Intimacy and Identity in New Forms of Narration

In children's and youth theater, stories are often quickly morally interpretable and presented in a well resolved manner. Hannah Biedermann tells stories differently: in her theater, she is able to present secure frameworks that are simultaneously marked by lightness, within which intimate feelings and identity can be playfully tried out and renegotiated together with other different courses of action. In her research, the culture scholar Yumin Li investigates people who transition in their work: who change their nationality, their gender, who cross-dress or who diverge sexually. She does not only read these artists comparatively as objects within classification systems, but instead emphasizes their actions as subjects and the performative work as the overcoming of differential systems. Over the course of a conversation, Hannah Biedermann and Yumin Li discuss new narrative structures within the performing arts. How can theater, including children’s and youth theater, tell stories about a world in which the parameters which provide identity become more incalculable and diverse?

Moderation:
Öngün Eryilmaz (HAU Hebbel am Ufer)

Participants:
Hannah Biedermann (Pulk Fiktion)
Yumin Li (HU Berlin)