APOLLON - STOP TRYNA BE GOD

“Zeus never asked me whether I wanted any of this. Do you think you could just grab a cola with him and talk about your feelings? Ask him questions like that?”

The Greek god Apollo appears, at first glance, to embody the ideal of perfect masculinity: otherworldly beauty, strength and power. As an infallible archer and guardian of the Oracle of Delphi, he represents the image of the assertive, potent achiever – a figure that today might readily be discussed under the label of “toxic masculinity”. At the same time, his mythological story is marked by failure, betrayal and deception, revealing unexpected fractures.

APOLLON – STOP TRYNA BE GOD explores masculinity as a cultural inheritance – something that is passed on, restaged and reproduced. Together with the German-Greek collective waltraud900 and the musician and rapper Uğur Kepenek (aka Busy Beast), an ensemble of eleven male-identifying young people aged 15 to 20, from diverse cultural backgrounds, has developed a performance that moves between myth and the present.

The Apollos of today fall in love with Daphne once more, confront Zeus, defeat the Python, descend from Olympus, deconstruct male role models and piece them back together anew. Which narratives still hold today? Which are beginning to shift? Where are the sons of the future heading, and what questions accompany them?

These questions were explored through workshops and discussions, in both German and Greek, and above all through an interdisciplinary approach combining music, dance and theatre.

By and with

Gustav Becker, Bowen Gao, Nuragha Gasimov, Tasos Geraidis, Amin Hubricht, Simon Karol Gabriel Ilga, Uğur Kepenek, Anton Schebesta, Andreas Spektorov, Zhengli Wang, Timo Walek, Fabio Wilson, Juri Win Wintersig

• Nuragha Gasimov, Andreas Spektorov, Zhengli Wang, Juri Win Wintersig – Live-Musik

• waltraud900 – Idea and artistic direction

• Bianca Künzel – Direction
• Phaedra Pisimisi – Choreography
• Bianca Künzel, Dorle Trachternach – Text
• Dorle Trachternach – Dramaturgy
• Ria Papadopoulou – Equipment
• Linda Bockholt – Music and musical direction
• Uğur Kepenek aka Busy Beast – Texts/Rap
• Theo Gatzka – Production Assistant
• Mohammed Marouf Alhassan – Choreography assistant
• Katrin Wiesemann – Production direction
• Julius Kindermann, Eckehard Merholz – Lighting
• Thorsten Runge – Sound
• Forum Freies Theater Düsseldorf und Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster – Co-production partners