A performative research project on family between Iran and Germany
By Mirella Oestreicher, Pooyan Bagherzadeh, Kerstin Lenhart
World Wo*Men is a multimedia, interactive theatre piece, a pinball gender parcours. The German-Iranian co-production explores the question: 2121 – Where is the family, the nucleus of society, heading when more and more women and men no longer find themselves in traditional concepts?
The text was developed by a team whose collaboration was preceded by long research in both countries. Sixteen conversations were held with selected interview partners in Iran and Germany. They form the central pool of ideas for the piece. In addition, a study on the topic of „Family in 100 Years from today“ was carried out as part of Future Studies at the Free University of Berlin. These findings also flowed into the project. Each performer has developed his or her individual interpretation of the topic in several solos, and two interviews are streamed in each of the three parcours: each group sees a different version of the project – only at the beginning and end of the journey, through a kind of world creation process, does the audience come together – an invitation to reflect and dream and ruminate about the meaning of family for each of us now and in the future…
(...) World Wo*Men in the Schwer Reiter is a project that enormously expands the scope of free production. The Iranian director Pooyan Bagherzadeh, the director Kerstin Lenhart
& Mirella Oestreicher as the developer of the overall concept examine what family is and will be. Research meets utopia.
(...) You drift, almost fluidly, through worlds of images, sounds and ideas. Result, afterwards: intensive conversations about your own
family and those of other spectators. (...)
Süddeutsche Zeitung, December 6, 2021, Egbert Tholl
For the finale, the three audience groups are brought together again in the stage area and confronted with a magnificent widescreen video image in which
Individual interview partners can be seen united in a collage and overlappingly talking about their visions for the future.
(...) stimulates the performance,
to think about the relationships of tomorrow. And a
You could have a temporary form of connection
experience: a German-Iranian theater family. (...)
Evening newspaper, December 7, 2021, Michael Stadler
Photographer: Malte Wandel, Volker Derlath
