Through performances and installations, BLACK LAND attempts to remember testimonies of Ancient Egypt and to make the knowledge they hold fruitful for the present. Papyri from Elephantine, the island below the first cataract in the Aswan region in the south of the country, become witnesses and actors alike, together with text fragments and objects of different origins. What stories do the ancient texts tell us? Who is speaking to whom? Who remembers? Can we remember together something for which there is no language?

»Performing Memory« is an effort to draw lines of tradition back into a past that is still untapped. Is there a common ground on which we stand when we look at the past from multiple perspectives? What do we understand of Egypt today, from the perspective of Europe on the brink?

The circular performances will start at 16:00, 18:00, and 20:00 respectively. Admission starts 15min before the performances begin. For further information please contact: kontakt@blackland.de.

Project Background

»Black Land« used to be the name of ancient Egypt. Translated from hieroglyphs, the feminine word Km.t, pronounced Kemet, refers to the black mud, enriched with minerals and nutrients, brought into the valley by the Nile's yearly flooding. The irrigated soil, fertilized by the mud, provided sustenance for the people who lived there. The Nile water and the valuable, life-giving soil were sacred. The land’s barren desert regions were called Descheret (Dšr.t), »Red Land,« which was dedicated to the sun and the deceased, who were buried in necropolises. Mythologically, the two »lands« were closely related.

The island of Elephantine is of particular importance. Geographically, according to ancient Egyptian belief, the Nile flood originated there. In mythology, Elephantine was a place of rejuvenation, spurred by the Nile’s annual flooding in the month of July. The deities Chnum, Satis, and their daughter Anukis, who worshipped there, represent fertility, new beginnings, and growth.

In mythology, the Nile water is an element that connects life and death; and access to the water sustained lives. Even today, several thousand years later, an existential struggle for water as a resource is taking place; the ecological balance has been destroyed, while societies worldwide are struggling with inflation, famine, and the destruction of their basic foundations. Death seems omnipresent. Life and death, world order and world’s end, in all their interrelatedness, are negotiated in the ancient Egyptian texts. The texts generate two forms of time: »neheh,« the cyclical time of the Nile flood, the course of the sun and vegetation, and »djet,« the eternal time of the necropolises.

The situation of Elephantine island at the southern border of Egypt is unique as there is no other place in which cultural history can be read through texts spanning such a long period of time. Thousands of papyri in ten different languages and scripts have been found here, covering a period of 4000 years. As part of the ERC project ELEPHANTINE, these papyri are being examined by Prof. Dr. Verena Lepper and her team. Now, for the first time, they have found their way into a series of artistic works, marking the conclusion of the ELEPHANTINE project.

The project BLACK LAND is an interdisciplinary performance series and installation created in cooperation with the ERC project ELEPHANTINE of the Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, the National Museums in Berlin (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Verena Lepper and the CTM Festival.

Concept, Artistic Direction, and Advice: Elena Sinanina
Consultation partner additional sound projects: CTM Festival
Costumes: Karin Merten (Bühnenservice Berlin) based on designs by Elena Sinanina
Composition BLACK LAND: Charles Hedger, Attila Csihar, Anabelle Iratni
Composition »Isolde’s Transfiguration« after Richard Wagner: Roman Lemberg
Dramaturgy: Rabelle Ramez Erian
Curatorial Advisor: Verena Lepper
Consultation partners Egypt: Walaa El Shazly, Kerylos Aziz
Sound Design: Christopher von Nathusius
Video: Kathrin Krottenthaler
Video Documentation: Judit Fruzsina Jesse
Project Management: Anne Diestelkamp
Organisation in Egypt: Ahmed Adel
Graphic Design: Ada Favaron

A project by Elena Sinanina, Attila Csihar and ensemble, funded by the Capital Cultural Fund Berlin, in cooperation with Verena Lepper / Egyptian Museum and Papyrus Collection, National Museums in Berlin (Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation), CTM Festival, and silent green. With the kind support of Collegium Hungaricum Berlin, Zelfo Technology GmbH, and LEIPA Group.