TAKING SOME TIME OFF

We've recovered for the most part and are now looking forward to performing during the big Sound City Festival in Schwedt. It's really nice now to have my son and grandson here in Berlin. Yusef and Kian will also come to Schwedt to see where my Mom comes from. We got a really nice write-up in the regional paper. Here's a rough translation: Crossings Review English Translation from 3 July, 2023 Markische Zeitung Crossings ____ Moves - small posters drew attention to a special event in Schwedt in the last few days. And yet the performers encountered many questioning faces. Is Schwedt not yet ready for this form of art? While it is becoming increasingly difficult to get the desired attention with openly displayed art on the streets of major cities, a larger group in Schwedt attracts much more attention. Special city tour - dance theatre - explores refugees' fears. With the goldfish under their arm through the city the group does not behave “normally”. While some move to soft music from a small loudspeaker, others stand on the sidelines with headphones and observe. A few moments later, the whole crowd moves on, like a trek. A suitcase under the arm, a houseplant or even a goldfish in an aquarium are difficult to understand for outsiders. Yet the images resemble the events of the recent past. Even today, refugee flows are always in the headlines, but most people are only marginally aware of them, since they are not affected themselves. But what if? Millions of people leave their homes in search of a safe place to live. What moves them to leave their homes? What would they take with them? What might become valuable to them? Again and again, the 20 actors from the USA, Ukraine, Afghanistan and Germany managed with their dance performance to bring various experiences of refugees very close. The fear, the uncertainty, the terrible things they have seen, the dwindling strength and even death - accompanied by music, poetry readings and interviews - penetrate deeply into the consciousness of those who care about such fates. There is a special silence. Even between the individual stations it is almost silent, hardly any of the visitors talk, everyone tries to process what they have just seen. From the castle gate in the Huguenot Park via Bollwerk, Julius Tower, Old Town back to the park in front of the theater, where a final performance gave expression to hope, cohesion and life again. The project didn’t just spring out of the ground, reveals co-initiator Thomas Skupy of the Musik Schule. The first beginnings were already in 2018, when the US-American Ferolyn Angell came to Schwedt for the first time. She visited the laying of stumbling stones for Maria Margarete Oppenheimer in Bahnhofstraße. Ferolyn Angell is herself a dancer, dance teacher and choreographer. Already at that time it was her wish to do a creative project together, and Thomas Skupy's ears were open to this idea. “After a two- year break we picked up where we left off and collected ideas about what topics we were most concerned with,” Skupy recalls. With Ferolyn's background, that her very family lived in Schwedt and was expelled in Nazi times, this almost imposed itself on us. We therefore wanted to tell a story of escape through time, about a flight of humanity. “A theme that will never lose its relevance as long as war, political persecution and oppression exist.” The variety of ideas and suggestions made it clear at an early stage that this project could not simply be realized on the stage. That's why the makers chose this particular form.