Licht IV

Licht is no ordinary performance series created for an audience. Licht is there for the three women who use it to tell their stories, the audience is just there to listen along with them. The performance takes a few hours. The ending and progression depends on how the performers feel at the time. As an audience, you go along with their needs. You are there for them to allow them to come to terms with their traumatic experience.

"If I survive this, I'll tell the whole world." – Frankfurter Allgemeine 

In our times, there are few horrors unheard of and unimaginable. The crimes ISIS committed against the Yazidi women in North Iraq are among them. Certain demons, you have to slaughter from within. In 'Licht', director Tea Tupajić invites the Yazidi women to descend into themselves to try just that.

After a yearlong journey of preparation, the women come on stage to tell the story of what happened, exactly how they remember it. They bleed it out then and never again, part by part, until they can’t anymore. They do so, so that all that happened was not for nothing. With faith in theatre, they leave it with the audience. Every night one part of the story will be told. LICHT lasts until the whole story is told.

For the stage, Tea Tupajić invited all the colleagues of Münchner Kammerspiele to together create a proscenium curtain. On the curtain, they embroidered by hand the stellar constellation of the sky in the night of the premiere. In each star, one person embroidered an image of that what is inside of them, that could have killed them.

'Licht I', 'Licht II' and 'Licht III' will be presented at the Münchner Kammerspiele. A few other parts will be presented internationally, in theatres and festivals led by female artistic directors only. The performance starts at 19 o’clock. It lasts several hours. The end is dependent on the decision of the performers.

• Tea Tupajić (Sarajevo, 1984) is a Croatian theatre and film director and writer. She regularly engages in long-term processes where she invites protagonists who either seem too reluctant to go on stage or have a lot to lose by doing so. This lets her explore the potential of art in confrontation with controversial political and personal issues. Licht will be played only a handful of times in a few cities.  

"Tea Tupajić 's work is like a chillingly fast descent into the world of darkness." - Modern Times Review

Summary previous episodes

On 21/04 you'll witness the fourth part of the performance. Here you can read what was told in the previous chapters:

Licht I
in Munich, Münchner Kammerspiele, on 23.02.2023, with: Awaz Abdi, Najlaa Matto
Iraq, 2014. 9 o'clock in the morning it is already over 40 degrees hot. Family life. Trying to hold on and save daily routines. News, phone calls. IS is close. Not understanding. Fear.

Licht II 
in Munich, Münchner Kammerspiele, on 25.02.2023, with: Awaz Abdi, Intisar Ali, Najlaa Matto
The IS is there. An escape into the mountains. People are left behind. An ultimatum passes. An entire village community is herded into a school. Women and children and men are separated: the men are taken away, shots.

Licht III
in Munich, Münchner Kammerspiele, on 15.04.2023 with: Awaz Abdi, Najlaa Matto and Intisar Oso
Captured by the IS and transported away from the village. Women divided into three groups: older women, married women with children and young women. A word „sabiyya“, a slave, starts circulating. Fear.