’ Reading: Mustafa Olpak

8 September 2013,
‘20 Olivenbäume und ein Haus’
6 pm lecture and Q & A
8 pm lecture and Q & A

9 September 2013, 8 pm 
Dramatic reading Grada Kilomba:
Plantation Memories – Episodes of Everyday Racism

12 September 2013, 7 pm
Exhibition opening: Homestory Deutschland In cooperation with ISD e.V.

12-14 September 2013, 8 pm
Victor D?Olive: Repitologia & Ricardo de Paula: Shoot first Q & A on 13 September

15 September 2013, 8 pm
Documentary: Zumbi somos Nós (ov with Engl. subtitles)

24 September 2013, 8 pm
Schwarz tragen by Elizabeth Blonzen, directed by Branwen Okpako
Cast: Thelma Buabeng, Thomas B. Hoffmann, Sheri Hagen, Ernest Allan Hausmann, Tyron Ricketts

25 September 2013, 8 pm
Kiez-Monatsschau Vol. XVIII akademie der autodidakten

26-30 September 2013, 8 pm
Schwarz tragen by Elizabeth Blonzen, directed by Branwen Okpako

28 September 2013, 10.30 pm
Concert Amewu followed by party

For more information visit www.ballhausnaunynstrasse.de