Liquid Border of Solid Hope

The Mediterranean is a place of simultaneity. “Liquid Border of Solid Hope” by Jasmin İhraç deals with this diasporic space, which has been shaped by movement, encounter and migration for centuries. The performance, which will be premiered at Radialsystem in December, combines elements from archival research and interviews in Marseille, Lampedusa and western Turkey — central places of migration — with movement/dance and live sound. Musicians and dancers meet the audience in an accessible archive that interweaves their own research and joint ritual and addresses questions about the meaning of empathy and solidarity.

In the 1920s, 58,000 Armenians fled to Marseille with legal transit documents following the genocide in the Ottoman Empire. They used passenger ships to escape. Back then, these ships connected cities that are now barely accessible by direct water due to a changed political situation. At the same time, they offered safe escape routes that are missing today. As a result of a restrictive European migration policy, over 35,000 people have lost their lives on the central Mediterranean route since 2014. “Liquid Border of Solid Hope” is a dedication and a commemoration of those who never arrived on their way to a new life. It is also a dedication to the sea itself as an ecosystem, a geophysical balance of power and a place of longing and fascination.

“Liquid Border of Solid Hope” will be shown in the Radialsystem rooms as part of the:LOVE: cooperation between Tanzfabrik Berlin and Radialsystem. With the “Radialsystem ♥ Dance Factory” initiative, the two institutions are cooperating to specifically improve the presentation conditions of dance makers.