“I’ve always wanted to find a family where I fit in. Perhaps I need to create one myself.”

We grew up with parents or caregivers who belong to different generations. Their worlds were different, as were their relationship patterns. We develop our own ways of recognising, sharing and following our needs. As Black and queer people with caregiving responsibilities for children, we are building something that didn’t exist before.

Threeperformers act within a space created specifically for the production, taking visitorsinto their world. The starting point is a series of interviews conducted by Magda Korsinsky with Black and queer people. At the heart of the piece are questions of shared responsibility, contradictions, visions and relationship models. The performers weave lived experiences with movement and song until a shared space emerges: for diverse forms of responsibility, intimacy, love and resistant ways of living together.

In Arrival of the Village, the documentary-style choreographer Magda Korsinsky, together with her team, sets out in search of transformed relationships: for the old model of the heteronormative nuclear family produces roles that often isolate, exhaust or create dependency. Recognition, pleasure, self-determination and equality fall by the wayside. And how can one be a role model when so much feels wrong? How can we expand forms of family and live out collective care, shared responsibility and mutual empowerment?

Arrival of the Village is Magda Korsinsky’s fifth work at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and consistently continues her search for role models, spaces and narratives for Black FLINTA* people. The work is a further step towards an art that creates spaces of resonance and counters the harshness of dominant discourses with its own rhythm.

Choreography Magda Korsinsky
Choreography collaboration Genifer Marione Habbasch
Dramaturgy Yama Tessa Hart
Set design Jaq Lisboa
Costumes Sarah Ama Duah
Sound Shelly Phillips
Lighting Emilio Cordero Checa
Video Naima Maleika Sebe
Make-up Leila Brunner
Performed by Astan Meyer | Sarhaly | Adrian Marie Blount