TANWEEN Collective for Performing Arts
Double Learning Humans, Machines and Inclusivity in the AI Sphere
24 and 25.02.2024 at the Alte Münze – Berlin
How am I here?
The transmedia project How am I Here? tackles the recurring dreams of homecoming, wondering how a sweet desire turns into a nightmare. Mey Seifan, employs VR technology, AI, and choreographed enactment of the dreams to create an immersive performance and an emotionally charged experience. Where is the shelter when home becomes a nightmare?
Reality Check
In conditions of no limitations or surveillance, what choices and actions can one make? Reality-Check, a technique used during the process of lucid dreaming to recognize the fantasy of our dreams, is the title of the interactive performance/research by choreographer Mey Seifan with a group of artists and experts coming from different disciplines.
HomeWork
How do fear, imagination, ambition and lies shape the truth? HomeWork explores the differences between the truth and the believable, in the context of activism and corruption. Activists, who never stop working, hide what they do to survive. Corrupt people, who never stop working too, boasts about what they do to survive. The play tells the story of an activist girl stuck alone in a city she does not know, and then meets a corrupt man. She lies all the time, and he believes her. He says the truth all the time, but she does not believe him. How can choices be made?
Siesta
“A while ago I saw in my dream myself and all my people together walking on water, blue deep water that flooded half our houses. I saw in my dreams, myself and my people walking on water, water, blue and deep, that flooded half our houses.” Salam Hasan, 25.07.2011. We all dream when we sleep. But how do we experience dreams when they arise in a temporary space or a situation which is supposed to pass by? How would a dream be in a prison, in a refugee camp, in a “no man’s land” or in a tent? Possibly in a city of tents, a city of sheets and fabric? In the current Syrian war, cities are being destroyed. Inhabitants are fleeing and building new tents/camps/ cities - hoping that it is only a temporary state. But after years, the cities of fabric are still there keeping the hopes and the dreams of their inhabitants. Performers and spectators create together a dream camp that has different dreaming zones. Each zone is a tent. The visitors determine the order, the tempo and the intensity of their encounter with each zone/tent. The tents communicate with moods of light, scent, visuals, sounds, foods. The installation is mingled with a performance, which follows the dream routines. The dramaturgy is built according to the scientific knowledge of the sleeping sequence, which lasts for 90 minutes and is divided into 4 sleeping phases. Actors appear and disappear around the tents and inside them, while spectators ‘experience’ the tents and the dreaming zones.
Please, Repeat after me
‘I have millions of reasons to be crazy, give me one reason to be sane!’ Through designing mistakes that look real on stage, Please, Repeat after me, provokes several topics: representing identity on stage, theatre tradition, relationship to the audience, and the imbalance of power between cultures. it is a drama about decision making, mistakes making and labels. The play pretends to represent ‘real’ testimonies about ‘real’ incidents told by ‘real’ refugees. At times, when anything can happen, anything can be real, and any stereotype is accepted, myths are written. Was the whole representation a mistake? When does the stereotype stop being a stereotype? When does the refugee stop being a refugee? When does the actor stop being an actor?
Destruction for Beginners: The Trilogy
We are the experienced beginners. None of us was prepared for the mass destruction in Syria, but we survived. Did we? We are alive, but with heavy residues and first-hand encounter with death, destruction and the blood of people we love. We have a lot to tell; but what to tell about a country that has made war boring? Structuring normally required a long time, while destruction takes only a short while to have things ruined. Destruction for Beginners explores the dynamics of destruction. Although the performance tackles the concept of destruction, it celebrates life. This will be achieved by engaging late-night dreams in the performance. Even when there is an end to something, late-night dreams have the courage to continue.