By Till Briegleb and Ersan Mondtag
based on conversations with Saliha Bilal, Aslı Öngören, Mefharet Sayınbatur, Arda and Meriç Temuçin, Nica Sultana Vasiliou, and Şafak Yüreklik
and using motifs from Emine Sevgi Özdamar’s novels Die Brücke vom Goldenen Horn and Seltsame Sterne starren zur Erde
Idea/Concept/Curated by Shermin Langhoff as part of the 7th Berlin Autumn Salon ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE
»For me, the streets and people in Berlin were like a film, but I wasn’t in it. I saw the people around me, but they didn’t see us. We were like the birds that flew off somewhere and, from time to time, came back to Earth just to fly back up again.«
Emine Sevgi Özdamar, The Bridge of the Golden Horn
A building with many stories, a place full of changes: Stresemannstraße 30 has a dynamic past. This is where the »Plamannsche Anstalt« boarding school used to be, where the young Otto von Bismarck learned the Prussian drill. Decades later, the building became the Telefunken company’s dormitories for women who came from Turkey in the 1960s to start their new lives in Berlin. Including Emine Sevgi Özdamar, whose memories of those years as preserved in two of her books became a literary testament of longing and freedom. In »Wonaym«, between the shared kitchens and narrow halls, connections and everyday rituals emerged. The women discovered the city together, went to the theatre, the cinema, went dancing – searching for belonging and for a way to make their dreams, both grand and ordinary, come true.
Ersan Mondtag’s production traces the paths of these stories and links the history of the building with the question of which stories are remembered by whom today – and which are not. On a set which crossfades the past, present and dystopian future, older actors encounter their younger alter egos. Created in collaboration with the Seyyare – Anatolian Women’s Choir directed by Sema Moritz, a melancholic-utopian yet painful production emerges which not only interrogates life in the dorms back then but also Germany’s ideas of respect and recognition today.
World Premiere 2/October 2025
Part of 7th Berliner Herbstsalon ЯE:IMAGINE: THE RED HOUSE
Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation. Supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.
