Wait To Be Seated is the first theatrical collaboration by two feminist collectives from Bangalore and Berlin. In the piece we explore hospitality, using diplomatic protocol as a template – following it dilligently as well as purposely infringing some of its rules. In our exchange, the groups appear as hosts and guests for each other, who turn out to be challenges as well as promises and burdens.
“Atithi Devobhava” which means “The Guest is Equal to God” is an often heard phrase in India. In Karnataka Kuvempu famously coined, “Teredide Mane O Ba Athithi”, meaning “The door is open, dear guest, please enter”. There is no equally inviting saying in German that comes to mind. The performance of hosting and guesting is a serious affair especially when one considers diplomatic and transnational contexts. The host-guest cultural code is like a tight net in which both parties may get tangled. There are too many rules, they are too contradicting and they change with person, geography, time and context. And still: a good host will master all of them! This work looks curiously at the rules of hospitality and asks: Who is protected by them and what from? What is left behind when formalities are brushed off? What happens when gender, race and colonialism take a seat at the dinner table? What is it that we can ask each other for – and how can we ever say no?
In Wait To Be Seated, we devise an exercise course of hospitality in a nowhere-anywhere setting – a dinner table, a red carpet, a dance floor. We start off as two groups on opposite sides, adamantly looking for ways to meet in the middle to open up a new horizon.
credits:
Idea and concept: She She Pop and Sandbox Collective. By and with: Sebastian Bark, Johanna Freiburg, Raabiya Jayaram, Lisa Lucassen, Mieke Matzke, Ilia Papatheodorou, Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran, Berit Stumpf.
Artistic Advice Germany: Natasha Borenko, Rodrigo Zorzanelli, Artistic Advice India: Sachin Gurjale, Vinod Ravindran
Stage: Philine Rinnert, Costumes: Lea Søvsø, Costumes Assistance: Rita Rozhkova, Video Concept: Benjamin Krieg, Light Design and Technical Director: Claes Schwennen, Technical Support: Marius Bratoveanu, Light, Video & Technical Management India Tour: Niranjan Gokhale, Dramaturgical Advice: Foad Esfahani, PR & Communication: ehrliche arbeit – freelance office for culture
Communication: Tina Ebert, Production: Tina Ebert, Aminata Oelßner, Medha Nidhi S,
Elke Weber, Company Management Sandbox Collective: Raabiya Jayaram, Shiva Pathak, Nimi Ravindran, Medha Nidhi S, Company Management She She Pop: Aminata Oelßner, Elke Weber.
A production by She She Pop and Sandbox Collective in co-production with HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Kampnagel Hamburg, Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, FFT Düsseldorf, Schauspiel Leipzig, HELLERAU – Europäisches Zentrum der Künste & Kaserne Basel.
Supported by: Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research (Pondicherry) and Theaterhaus Berlin.
Funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and by the City of Berlin – Department for Culture and Social Cohesion Berlin.
This production was created as part of the project Space for Freedom and Feminism, supported by the Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore.