unruly readings - Widerspenstige Bühnen

In the organizer's words:

Series for literature & performance at the Orangerie Theater

The third event of unruly readings will conclude this year's season of the new literature series and focus on the stage itself: its symbolism for social, cultural and political power relations - but also its potential to renegotiate these in an experimental, artistic or humorous way.

In the reading stage shows by the post-German artist collective parallelgesellschaft, literature is not simply read aloud, but explicitly created for the stage. The text performances take up current political debates and negotiate the narratives of the dominant society both ironically and poetically. unruly readings brings the Berlin reading stage to Cologne for an evening and brings it into contact with the local cultural scene. The collective's representatives - Jacinta Nandi, Miedya Mahmod, Tanasgol Sabbagh and Temye Tesfu - will be joined by Cologne musician Keshav Purushotham. In intermedia text, sound, video and culinary works as well as a concluding discussion, they negotiate the theme of 'unruly stages'.

As a supplement and extension of the literary performances, a culinary performance is an integral part of the program at each unruly readings event. For the evening in October, Miedya Mahmod and her mother Choman Mahmod will prepare a selection of Kurdish dishes. In exchange with the audience, the performance will touch on questions about the practice of cooking as embodied knowledge, which is part of an "Oraltur", an "oral literature". Can cultural identity be passed on through recipes? Can the preparation of food be a practice of resistance in the face of political oppression?

About the artists:

Miedya Mahmod, born in Dortmund in 1996, lives, writes and works. Mahmod has been working with paper and performance poetry, spoken word and poetry since 2016. Since then, Dey has regularly performed solo with texts and in various reading stage formations, moderated events such as readings and discursive formats and was co-editor of the Lytter-Zine in the first pandemic winter. Most recently, dey was involved in the Spoken Word working group of Netzwerk Lyrik and joined the post-German artist collective parallelgesellschaft. In 2023, Mahmod was sent to the 31st open mike by Alexandru Bulucz, where dey received the jury prize for poetry as well as an honorable mention from the taz audience jury. This year, Mahmod is one of the three winners of the transnational, German-language Textstreich competition for lyrical texts and is also a resident artist at the Center for Literature until the end of 2025.

Jacinta Nandi, born in 1980, studied German at the University of Exeter and came to Berlin when she was 20. She initially wrote in English and ran the English-language reading stage My English Class and then began writing and performing texts in German. She became a member of various reading stages in Berlin. In 2015, she published her autobiographical novel Nichts gegen Blasen. In 2020, she published Die schlechteste Hausfrau der Welt. Ein Erfahrungsbericht und Manifest, 2022 50 Ways to Leave Your Husband, which was adapted as a play. In 2023 she read at the Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Austria.

Keshav Purushotham is a musician, composer, lyricist and producer from Cologne. As the son of the Indian-born percussionist Ramesh Shotham, Keshav Purushotham has been in touch with music from an early age. In 2013, he received the Artist in Residence scholarship in India from the Goethe Institute, which he used as a source of inspiration for his debut album Keshavara. In 2020, the project, which combines Indian grooves with hip hop and pop elements, was awarded the pop NRW Prize in the Outstanding Artist category. The second album Kabinett der Phantasie was accompanied by a film of the same name, which weaves music, drama and dance into a vaudeville-inspired avant-garde work of art.

Tanasgol Sabbagh presents her literary works in performances, audio pieces, video installations and musical collaborations. She is a co-founder of the artist collective parallelgesellschaft and the event series of the same name, which deals with political art outside of German dominant culture. Together with the poet Josefine Berkholz, she is the founder of the auditory literary magazine Stoff aus Luft: a format that emphasizes spoken and sound-based literature. Tanasgol lives in Berlin.

Temye Tesfu is an author and spoken word poet. As such, he can be found at literature festivals and in bars, in cultural cellars and at conferences, sometimes in front of four, sometimes in front of 4000 people, throughout the German-speaking world and beyond. Was recently invited by the Goethe-Institut for a writer's residency in Ramallah. Curates and moderates literary events in Potsdam, Berlin and Leipzig. Teaches creative writing as a freelance lecturer and has worked (in addition to schools and universities) for institutions such as the Heinrich Böll Foundation, the Neuköllner Oper and the Jugendpresse Deutschland. Founding member of the Neukölln reading stage show parallelgesellschaft, a mixture of live literature, stand-up, concert and political talk show. Lives and works in West Berlin.

Production: unruly readings
Cooperation: Orangerie Theater Köln, Literaturhaus Köln, DFG-Graduiertenkolleg "Gegenwart/Literatur. History, theory and praxeology of a relationship", studiobühne Cologne.

Concept unruly readings: Son Lewandowski, Michaela Predeick and Katharina Stahlhofen | Production: Inga Hörter | Controlling: Neele Renzland | Photo: Lena Kocutar

Supported by: COMEDIA Theater Cologne

Supported by: Kunststiftung NRW, Cultural Office of the City of Cologne and RheinenergieStiftung.

Price information:

7 € | 15 € (excl. fees) | Accompanying person free for severely disabled persons