Laure M. Hiendl
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BERGEN (2019)
music theater performance co-created with Göksu Kunak a.k.a. Gucci Chunk
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Writer Göksu Kunak a.k.a Gucci Chunk and composer Laure M. Hiendl commemorate the famous Arabesk singer Bergen, The Woman of Agonies. Arabesk is a music genre from Turkey that expresses the suffering of the new underprivileged class that emerged after the urban migration of the 1950s and 1960s. Despite her husband Halis' demands to stop singing in nightclubs, Bergen continued her career. Out of jealousy, Halis paid someone to throw nitric acid on her face, leaving her half-blind. Bergen, however, smeared glitter on her blind eye, continued to sing her music in ecstasy and became a cult figure of the 1980s. In the end, Halis murdered her.
The performance/music theater not only tells the story of Bergen, but also contemplates on the murders of women and LGBQTI* members in Turkey. Bergen’s story is told in a lecture followed by a ‘gazino’ moment. The setting gives references to the night clubs of Turkey with the presence of the so-called piyanist-şantör, a solo entertainer with the keyboard. The almost classical narrative collapses at one point, unfolding into various performance stations and at the end becomes an installation, say, an altar, a landscape. The expressions of exaggerated masculinity blended with Arabesk emotions as well as the uncanny resemblance between the movements of self-defense and loving-touch—one may abruptly transform into another—are several aspects that are pondered during the performance.__________
Berlin, Germany
August 3+4, 2019 | Uferstudiosfurther performances at Bergen Assembly Sep 7, 2019 and 3hd Festival Berlin Oct 25, 2019
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© 2019 Ceren Saner
© 2019 Ceren Saner
© 2019 Ceren Saner
© 2019 Ceren Saner
© 2019 Ceren Saner