Liquid Border of Solid Hope

The performance, which will have its world premiere at Radialsystem in December, combines elements from archival research and interviews conducted in Marseille, Lampedusa and western Turkey – key locations for migration – with movement/dance and live sound. Musicians and dancers engage with the audience in a walk-in archive that interweaves individual exploration with shared ritual, whilst addressing questions about the meaning of empathy and solidarity.

In the 1920s, following the genocide in the Ottoman Empire, 58,000 Armenians fled to Marseille with legal transit documents. They used passenger ships for their escape. At that time, these ships connected cities that are now virtually inaccessible by direct sea route due to a changed political situation. They thus also provided safe escape routes that are lacking today. As a result of restrictive European migration policies, over 35,000 people have lost their lives on the Central Mediterranean route since 2014.

‘Liquid Border of Solid Hope’ is a tribute and a memorial to those who never reached their destination on the journey to a new life. It is also a tribute to the sea itself as an ecosystem, a geophysical balance of power, and a place of longing and fascination.

‘Liquid Border of Solid Hope’ is being staged at the Radialsystem as part of the :LOVE: collaboration between Tanzfabrik Berlin and Radialsystem.

Through the ‘Radialsystem ♥ Tanzfabrik’ initiative, the two institutions are collaborating to specifically improve the conditions under which dance practitioners can present their work.