We were invited to join the “ERROR” theater festival 2014 in Bratislava with our performance called ‘’…’’ The name of the festival was a reclaiming of societal perceptions that named marginalized people “errors”.
Due to budget and VISA limitations, all performers from the project were not able to go to the festival. So we had to improvise the original performance with six members of the Beyond Borders team. Furthermore, our performance was originally meant to be off the stage, using the entire area of the space where we performed it. At the “ERROR” festival we decided that we would adapt our performance to the needs of the disabled people watching it by using the stage to make it more accessible.
In this version of the performance, individual meetings of Armenian and Turkish stories were symbolized by duets. However, we took the idea further to the expansion of women solidarity.
Then two other women who are not noticeable in the dark of the stage join the others. These four women dance together.
Thanks to this festival we had the opportunity to meet theater groups founded by the homeless, people with physical or mental disabilities, young, old and women from all over Europe.
“For me, it was a very eye-opening experience from an artistic point of view and it was also nice to see the artistic diversity of which I was not aware until then. In this festival, I watched dancers who didn’t have any limbs. I met with people who have schizophrenia who expressed themselves beautifully on stage. I also learned a lot about the solidarity among homeless communities in the Balkan region. This festival was not only an artistic ensemble but also a supportive collective of marginalized communities from beyond borders.” – Senem’s reflections