Name: Auf meinen Schultern
Start: 2025-01-19
End: 2025-01-21
Location: Ballhaus Naunynstraße

Dance performance by Raphael Moussa Hillebrand

The story isn’t over; the story goes on. My daughter. Happiness and madness go on. My mother is white, yours a Black woman. I grew up in the western half, you in a cosmopolitan city. Do you think the story is over? Berlin is so big, so free, so provincially violent.

Half the city was the cosmos of my childhood; with a roast chicken trip to the other galaxy. Are privileges short-lived? Do they open horizons or blind us? Who owns the whole city? Who is it made for? For you, for us? Black Berliner. I would like you to be spared a few experiences. But how?

Auf meinen Schultern (On my shoulders) is a solo performance by the dancer and choreographer Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, his first at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Based on his experience of growing up in Berlin in the 1980s and 90s, he attempts to give shape to his own lived experience so that the next generation and his own child can connect to it – a danced, break-danced, spoken and performed passing on musically accompanied by the cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias.

(in German with English surtitles)

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Additional information

(in German with English surtitles)

The story isn’t over; the story goes on. My daughter! Happiness and madness go on. My mother is white, yours a Black woman. I grew up in the western half, you in a cosmopolitan city. Do you think the story is over? Berlin is so big, so free, so provincially violent.

Auf meinen Schultern (On my shoulders) is a solo performance by the dancer and choreographer Raphael Moussa Hillebrand, his first at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Based on his experience of growing up in Berlin in the 1980s and 90s, he attempts to give shape to his own lived experience so that the next generation and his own child can connect to it – a danced, break-danced, spoken and performed passing on musically accompanied by the cellist Eurico Ferreira Mathias.

A production by Kultursprünge im Ballhaus Naunynstraße gemeinnützige GmbH. The Initial production was funded by the Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion of the State of Berlin and the Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.

Participating artists

Laura Alonso (Choreografiemitarbeit)

Emilio Cordero Checa (Lichtdesign und Videoassistenz)

Eurico Ferreira Mathias (Musik)

Raphael Moussa Hillebrand (Choreografie, Performance & Videokonzept)

Monique Van den Bulck (Kostüm)

Raphael Moussa Hillebrand

Eurico Ferreira Mathias