Enad Marouf: In My Hand a Word | Dec 9-11 | SOPHIENSÆLE – Sophiensæle | Independent Theater in Berlin
Enad Marouf:
In My Hand a Word

In My Hand a Word
PREMIERE
Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensaele cannot be accessed by car on 10 and 11 December.
It is compulsory to wear an FFP2 mask. Exceptions are made for visitors who are unable to wear an FFP2 mask for health/physical reasons and for visitors who communicate in sign language.
For Syrian-German performance and video artist Enad Marouf, body and text act as central elements. His works have a unique poetic language of coexisting media; a temporality which allows to overcome potential boundaries of dance, text, video and installation.
The performance In My Hand a Word is based on the eponymous text by Marouf. In the text we follow a person who is watching their hand. The longer they gaze at their hand, the more the hand loose its meaning. In this context, the hand does not only carry a history of cultural symbolism, but also an embodiment of the self. The loss of meaning is just as mournful as it is liberating, since new understandings can be reconstructed of what is gone, a duality of loss and restoration therein emerges.
In his scenic adaptation of the text, Marouf focuses on loss from a queer perspective: the loss of family, home, and culture, but also the loss of meaning and language. The audience enters a place where fragments of movement, speech and music overlap. This place represents Marouf's fragmented memories of Damascus. Here, two figures move through scenes whose inner coherences are increasingly dissolved by memories, anecdotes and associative references. Offering the audience to find their own narratives within, to reinterpret and put this piece together through their own personal experience and sensibility.
If any questions remain from the following information, please feel free to contact Hannah Aldinger at barrierefreiheit@sophiensaele.com or 030 27 89 00 35. Please note that details may change by the day of the event.
Genral: The performance lasts approx. 50 minutes and uses a small amount of language. A poem is spoken in English. Strobe effects, Black outs, blinding transitions and fading light, loud sounds and fog are used on stage. The audience gets blinded at some point.
Audience area: The lightening situation in the audience is rather dark. The audience area in the grandstand is seated. There are two wheelchair seats and two beanbag seats which can be reserved or purchased from the online ticket shop or box office, subject to availability.
How to get there: Due to the Christmas market in Sophienstraße, the Sophiensaele cannot be accessed by car on 10 and 11 December.
Early Boarding: If, for artistic reasons, the door to the auditorium does not open until very shortly before the performance begins, there is the option of early boarding. This is early admission for all people (especially those with visible or non-visible disabilities) who wish a specific seat or a more relaxed entry. Early Boarding usually starts 10-20 minutes before the performance starts. The meeting point is next to the bar. Five minutes before Early Boarding begins, an on-site announcement will draw your attention to it once again. Our evening staff will be happy to help you find the meeting point.
You can also find more information about accessibility here.
CONCEPT, CHOREOGRAPHY, TEXT Enad Marouf PERFORMANCE BY AND WITH Ewa Dziarnowska, Steph Quinci MUSIC Billy Bultheel INSTALLATIVE SCULPTURES Enad Marouf ARCHITECTURAL SUPERVISION, FABRICATION Jim Scully COSTUME Grzegorz Matlag LIGHT Jacqueline Sobiszewski PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Florian Greß
A production by Enad Marouf in co-production with SOPHIENSÆLE. Supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media as part of NEUSTART KULTUR and by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe. Media partner: taz, die tageszeitung.
Enad Marouf is a Syrian-German performance and video artist based in Berlin. His work focuses on body and text, using video, dance, language and installation as poetics and articulation of temporalities that influence our physicality and the way we narrate the world around us. He completed his Masters in Choreography and Performance at the Institute for Applied Theater Studies in Gießen/Frankfurt. His solo works and collaborations have been shown at Sophiensæle, the Athens Biennale, Kunstenfestivaldesarts Brussels, Centre culturel Francais de Damas, Babel Beirut, Tate Modern London, Art Institute of Chicago, Shedhalle Zurich, Kampnagel and Neue Nationalgalerie Berlin, among others. In 2023, he was awarded the prestigious Will Grohmann Prize.
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© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -
© Joseph Kadow -