New Black: Eloge an die Weltbank

“In our work we speak of the blacks and the whites, highly incorrect and imprecise, but therefore often close to the way of thinking that defines a reality that is incorrect and imprecise. We think in two systems and make performances that are loved and hated by European and African audiences with a thousand misunderstandings.”  – Monika Gintersdorfer in: ZEIT No. 53/2009

“No relativising, no explaining, no irony, just insisting until it lives!” – Monika Gintersdorfer in: ZEIT No. 53/2009

“Above all, we can profit from the cultural differences – in both systems.” – Monika Gintersdorfer in: ZEIT No. 53/2009

More than six years ago, director Monika Gintersdorfer and visual artist Knut Klaßen set out on a mission to teach the theatre world a lesson. Then they landed on the Ivory Coast. What comes across like a tragic re-enactment of a crusade in the guise of an educational leave in the work of many of their colleagues, who had prescribed themselves an artistic blood transfusion in foreign cultures, turns out very differently in the case of these two – radically different! Here, theatre gains a new meaning in its sociopolitical function, its aesthetic, and its conceptuality. Instead of an approach with a stylised image of intercultural understanding between peoples, it is the assertion of difference that is the motor behind this performative eruption – a club full of people dancing, drinking, rapping, DJing, and modelling. Society, politics, religion, philosophy, and cultural differences are dealt with “on the side”: theatre wins back the power that allows it to return to life!
Last autumn, Gintersdorfer/Klaßen, in cooperation with their Ivorian and European colleagues, presented the product of years of work in Berlin and Hamburg. “Rue Princesse”, named after the legendary leisure area in the capital Abidjan, is a three-day festival that merges theatre, dance, media art, installations as well as animation, rap, DJing, dance, and fashion. For the donaufestival 2011, the polycultural artist network has created a new festival whose name was inspired by the fabled club New Black in Abidjan. In addition to precisely timed theatre and dance pieces, the Stadtsaal Krems aka The New Black will be the centre of an artistic social plastic for three weekend evenings, boasting all the attributes every good club has to offer. Given the collaboration between musician and producer Patrick Pulsinger and stars from the Ivorian club scene, we can expect fresh musical material in the framework of this project.  “Coupé is a slang expression from the streets of Abidjan that basically means to mess around or be drunk. In the Parisian reality of the Ivorians, the meaning transformed to deceive, bluff, to make a deal, followed by décaler and travailler, to bugger off and work…”

The intercultural approach of Gintersdorfer/Klaßen’s performance project is based on a subversive lifestyle, a club and performance culture called “Coupé Décaler”, which was originated in 2003 by the group Jet Set and since then has made a triumphal march through African and European club scenes. In the parallel world between the war-torn Ivory Coast and the Ivorian diaspora in Paris, the “Jet Settist” life in a mix of subversive self-assertion, dandyism, and glamour became an offensive, performative game with codes and clichés. Theatrical stagings of one’s own life, glamour, the constant invention of new dance styles, exclusive designer fashion, expensive cigars and fat automobiles obscured everyday worries like precarious living conditions or the money and legal problems of migrants in Paris’ banlieues. The self-proclaimed stars of Coupé Décaler abandoned the common image of the “migrant”, beginning with their outward appearance, and defied the common ascriptions cast by the “white gaze”. In the clubs, the DJs sing stories about a Jet Set world in which migrants occupy the chief positions: bankers, ambassadors or presidents. The political mixes with irony, amusement and show.

Based on the subcultural game of Coupé Décaler, the performance “Betrügen” (Deceive) plays, for example, with the loss of the difference between an actual life situation and a supposed role. “Warum Gott Afrika Verlassen Hat” (Why God Left Africa) deals with self-racism from the “black perspective” in a sarcastic satire, while the dance series “Logobi” (an African street dance) examines the culturally contrasting notion of dance: “Contemporary dance? We didn’t understand it, an undefined system, a post-colonial bluff that we Africans go along with in order to secure participation in international festivals and grant money.” In the confrontation between Ivorian and European choreographers, different dance ideologies rooted in the respective society and discourse come into question. “Das Ende des Westerns” (The End of the Western) dramatises the cockfight between the two Ivorian presidential “election winners”: “At the opening of an eco-hotel, Laurent Gbagbo mentions that he watches western films at night. Especially the end. Only two candidates remain, the good guy and the bad guy, but in the end there can only be one.” Plays such as “Othello” or “Macbeth” form conceptual scratching posts from Western high culture where cultural differences and misunderstandings become a productive artistic battlefield between the “black” and “white” perspectives on the respective own and other culture. Colonialism, migration, fatalities, religion, politics: major themes are addressed on the basis of everyday experience in a drastic, yet seemingly improvised way. Textual authorship doesn’t exist anymore. The collective sets themes, the content and linguistic charge ensues through the individual performers in the course of the rehearsals, and in the performance the actors play a linguistic ping-pong match with impromptu translations of French texts into German.

Concept, direction: Monika Gintersdorfer, Knut Klaßen
Team: Marc Aschenbrenner, Anelka Chanel, Gotta Depri, DJ Meko, Ted Gaier, Hauke Heumann, Melissa Logan, Nadine Jessen, Prince Kreol, Timor Litzenberger, Shaggy Sharoof, SKelly, Franck Edmond, Yao alias Gadoukou la Star, Voodoo Chanel
Assistent: Josefine Jochum

www.gintersdorferklassen.org