The Game We Knew but Didn't Play

Can we recognize the moment when we shouldn't cross a line, disagree, or not look away? Can we resist, survive, disrupt, or undermine the game of censorship? And when do these strategies start to perpetuate the very system that they originally tried to endure or overcome? “The Game We Knew but Didn't Play” explores censorship as a power struggle that intervenes in artistic processes, relationships, and everyday encounters. The performance asks how censorship determines what can be said and shown, but also how it shapes institutions, communities and the way artists negotiate, adapt, remain silent, take risks, or continue their work within restrictive structures. The work is based on Azadeh Ganjeh's research on German theatre productions that were shown in state-controlled venues in the Islamic Republic of Iran following the 1979 revolution. Shaped by the perspectives of exiled artists who have experienced censorship, these case studies serve as a starting point for an investigation of censorship in various political, cultural and institutional contexts. Developed by the Rebel-is-hah! -Members Foad Esfahani and Azadeh Ganjeh in collaboration with Lisa Lucassen, Jule Flierl and Philine Rinnert, the performance draws on documentary materials, historical case studies, personal archives, biographies and performative acts. Together, these materials expand our exploration of the question of how our lives, decisions, and actions are entangled in systems of censorship. Each performance opens up a space for questions. How does censorship invade this space? How does it become an invisible part of aesthetic decisions, institutional agreements, or artistic collaborations? And who benefits from the compromises and interdependencies that result from this? What did we know about the game? And what could happen if we turn this knowledge into action?

Rebel is hah! is a performance and research collective founded in 2006 by Azadeh Ganjeh and Foad Esfahani in Tehran (Iran) and has been based in Berlin since 2022. Through performance art, artistic research, and collaborative work processes, the collective addresses social and political issues and explores how people experience power through bodies, spaces, institutions, and narratives. Over the years, Rebel-is-hah! worked in both conventional and unusual spaces and worked with interdisciplinary artists, performers, researchers and various communities. The spectrum of her work ranges from performance activism to immersive theatre, audio plays and lecture performances to stage productions. In doing so, they combine documentary and archival materials with embodied practices, memory, and performative experiments. The result is works that testify to activism, open up spaces of appearance, invite participation in performance and/or in social reality, and design alternative forms of political cooperation.