“I feel heavy inside. My heart has been burdened with darkness, burdened with cold, burdened with fire. The darkness, the cold and the fire, coming from my childhood, coming from my teenagehood, coming from my blood-tied and non-blood-tied ancestors; over today, over the past, over the ages… They, all together, have taken up my body surface, have taken up my eyes, have taken up my tongue, have taken up my soul. For ages, I did not know how to ride within this body, I had been feeling dead inside sometimes because of the weight that I also tried to fight from time to time.
Now, I recognize that the ease, the relief, the light I am craving for is passing through acceptance and embracement, by calling them mine.
Now, I can see clearly that this dark, cold and fire; this burden is mine; it is my mine;
it is my friend,
it is my soulmate.”
Now, I recognize that the ease, the relief, the light I am craving for is passing through acceptance and embracement, by calling them mine.
Now, I can see clearly that this dark, cold and fire; this burden is mine; it is my mine;
it is my friend,
it is my soulmate.”
Starting from a research on resistant and tender images of the marginalized body, “My burden is my soulmate” is about how to address grief, anger and compassion when one is an incessant target of hate and disgust, how to embrace the wound and how to shoulder the burden.
By engaging with “tableaux vivant” corporeality but extending the “tableau”s timescale to hours, “My burden is my soulmate” delves into physical and emotional limits, boundaries and the potential of human-body throughout the lines of vulnerability, strength and care to hold space for one and each other. Within a shift between different states of stillness, almost-stillness and not-possible-stillness as well as urgencies to move that includes moving in relation to the physical and emotional limits&potentials, impossibilities&possibilities, inabilities&abilities, a re-arrangement of the-body manifest itself within a transcendental gate opening up in-now-and-here.
“My burden is my soulmate” is a dream of a polymorphic gathering after crossing the gate.
Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu’s performance approach is traversing a curiosity towards exploring how corporal presences and time inhabit into/within each other; questioning how the bodyscape and time shape, impact/interfere with each other and how one can shift the time through the body(ies). Darıcıoğlu often uses restrictions and body interventions as a metaphor for marginalization, exclusion, oppression, violence systems and their impacts on the society as a queer person from Turkey.
Admission: regular admission (9€ regular/3€ reduced) until 6 PM, from 6 PM 4€
“My burden is my soulmate” is going to be simultaneously streamed through OyaBar, SüdBlock and SO36 at Kreuzberg, Berlin.
Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media and SAHA Association. Supported by NEUSTART KULTUR, BBK, SAHA and Schwules Museum.
Thanks to Vera Hofmann, Kristina Kramer, Ali Emir Tapan, Hasan Aksaygın, Alper Turan, Banu Karaca, Umut A. Akkel and Performistanbul for their support during the realization of the process.
Performance: Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu
Performers: Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu and Anthony Hüseyin
Performers: Leman Sevda Darıcıoğlu and Anthony Hüseyin
Project coordinator: Serenad Yılmaz
Coordinator assistant: Öykü Inal
Multimedia producer: Ibrahim Karcı
Multimedia assistant: Beril Ece Güler
Production assistants: Özcan Ertek, Beril Ece Güler, Yazan Jarbou, Dominik Kunz, Taghan Ndjarimbi Marcelin, Sugano Matsusaki, Lisa Maria Steppacher
Photography: Erdem Akkaya, Önder Şimşek
Light design: Önder Şimşek
Coordinator assistant: Öykü Inal
Multimedia producer: Ibrahim Karcı
Multimedia assistant: Beril Ece Güler
Production assistants: Özcan Ertek, Beril Ece Güler, Yazan Jarbou, Dominik Kunz, Taghan Ndjarimbi Marcelin, Sugano Matsusaki, Lisa Maria Steppacher
Photography: Erdem Akkaya, Önder Şimşek
Light design: Önder Şimşek
Translation from English to German: Burcu Lina Panebianco
Poster design: Zeynep Keskin
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