[Reader-list] Burka Bondage : Helena Waldmann and Ecotopia Dance Productions , New Delhi

[rohitrellan at aol.in]

Burka Bondage

Helena Waldmann and Ecotopia Dance Productions

Music/ Dance/ Theatre
Sunday, 19.12.2010, 7.30 p.m.
Abhimanch, National School of Drama, Bahawalpur House, Bhagwan Das Road

Entry through passes available at Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan 
from Wednesday, December 1 onwards.
Tel:             +91 11 23329506       ext. 292

The powerful images in Return to Sender – Letters from Tentland in 2007 
linger - vivid and intense. Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan 
presents Helena Waldmann once again, this time with Burka Bondage.

Afghanistan, March 2001: after pointlessly firing guns and missiles for 
26 days, the Taliban militia destroyed the world's two largest standing 
Buddha statues in the valley of Bamiyan, using three tons of 
explosives. They left behind only rubble and enormous gaps in the rock. 
Helena Waldmann discovered that the young Afghan actors she works with 
call themselves “Generation Rain”. A generation that even without the 
reign of the Taliban is disoriented and stuck in the rut of 
fundamentalist history.

In Japan, a highly industrialised, rich country that couldn't be 
further from Afghanistan in many ways, Helena Waldmann experiences 
something similar: young people who have no faith in a self-chosen 
future, bound by the oppressive traditions of a rigidly structured and 
hierarchical society, call themselves “Lost Generation”, and take the 
destruction of the Buddhas in distant Afghanistan personally.

Helena Waldmann has found a virtually iconic image for the parallels 
between both generations, for the fight for visibility and unleashing: 
Burka and bondage. The burka is an Afghan gown that covers people up. 
Bondage is a Japanese technique that shackles them. Helena Waldmann 
sets out on a search for the body without a face. With two female 
dancers who love extremes, a video animation artist and a genius on the 
drums.

Helena Waldmann, born in 1962, is one of the most unusual artists in 
the field of theatre. She studied her craft with Heiner Müller, George 
Tabori and Gerhard Bohner, amongst others and graduated in Applied 
Theatre-Studies. Since 1991 she is working as theatre director and 
choreographer in Germany and abroad.

For further information contact             +91 11 2347 1112

Passes for this event can be collected from Goethe Institut/ Max 
Mueller Bhavan from 9.30 a.m. to 6 p.m. till 18th December 2010.
The passes will be available on first-come first-served basis.