Exile Promenade is a performative walk that leads to places of historical and current places of exile in the city, which interweave with the exile biographies of the three protagonists and with different eras of migration.
The premiere of the first Berlin edition took place in June 2023 at the Haus of Berliner Festspiele in the frames of the Performing Exiles festival, curated by Matthias Lillienthal in consultation with Rabih Mroué. Exile Promenade critically reflected on the Russian history of exile from today’s standpoint, performatively investigated deserted places, broken ties, and lost identities and asked: What is the task of artists in the face of catastrophe such as war? Could we find the right words in times of numbness and horror? And what if you come from the country of the aggressor? Three guides took the audience on the performative walk through the streets of Berlin, to places of historical and contemporary exile from Russia. Alla Gutnikova, who recently fled Moscow after one year of house arrest, lead through experiences of political prisoners and Feminist Antiwar Resistance. Grégoire Lopoukhine revisited the memoirs of his aristocratic family who escaped from the Russian empire to Paris after the October revolution a century ago. Ziliä Qansurá, native to Bashkortostan, traced the steps of the anticolonial resistance that is growing among ethnic minorities in republics of Russia against the backdrop of its war in Ukraine.
The new second Berlin edition of Exile Promenade takes place on May 17-19 & 21-23, 2024, in cooperation with Exilmuseum Berlin.
The first edition of Exile Promenade is production by Ada Mukhina as a part of the festival Performing Exiles supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the program NEUSTART KULTUR.
Ada Mukhína – Concept / Director / Text
Alla Gutnikova, Grègoire Lopoukhine, Ziliä Qansurá – Protagonists / Text
Andrej Mirčev – Dramaturgy
Ziliä Qansurá – Stage & costume designer
Alina Anufrienko – Composition / Sound design / Cello musician
Saskia Mommertz – Assistant director / Production manager
Claudia Peters – Production manager (Berliner Festspiele)
Maria Kusche – Technical Director (Berliner Festspiele)
Jesko Braun – Sound technician (Berliner Festspiele)
Camille Blake – Photos (Berliner Festspiele)
The team thanks Matthias Lilienthal, Matthias Hardenberger, Daria Iuriichuk, Martin Kruse, Natasha Tyshkevich, Christof Seeger-Zurmühlen, and all the test audience for their support in the creation of the walk.