Paul Celan is no poet. Paul Celan is a Jewish Forrest Gump, a cipher of German-Jewish post-war history. What was that about Group 47 again? Did Thomas Brasch actually get the chainsaw out for the Bavarian film awards? Did Ignaz Bubis not have gold teeth after Walser gave his Paulskirchen speech? And who is this Amichai Süß who bought the half of Frankfurt in order to take revenge on the Germans? Let us suppose that Celan’s campaign is victorious, let us suppose that Jewish emancipation has succeed. In the end a glimpse into the future appears, which, like the stars, is also a glimpse into the past.
Performing Rights: Max Czollek
The production premiered during the Radikale Jüdische Kulturtage 2017 (funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes and Senatsverwaltung für Kultur und Europa)
Valeska Gert, given name Gertrud Valesca Samosch, was born in Berlin in 1892. During the 1920s the Jewish actress was one of the most important dadaist dancers in Berlin. After the Nazi takeover, Gert’s art was described as degenerate, so she left the country. Decried in the US as »a disgrace to the entire emigration«, this eternally de-integrated person staggered between stations of exile and remained, quite literally, unfathomable. As a re-migrant she returned to Berlin after the war. Actress, writer, and musician, as well as boundary breaking personified, Marina Frenk summons Gert out of her pink coffin and puts her back on the boards through dance and story in our post-post-post-dadaist period.
