STREET CABARET
In a cold cold winter a mother, father and two little girls started off for a long trip. Nothing more but two big bags, was all they could carry on the road far from home. But they needed no more for it was hot and sweaty under the banana palm tree. In a new land it happened that the guitar learned new songs the adventures went along with new movements and thoughts became as big as never before.
Seeing different places, meeting new people, acknowledging other cultures degrade habitual thinking. Travel provides you the anonymity to risk new ways of being in the world. However, travelling can be both wonderful and horrifying experience. Most of people travel for a few days, weeks or a limited period of time to escape their daily routine. What kind of neurological processes happen in the brain when you travel for months or even years and how does travel activity influence your behavior?
Having a permanent change of countries and languages, a constant search for a bed and warm meal, being continuously surrounded by unknown faces in their own culture can also become a routine. Is a `world traveler` an occupation? Can travelling make you a junkie? Can travelling ever disconnect you from your own culture? Can it really?
The performance „Where you come from?“ was inspired by travelling only. After 12 months in Southeast Asia with his wife and two daughters, Mikel Ulfik has never stopped being an artist. He left behind the daily routine in Berlin and resigned from well-established theatres in Germany to return to his artistic roots; he is back performing on the street. Now he is on the stage with everything he owns right now: his family, a backpack and a guitar.
In “Where you come from?” Mikel relieves us his emotional world as a globe trotter through songs and movement. Far from his hometown his smile is bigger, his voice clearer and his heartbeat slowlier. Will he ever return?
Regie: Tina Kukovic-Ulfik
Schauspieler: Mikel Ulfik, Pia Shirin Ulfik, Sara Yasmin Ulfik
Songs: Mikel Ulfik
Autoren: Tina Kukovic-Ulfik, Mikel Ulfik
Marivan (Iran); 7tes Straßentheater Festival: Bester Schauspieler, Zweit Beste Regie, Zweit Bestes Bühnenbild
The Perhentian Island, Malaysia – Juli 2012
Phnom Penh, Kambodscha – August 2012
Marivan, Iran (Kurdistan) – September 2012
Ljubljana, Slowenien – Oktober 2012
Berlin, Deutschland – Juli 2013
Darbandikhan, Iraq (Kurdistan) – Oktober 2013