Amigues, Adios

They came out of curiosity, for the city was a promise. Some sought refuge here from the violence of patriarchal societies, for Berlin promised them freedom – the possibility of freely shaping their own lives. Or was it those who came here who created this promising Berlin?

In Bishop Black’s *Amigues Adios*, five performers set out in search of Berlin’s promise, of the freedom to be together beyond the conservative boundaries of sexual and racial identity.

Around the turn of the millennium, those who came transformed the city into their haven. They went ashore because rents were cheap and where they came from mattered less than the here and now. Here, they shed outdated roles to negotiate new ways of living together. Where have openness and freedom gone?

The five protagonists of *Amigues Adios* are still here. They remember those Black queer Berliners who, back then, had the courage to turn the city into a promise. They know of the precariousness and of those who broke down under violence and the cold. But they also know the beauty of that moment when this city – so unexpected and improbable given Germany’s past – became a city of openness. And so they seek out the possibilities of living memory and the art of reviving community and freedom. In a surreal and burlesque dance through the ages, they come together to find the strength to carry on. They celebrate to taste once more the freedom from fear and self-determination on their tongues.

*Amigues Adios* is Bishop Black’s fourth work at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße, following the solo performance *Becoming My Body* (2019), *Re-Searching Joy* (2022) as part of the Akademie der Autodidakten, and their directorial debut *Flight of the Canaries* (2023).

(In English with German subtitles)