The German-Tanzanian undertaking “Ultimate Safari”

Antelopes, giraffes and zebras within the wild: With the assist of 360° glasses, the target market in the overall performance “Ultimate Safari” is immersed in Tanzanian countrywide parks. In the play, the theater collectives Flinn Works (Berlin) and Asedeva (Daressalaam) take a critical observe safari tourism and the conflicts associated with it.

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After the best in Berlin, Flinn Works maintain to Frankfurt to the “Theater der Welt” competition, wherein they receive the prize of the International Theater Institute – Center Germany (ITI). “Based on precise studies content material and incorporating the different perspectives and creative-aesthetic processes of the individuals, Flinn Works reflect and paintings on modern-day transnational topics, trends and discourses of their initiatives,” says the award declaration.

Director Sophia Stepf is delighted with the award. “It’s first-class to play in ‘Theater der Welt’ because it generates a certain amount of interest,” she says all through a communication in the café at Engelbecken.

Performances at TD Berlin

Flinn Works are displaying the German-Tanzanian mission “Ultimate Safari” developed with the Ensemble Asedeveda from Dar es Salaam at TD Berlin on Klosterstrasse in Mitte. For the overall performance, after the Berlin performances, they will be in Frankfurt/Main with the Price of the ITI (International Theater Institute / Center Germany).

Further performances at TD Berlin on June 30 and July 1 and a pair of, each at 8 p.M.

Since 2009, Flinn Works have been producing documentary theater in close collaboration with non-European companions. Isack Abeneko from the non-income agency Asedeva met Sophia Stepf at a theater workshop that she and her colleague Konradin Kunze have been giving in Dar es Salaam. The Goethe Institute there had invited.

When the theater makers realized that they percentage a not unusual colonial history, they agreed on a play approximately the Maji Maji War. In Tanzania, every schoolchild is aware of something approximately the records of the uprising towards the German colonial rulers, it's miles infrequently known right here.

The collaboration with Aseveda started in 2016 with the piece “Maji Maji Flava”. This led to a venture on skull collections in Germany, “Skull X”. Then came the film and the exhibition “Mangi Mangi Remains” and as a similarly museum venture “Marejesho”. “Objects from the depots of German museums have been photographed and offered within the areas in which they got here from,” reports Stepf.

The subject matter of safari tourism has come to the fore. “We observed it exciting to use that as a hook to shed light on sure colonial elements that also have some thing to do with Bernhard Grzimek. He turned into a primary co-founder of safari tourism in northern Tanzania.” But not simplest the popular zoologist and TV presenter appears right here in a critical light. “Some of the group donated their first pocket cash to the WWF to keep wild animals,” says Stepf. “But the WWF reproduces the fort conservation and co-price range it.”

A concept based totally at the strict separation of nature and those is known as “citadel nature conservation”. “This nature conservation idea is a colonial one,” says Stepf. “Protected areas are exact, there are certain rules. Indigenous peoples especially are not allowed to stay there, but should resettle.”

Stepf doesn’t deny that poaching is a massive problem. But she criticizes the truth that animal welfare is turning into increasingly militarized. The journalist Simone Schlindwein additionally reports on human rights violations inside the region of the national parks in her e book “The Green War”; she suggested Flinn Works at the venture.

Photo from the performance of the two theater collectives.

© Alexander Barta

For “Ultimate Safari” the German-Tanzanian group went on safari together: the Germans enthusiastically filmed the animals with their mobile phones, the Tanzanian performers watched them filming. You have additionally researched northern Tanzania, where a battle is coming to a head. Thousands of Maasai are said to be forcibly resettled because of the deliberate expansion of the nature reserve. But they're preventing towards their expulsion.

In “Ultimate Safari” a Maasai expert may also be on degree and describe the present day situation in a short lecture. The 3 performers play safari courses. “They will fan out the discourse and take the placement of the Tanzanian government, on occasion that of the rangers and draw a line.” The purpose is once more to impeach the winning narratives. “It’s approximately taking pictures voices that nobody else hears and that we shouldn’t listen.”

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How German tax money is worried inside the warfare is also mentioned. The federal authorities price range the management of human-flora and fauna-conflicts with 6 million euros, but no one is aware of exactly what the cash is spent on. “The subject matter is currently inside the German media and there also are questions from politicians,” reports Sophia Stepf. When requested what drives her, she replies: “The fact that human beings can observe the sector so differently and our Western, Eurocentric angle is very slender, that’s a essential revel in for me.”