In a 1975 speech, Toni Morrison explained that the function of racism is distraction. You’re constantly busy refuting prejudices and lies - no matter how far you get, there’s always some new untruth to be corrected. Meanwhile, the power relations remain unchanged.

Morrison would be proven right: instead of being able to shape their own identities and alliances of solidarity, racialized people are still preoccupied with answering intrusive questions about their origins, finding a language for the unsayable, and legitimizing their own culture.

But doesn’t Toni Morrison’s quote also hint at the promise of being able to “dredge up” cultural identity, traditions, and customs? Of defining, constructing, and fictionalizing them?

For KARNEVAL, Joana Tischkau adapts the story of the Lion King, which itself is an adaptation of set pieces from Shakespeare’s Hamlet and the biblical stories of Joseph and Moses. In Tischkau’s adaptation, a white boy goes in search of his identity. This reversal parodies the eternal assumption that non-white people always have to “explore” their identity.

This evening combines and condenses the exoticism and racism of German carnival culture. Karneval questions the universalism of the “Circle of Life” while opening up a critical perspective on spirituality, esotericism, and the pagan-Christian customs in white German cultural practices.

DIRECTION & CONCEPT Joana Tischkau SET Carlo Siegfried COSTUME Mascha Mihoa Bischoff CO-DIRECTION Anta Helena Recke SOUND & COMPOSITION Frieder Blume PERFORMANCE Dori Antrie, Sophia Hankings-Evans, Nina Karimy, Agnes Lampkin, Moses Leo, Henry Morales, Anna Polke, Julius Janosch Schulte PHOTOS Katharina Kemme, Katrin Ribbe