YOLDAŞ – FRAUEN, DIE EINANDER HALTEN [YOLDAŞ – WOMEN HOLDING EACH OTHER]
Nihan Devecioğlu (Munich)
TicketsSchedule
Premiere
“We’re the ones who made BMW what it is today,” says Emine Ulusen, who worked at the BMW factory in Munich for 38 years. Along with Evgenia Karakolidis and Anayurt Kırımlı, she belongs to the first generation of Germany’s “Gastarbeiter”, or “guest workers”. They are “Yoldaş” – friends and companions. They have spent the majority of their lives working at the BMW factory, where they have experienced periods of speechlessness, mental fatigue, and the exhausting physical labour that factory work entails. Singer Nihan Devecioğlu grew up near the BMW factory as the granddaughter of Turkish labourers. With this piece, she seeks to create a space for remembrance that is both poetic and musical in nature – one that honours both her childhood in Munich in the 1980s, as well as the women whose labour remains invisible to this day. The voices of women come together with the sounds of machines and documentary film material to form a vivid collage that also functions as a chronicle of self-empowerment and female solidarity.
Biography
Born in Istanbul and raised in Munich, Nihan Devecioğlu is a concert and opera singer, composer, and performer. Her vocal practice combines Western classical music with Turkish Sufi music and folk music, as well as avant-garde compositions and world music. She has performed at venues including Carnegie Hall and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Since 2015, she has been composing music for theatre and dance and has been awarded grants by the City of Munich’s Cultural Department and the Art Omi Fellowship in New York.
Munich-born Cana Bilir-Meier is an artist, filmmaker, and arts educator who studied in Vienna and Istanbul and taught at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 2021. She has worked as a curator for the Kassel Documentary Film and Video Festival since 2016 and has worked with the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin. She has been awarded the ars viva (2019), the Bayerischer Kunstförderpreis (2020), and the Outstanding Artist Award (2021).
Moscow-born Alexey Kokhanov is a vocalist, performer, and sound artist. He works at the intersection of contemporary music and experimental performance, exploring the ways that space, architecture, and music interact with one another. Through workshops and master classes, he aims to facilitate new pathways towards improvisation. He has guided a wide variety of theatrical and operatic productions, including at the Holland Festival, the WIELS Museum in Brussels, and the Staatstheater Karlsruhe. He currently lives in Berlin.
Viktorie Knotková is a dramaturge, librettist, presenter, and cultural mediator. Her focus is on international collaborations, multilingual, and intercultural projects. 2009 to 2012, she worked as a dramaturge for the Pražské komorní divadlo, Divadlo Komedie in Prague, under the direction of Dušan D. Pařízek; 2012 to 2023, as a permanent and guest dramaturge for the Theater Bremen. 2021 to 2023, she was the leading dramaturge at the Center for Experimental Theatre in Brno, Divadlo Husa na provázku. Since October 2024, she has been a permanent dramaturge at the Maxim Gorki Theatre in Berlin.
Cast
Concept, interviews, performance, artistic & musical direction
Nihan Devecioğlu
Video artist & camera
Cana Bilir–Meier | Tizian Stromp Zargari
Musical & conceptional collaboration
Alexey Kokhanov
Directional assistance
Frank Abt
Dramaturgy
Viktorie Knotková
Scenography
Ragna Heiny
Sound design & technical guidance
Ada Binaj
Management of artistic production
Rat & Tat Kulturbüro
Info
Accessibility
Production & Realization
Funded by
the Kulturreferat der Landeshauptstadt München and the Verband freie Darstellende Künste Bayern e.V. within the framework of the Prozessförderung des „Förderpakets Freie Kunst 2025“, with supporting funding from the Bavarian Ministry for Science, Research, and Art
Co-production
SPIELART Festival Munich | Maxim Gorki Theater
