Full-Frontal / Oh Man! / Kalinga
The trilogy Men in Feminism examines the role of privileged men in feminism from German/Swiss, Rwandan and Indian perspectives – by and with men and feminists. What roles do men play in feminism and what do feminists want from the most privileged men in their societies?
The three performance parts of Men in Feminism are shown one after the other: The theater performance Full-Frontal (India) looks for the ideal feminist man in form of an audition. Kalinga (Rwanda) is a dance theater piece developed by male dancers that question gender equality in todays Rwanda and Oh Man! (Germany/Switzerland) is a subversive stand-up comedy performance.
Full-Frontal
Full-Frontal exposes the tensions between privilege and patriarchy, confession and critique. It interrogates the idea of the “feminist man” in contemporary India through the process of an audition, a space where performance becomes inquiry, and unlearning takes centre stage. Guided by an unseen voice – part director, part conscience, part social mirror – the performer traverses a terrain of inherited privilege, myth, and memory, seeking not resolution, but the courage to inhabit discomfort.
Oh Man!
Not only women, but men also suffer in patriarchy. How does a man live, think, and perform in patriarchy once he has recognized this? And how does a comedian deal with the fact that sexist jokes no longer work? Is failure a tentative beginning of unlearning old patterns? With a microphone on an empty stage, Johannes Dullin and Lisa Stepf perform their way through bad jokes, statistics, extreme situations, and suppressed feelings. In doing so, they explore the power of language and the microphone and examine the gaps between performative masculinity, nice men, and feminist demands.
Kalinga
Kalinga is a dance-theater play that questions what it means to be a feminist man in modern Rwanda. The word feminism does not exist in the Kinyarwanda language, even though gender equality is politically promoted at all levels in Rwanda, where women make up 74 % of the labor force. The play follows two Rwandan men as they navigate their perceptions and struggles around equality between men and women. At the heart of the story stands the Kalinga, a drum symbolizing power and authority. But is that power truly shared equally in today’s Rwanda?
