Manifestos for Queer Futures #2

Manifestos are a powerful transformation medium, they are often composed not by one voice, but by a polyphony that condenses ideas, energies and wills. The project “Manifestos for Queer Futures” that opens the HAU festival The Present is not enough. Performing Queer Histories and Futures is following up on this practice and states the importance of not being a single being. What we witness is a group endeavor of a multitude that share, act and perform a same common. Showing a living dynamic of culture practices, intellectual circuits, affective networks, crossing time, imagining futures and enacting a potentiality of living otherwise. 

As part of the festival, HAU initiated an open call for artists based in Berlin, who were invited to submit proposals for a manifesto that expresses their vision for a queer future. 270 artists replied to the open call, and 26 were selected and will be presented on the stage of HAU2. The spectrum of projects covers a wide range, from works with cultural and socio-political references, active examinations of the past, to visions of a possible future.

This is what the artists say about their work:

The Vulva Kings (Elisa Purfürst, Joni Barnard, Mmakgosi Kgabi)
The Inter-Cosmic Anarchist Vulvas Manifesto

“We want a vulva as president! We, the talking cunts, the Queer Mega Galactic Vulva Kings! We, the gloriously gushing dark damp deities are cumming! We, the abominable filthy soft staunch bleeding beasts of change! We bring a cleansing, a quenching of thirst! Yes, we are revolting! We love each other! We are raging! We are fighting! We are birthing a new world order!”

By and with: Elisa Purfürst, Joni Barnard und Mmakgosi Kgabi

Johannes Müller & Philine Rinnert
“Warnung (lipsync for two voices)”

“In “Warnung (lipsync for two voices)” nähern sich Johannes Müller und Philine Rinnert dem subversiven Potential des Genres Oper: Gemeinsam mit der Sopranistin Sarai Cole und dem Bariton Shlomi Moto Wagner entwickeln sie ausgehend von den zahlreichen Prophezeiungen in Richard Wagners' Ring-Tetralogie ein transnationales musikalisch-szenisches Manifest. Mithilfe von Opern-Fetzen, historischen Regie-Anweisungen und musikalischen Fundstücken werfen sie gemeinsam die Frage auf: Können wir von der Oper lernen?”

Concept and realisation: Johannes Müller and Philine Rinnert
Performance: Sarai Cole and Shlomi Moto Wagner
Music: How will I know-Rheingold Firebird Mix by M4NO/Manoel Felciano

Parisa Madani / Psoriasis
“THE FUTURE IS SHEMXLE.mp4”

“salam azizam halet shoma chetori bishin baba braid hair energy so mi like it sudan archives fire ich beschütze dich du gibst mir kraft wir zusammen gegen alle if we can fight with each other we can be strong together fighting the outside world light dragon eye contact tens two books tabestaniye aftabi gheymeh fesenjoon abtalibi e tahdiq zereshk polo bah bah bah kheyli kheyli khosh maze merci kheyli mamnoon khoda nehgadar”

Concept and choreography: Parisa Madani
Performance: Devika Chotoe, Antonella Fittipaldi

Neo Hülcker
“What is the future, other than a dream that we are able to dream right now?”

“For this manifesto I invited my pre-transitioned self and my dog Archi. We never met before as a trio and will have our first encounter on stage. Each of us prepared a surprise for this special moment.”

Keith Zenga King
“HOW TO BE LONELY TOGETHER!?!”

“In ‘HOW TO BE LONELY TOGETHER!?!’ Keith Zenga King responds from positions of exile,diaspora and personal accounts of gender nonconformity to develop tactics of survival in a dystopic present whilst suggesting possibilities beyond authoritarian and coercive di/visions. This manifesto is at once question, exclamation and demonstration.”

INTERMISSION

Ricardo de Paula
“Out of Many, ONE!”

“We have to look, to read the body representation. The performance starts with one performer, one stage, chairs and names as values; the interactive intervention creates a memorial space. This has to be the philosophy of OUR world out there. We are all connected and have to care about our surrounding and ourselves. But our world is not yet fully there to be felt as One.”

Thanks to: Nora Haak, Grada Kilomba, Zé de Paiva und Grupo Oito

Kübra Varol
“Düztopya”

“Düz (Turkish): flat, straight. ‘Düztopya’ is a piece about yearning to move from self love to belonging, holding space to face oppressive monsters and healing through tuning into present in which the future is energetically active.”

Pêdra Costa
“de_colon_isation part VI: inbodiesvisibleborders” 

“What/how/where are the in_visible borders and bodies and their limits? We are those who are changing the future. We are ancestors of those who are coming. They will access our strengths, survival strategies and our in_visible legacy. There is no queer future without a destruction of the colonial past, the capitalist present, the normative, anthropocentric and binary society.”

special voice participation: Anna Tzini, Bassano Bonelli Bassano, Edilson Militão, Jota Mombaça, Karlla Tavares, Mzamo Nondlwana, Sanni Est, Valério Araújo

Przemek Kamiński
“Sunrise Sunset”

“‘Sunrise Sunset’ is a poetic manifesto, a warm illumination of a horizon, that appears in reddish and pinkish colours. Through the figure of Fred Herko (1936 – 1964), it recalls the queer past for guidance in interrupting the coercive here and now. It is a utopian trace of other ways of moving within the world.

Choreography: Przemek Kamiński
Performance: Martin Hansen und Przemek Kamiński