We Love Africa…

PREMIER at Ballhaus Ost, Berlin.
The 5th of October at 20:00.

“Daddy” is caught in a crisis. The family has managed to escape the horrors of Joseph Fritzl’s cellar, now daily routine dominates life. The division of social roles has been weakened by middle-class, westernized ways of life: daddy still might be head of the family, the provider and protector of women and children, but he has been ‘castrated’ by society’s lack of recognition for his role as patriarch and feels restricted in the implementation of the family project.

We love Africa and Africa loves us takes up where Conte d’Amour left off. While Conte d’Amour described the story of a vertical “stepping down” in the cellar of romantic love, in this new production by Markus Öhrn [Niskanpää/Berlin], Institutet [Malmö/Berlin] and Nya Rampen [Helsinki/Berlin], the family has managed to make it to the ground floor. From here – a kind of ground zero of modern democracy – its members try to find external justification for their internal psychology. Western images of Africa as an unknown, wild, authentic place in need of aid conveniently lend it the ‘otherness’ the white family needs to redefine and inspire its conventions.

We love Africa and Africa loves us projects ideals of white nuclear families onto the dynamics involved in humanitarian aid for the so-called Third World. This drama about the relationship between helpers and the helped turns post-colonial and racist attitudes into hegemonic, patriarchal fantasies of omnipotence. A projection of inner chaos onto a distant continent called Africa – and a journey to the heart of European darkness.

direction / Stage: Markus Öhrn
Script / research: Anders Carlsson
Composition / Music: Andreas Catjar
Costumes/Scenography: Pia Aleborg
Sculptures/Scenography: Oskar Nilsson
Technical manager: Volker M. Schmidt (Ballhaus Ost)
Production: Alexa Graefe (Institutet), Tina Pfurr (Ballhaus Ost)
Artistic coordinator: Pamela Schlewinski
Press: Yven Augustin
Actors: Anders Carlsson (Institutet), Elmer Bäck, Jakob Öhrman and Rasmus Slätis (Nya Rampen).

Next shows:

18th, 19th, 20th of October at Inkonst, Malmö

9th, 10th, 11th of November at Baltic Circle Festival, Helsinki

13th, 15th, 16th of December at Garage X, Vienna