Program
Viewers can witness multiple monologues and specials directly one after another and have fantastical experiences in a space from another time – we recommend one of the limited day tickets for your live visit.
Selected evenings will also be broadcast via a live stream – with special surprises in between events.
The program schedule of the entire festival is available for download here:
Monologue Festival 2021 – Program
21 Oct
22 Oct
This mixed-media performance, inspired by Audre Lorde explores who we are and why and how we could be. We are taken on a journey by a queen, or is she a goddess? A whore? A high priestess? She is all of these and more. She feels our spirits and reveals to us her manifold identities.
We will build a shelter to protect ourselves, but what are we protecting ourselves from? What are we afraid of? Where is the real danger? If we have learned from Audre Lorde that ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house’ then what tools might we find to build our shelter? Some say, to survive we need to keep our friends close and our enemies closer. And sometimes to protect ourselves we present our alter-egos to the world, creating a force field around us, wearing invisible armor. What happens when we drop our shield?
Using ritual, poetry and personal narration, three emerging artists from the UK in collaboration with Gob Squad explore the political potential of the multitude of identities and the emotional promise of getting to know ourselves by introducing us to others: ‘I will be deliberate, afraid of nothing. Trust me… Believe in me… I won’t let you fall… Don’t let me fall.’ Maybe, what we need is not a fortified shelter, we need to uncover in order to recover.
Zealtotale X GOBSQUAD is a collaboration between emerging artists Zealtotale from Leicester UK and internationally renowned artist collective Gob Squad. Zealtotale use performance as a tool for empowerment and self expression. Often working in the digital realm, their work is forward facing, imagining futures through a black cultural lens. They are powerful and dangerous and making it up as they go along. Gob Squad has been developing methodologies of collective practice over the past three decades. X GOBSQUAD is an attempt to share this experience by focusing on mutually enriching, outwardly facing collaborations.
Live Performer in Berlin Jessica Butler Devised and Created by Jessica Butler / Chelsea-Lea Wilson / Joy Denise Quaye-Mensah (Zealtotale) In collaboration with Sarah Thom (Gob Squad) Sound Design Chelsea-Lea Wilson Video Editing Joy Denise Quaye-Mensah Co-Production Monologfestival 2021 – TD Berlin With support from Arts Council England / De Montfort University Leicester Special thanks for dramaturgical & production support Sharon Smith / Simon Will / Mat Hand / Ayla Suveren
23 Oct
24 Oct
27 Oct
28 Oct
29 Oct
30 Oct
Schönheit und Schrecken (lass dir alles geschehen)
31 Oct
