Photographer：© Gabriela Neeb

Reviews

Die Kränkungen der Menschheit stages in its three parts a history of the colonial past, the current coloniality, and a decolonial vision. It finds a theatrical language that somehow leaves behind the “Master’s tools” as suggested by Audre Lorde.

Azadeh Sharifi, theatre scholar, researcher, and lecturer, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich

The young German-Senegalese director’s chamber production is a meditative and mysterious treatise on the subjective power of the gaze. The points of contact range from Freud to German Romantic painting to postcolonial theory over a sparse, hour-long production that asks questions about observing and being observed.

A.J. Goldmann, The New York Times

Recommendation of the Committee

Anta Helena Recke adds another “Humiliation of Mankind” to the three previously noted by Sigmund Freud (1. Mankind descends from the apes; 2. The sun is the centre of the universe; 3. People are at the mercy of their unconscious mind): White European men are not the paragons of mankind after all. With her criticism of White Supremacy, the director prompts her audiences to reflect on their own views and associated patterns of decoding. This largely meditative performance presents a sublime scrutiny of viewing norms and thereby patterns of reception and representation. Recke touches on several post-colonial discourses—from restitution to white normative thinking, applying unusually energetic devices of presence and absence.

Cast

Performers: Ariane Andereggen, Jean Chaize, Noah Donker, Sir Henry, Kinan Hmeidan, Mario Lopes, Lara-Sophie Milagro, Benjamin Radjaipour, Vincent Redetzki, Joana Tischkau, Else Tunemyr, Samuel Iatã Vieira da Silva Hölzl, Hayato Yamaguchi etc.

About Anta Helena Recke

Anta Helena Recke studied Scenic Arts at the University of Hildesheim. In various environments, she works as a director, dramaturg and in other functions. Recke’s production of Mittelreich, which premiered at the Münchner Kammerspiele in 2017, was presented at the 2018 radikal jung festival and invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen in the same year. With Die Kränkungen der Menschheit, she has once more been invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen. The critics’ survey of Theater heute named her Emerging Artist of the Year 2018. Furthermore, she is the 2019 award winner of the International Theatre Institute (ITI).

About the Berliner Theatertreffen

The Berliner Theatertreffen is the largest and most important German-language theatre festival. It is known as one of the world's three major theatre festivals, together with the Festival d'Avignon in France and the Edinburgh International Festival in Britain. Compared with the other two festivals, the Berliner Theatertreffen focuses more on experimenting with the internal structure of the drama, and the advancement and modernity of the external meaning of the drama. The Berliner Theatertreffen embodies the direction of contemporary society and the highest level of theatre.

About Münchner Kammerspiele

The Münchner Kammerspiele is among the most important stages in the German-speaking context. Since its beginnings in the 1920s, the theatre has been shaped by a strong ensemble, which particularly seeks dialogue and confrontation with the present. Having presented numerous world premieres, including works by Friedrich Dürrenmatt, Frank Wedekind and Bertolt Brecht, the theatre conceives of itself as an aesthetically innovative, contemporary, and cosmopolitan municipal theatre with a socio-political focus. The theatre has been invited to numerous festivals in Germany as well as abroad.