Politics of Love
The third edition of our discussion series Politics of Love is inspired by the upcoming performance festival Save your Soul and is dedicated to the central therapeutic topic of letting go: letting go of the past, healing open wounds, bringing never ending stories to a close – these often are well-known reasons which trigger people to get professional help. Theater also likes to delve into various farewell rituals and uses. What potential does the stage offer to practice or to even completely let go? And how can those political power relations, which make some subjects into experts of loss, be addressed and examined?
Our new discussion series is dedicated to different ways of being there for one another and vouching for one another, which in turn carefully and lovingly crafts a sense of togetherness. Questions of representation are currently at the center stage of theater and politics. Who is representing whom here exactly? Who can represent whom? And how does one stand for oneself? Guests from the performing arts, the fields of aesthetic and political theory will discuss strategies of representation and herewith the founding rules of the theater and democracy. The affirmation of concepts focused on solidarity and critical of hegemony are the focal point.
CONCEPT, MODERATION Joy Kristin Kalu Guest Jaamil Olawale Kosoko
Jaamil Olawale Kosoko is a Nigerian American poet, curator, and performance artist originally from Detroit. His works deal primarily with the experience of loss and it's processing, placing it in the political context of the particularly Black experience of a permanent possibility of disappearance because of racist violent acts. Kosoko lectures, speaks, and performs internationally. His work in performance has toured throughout Europe having appeared in major festivals including Moving in November (Finland), TakeMeSomewhere (UK), SICK! (UK), Tanz im August (Berlin), Oslo Internasjonale Teaterfestival (Norway), Zurich MOVES! (Switzerland), Beursschouwburg (Belgium) and Spielart Festival (Munich). He is a 2017 Princeton Arts Fellow and a 2017 Cave Canem Poetry Fellow.