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Upcoming Theatre Performances

By Bavaria

Our Footsteps Collective and AstaroTheatro
At the moment Our Footsteps Collective is an on-going project, a work in progress constantly reshaping itself to the artistic and social challenges of our times. Our Footsteps works now closely with AstaroTheatro at several projects in the endless exploration of Resistance Through Art. These include Think of Others, A La Muntagna and several Workshops.


A La Muntagna
A La Muntagna by AstaroTheatro and Our Footsteps

A La Muntagna
“Mountains are the cradle of the heroes”
How a song of struggle and resistance can inspire international solidarity
An event of talks, music, theatre and togetherness
Friday 25 March
Ru Paré. Chris Lebeaustraat 4 Amsterdam
A la Muntagna – Li Serê Çiya – Up to the Mountain
From the mountains of Southern Italy to the peaks of Kurdistan, the bilingual singings of our A La Muntagna lead us through the footpath of rebellion and freedom. Two distant places and two different histories have never been so close.
The main power of the song lays on this deep sense of a different but at the same time so reciprocal recognizable history. A common ground for a profound nexus of true international solidarity.
In 2019 when we heard A La Muntagna played by an international band in a political underground space in Utrecht, The Netherlands, tears and memories overwhelmed us. We decided then to create a new song based on the old original one, linking the old struggle of the people in Southern Italy with the Kurdish effort for a cultural and political dignity.
At the end of the nineteenth century, immediately after the Italian unification, Southern Italy suffered greatly under the hegemonic power from Northern Italy. Many people in the South went up to the mountains and became ‘briganti’, outlaws, starting a struggle against the oppression and in the name of freedom. The original song A La Muntagna, in Southern Italian language, tells this story.
The same story is still very much true today for the Kurds. Mountains as a synonym of fight for freedom and dignity are very much a feature of the ongoing Kurdish struggle. The struggle against oppression starts from the mountains.
So now the solidarity of Southern Italians with the Kurds lives within the song A La Muntagna, ready to reach out to a full international solidarity. From the mountains to the valleys, anywhere international solidarity is needed in the name of liberation from political abuse, geopolitical hegemony, wars, social injustice and brutal imperialism.
The project has been realized without any financial support and thus personally paid by Harun Turan, its initiator. Musicians and singers from Kurdistan and Italy have come together to create this artistic work of music, video and grassroots arts.

Now A La Muntagna is all yours. We wish that you are ready to embrace its artistic value and its human and political meaning.

A project by Harun Turan in collaboration with AstaroTheatro and Our Footsteps
Acoustic guitar: Harun Elki
Percussions: Şener Yolal
Tongue pipe: Erdi Aslan
Ukulele: Cem Dikmen
Bass guitar: Uğur Nazlıer
Melodika: Yasar Ilgın
Mix/Arranger: Harun Elki
Mastering: Özgur Yurtoğlu
Kurdish singing: Şervan Turan
Italian singing: Irene Rametta, Alice Casarosa, Sara Bianchi
Composer Italian Lyrics: Eugenio Bennato
Kurdish Lyrics: Tuncay Korkmaz and Harun Turan
Video animation maker: Selen Kilinç
Story playwright: Tuncay Korkmaz and Harun Turan

Many thanks to: Humeyra, Maşuk Erten, Yunus Bilir, Aydin Gelmez and to the many friends supporting this project. Special thanks to Ru Paré for hosting this event

Event Program:
18:30-20:00
Dinner
20:00-20:05
Welcome and brief presentation of the event
20:05-20:55
Panel: From the mountains to the valleys
International stories of struggles, resistance and liberation
With: Berfin Çelebi (Kurdistan), Michela Rossi and Luigi Lorato (Italy), Nataly Bernal (Colombia), Betina Abi Habib (Lebanon), Jesse van Duijl (The Netherlands)
Moderator: Basak Sila Kaymak
20:55-21.00
Short break
21:00-21:25
Live Music and Theatre
Yunus Bilir
21:25- 21:45
A la Muntagna – Li Serê Çiya – Up to the Mountain
Introduction to the song A La Muntagna
Video A La Muntagna
Q&A
Entrance by Donation. Note: this is a non-profit project. Your kind donations will help us to cover all the necessary costs to make this project possible


Follow the Dolphins
Follow the Dolphins by AstaroTheatro and Our Footsteps at:
Baschira presents: Waiting for “Zdasdat”
Tuesday 28 September
De Nieuwe Anita
Frederik Hendrikstraat 111 Amsterdam

Picture by Melanja Palitta – Balans LaB

Three sets of music and theatre: a foretaste of “Zdasdat”, Baschira’s debut album topped with a theatrical work by AstaroTheatro and Our Footsteps.
Doors open: 20:00
Showtime: 20:30
Ticket 5 € at the door
1st set
Follow the Dolphins: a theatrical work in progress by AstaroTheatro and Our Footsteps
While waiting for the coming of the Zapatistas we face lies, we witness cities falling apart and the stream of the white blood cells of humanity. But the best thing to do, as usual, is to follow the dolphins.
Ayşenur Akın
Arif Murat Gür
Roberto Bacchilega
Original text ‘The Dolphins” co-written by Mohamed S. Bah and Aysenur Akin
2nd set
Ahead of his debut album, “Zdasdat” (Wake up), Baschira offers a foretaste of his unreleased music and a couple of folk songs.
Baschira is the project of Amsterdam-based guitarist and songwriter Davide Cristiani.
The name of the project is inspired by the story of Prospero Baschieri (Baschira), a brigand, symbol of revolt against injustice and oppression.
Davide Cristiani: Voice, Guitar
Emma Van Dobben: Accordion
Tilo Baumheier: Flute
3rd set
Acoustic guitars, accordion, flute and “dancing” drums will resonate throughout the room. Warm sounds, a vibrant and passionate blend of folk, swing, gipsy music threaded together through improvisation.
Davide Cristiani: Guitar, Voice
Tilo Baumheier: Flute
Emma Van Dobben: Accordion
Floris Van Elderen: Drums
Julia Kooreman: Bass

Footsteps against racism
Moments of past migrants’ lives and of current theatre and activism
From voices of dolphins guiding migrants across threatening waters to singings of protest and revolution. And also strong voices against oppression, torture and discrimination, the cry of a refugee camp and the scream to racism visible even in a colorful world map.
And now here we are, captured in our daily routine and yet still struggling as before. But now somehow knowing better how to break the boundaries of our constraints.
Footsteps Against Racism is a theatre performance created by the same migrants and refugees collective that has successfully performed Our Footsteps throughout 2019 and the beginning of 2020. Now the collective is here, ready for Week Tegen Racisme

Week Tegen Racisme 15-19 March 2021
Pakhuis de Zwijger
Friday 19 March, 20:30-21:30 Footsteps against racism at “Words Against Racism”
LIVE via link: https://dezwijger.nl/programma/words-against-racism

Performers: Arif Murat Gür, Aysenur Akin, Erhan Calihan, Harun Turan, Maral Jefroudi, Maurizia Mezza, Rahila Yideaiti, Roberto Bacchilega, Zeki Barlin

Original text ‘The Dolphins” co-written by Mohamed S. Bah and Aysenur Akin
Original texts by Arif Murat Gür, Erhan Calihan, Rahila Yideaiti
Brackground scenery by Karin Schoutema
Pictures by Melanja Palitta | BalansLaB

Many thanks to IIRE International Institute for Research and Education for supporting and welcoming us
An “Our Footsteps” and “AstaroTheatro” production

(Pictures from our dress rehearsal)

(More rehearsal pictures)

Our Footsteps Theatre Collective is at The Babble on Babylon
Our collective presents a short performance during this event, so be there!
The Babble of Babylon at Vrij Paleis
Friday the 14th from 19:00
Paleisstraat 107 Amsterdam
Event here


A 3 day affair reflecting amsterdams creative underground from the 60s to NOW.
Opening event: Friday the 14th from 19:00
ingredients: live painting. poets. theatrical acts. paintbombfactory. ludieke-publieke aksie. radio. film.
all this situation- ist coronaproof!
+++bar is open+++
Contributors:
Chantal Hassard
Daniel Rakish
AstaroTheatro-Our Footsteps
Koes Komo
Aja Waalwijk
Hans Plomp

Our Footsteps – The New Theatre
Our migrants and refugees theatre collective is moving on to a fresh new start after covid-19 forced disruption of our creative process.
We are determined to challenge all limitations imposed by ‘social’ distancing transforming these limits into a new theatre narrative.
So here we are again with our workshops and with the continuation of our artistic journey which at the same time it’s also a new beginning.
Upcoming Theatre Performances coming soon to a theatre near you.
And if you feel like helping us to pay our production costs, please click the donation button in this website.

World Refugee Day 20 June
Being a refugee means to be part of a broader discourse of systemic racism.
The condition of a refugee is not to have a status, hence no rights. And even receiving a status only means to be a second rank citizen without equal opportunities.
These conditions are dictated by policies of racist discrimination and therefore they are pointless and inhuman.

This short film documents the making of Our Footsteps. A Theatre Performance.
Migrants’ narratives as an artistic affirmation of our human dignity and a call for political awareness.
We feel World Refugee Day is the right moment for this documentary film release.
As refugee lives matter, this is our contribution. It’s the evidence that it’s time to stop seeing the migrant as problematic or troublesome. It’s time to go beyond the politics of social segregation as mass distraction.

A documentary by Masood Banozadeh
Subtitles by Maral Jefroudi
Subtitles editing by Ohannes Karakas
A project by Stichting Vrolijkheid, IIRE and AstaroTheatro
www.ourfootsteps.nl

Please come to the Refugee Lives Matter demonstration. We will be there too