Don’t you know you better run, run, run, run, run, run.

The dance performance RUNNIN' casts a critical gaze on the staging, mediatization, and mystification of running Black bodies. Increasing the speed of one’s steps is taken as an opportunity to examine images of racist glorification and devaluation from all sides.

Within a system of references and images between superhuman athleticism and mortal threat, the Black body is equally burdened with projections of danger and desire. Black athletes’ achievements in competitive sports are regularly explained with racist theories, revealing white fantasies of a supernaturally strong and fast Black body. In public spaces, these fantasies lead to running Black bodies being associated with danger. The accelerating Black body runs up against prejudice, mistrust, or even physical violence in everyday life. RUNNIN' examines the political dimension of this daily act.

In the “pedestrian movement” of postmodern dance, everydayness is assumed to be something neutral, as if there were a universal form of movement that could function outside of any frame of reference. Yet gait and movement language are in fact highly coded; they are learned and socio-culturally determined. RUNNIN' scratches the surface of this claim to neutrality in postmodern dance, revealing a conception of culture that is specifically white.

The performers try to break free from this cycle of power relations that determine who is allowed to move in which directions, to which places, and at what speed. In doing so, they traverse movement repertoires of collective affectivity, virtual spaces, and even the evolutionary steps of Homo sapiens.

New and familiar forms emerge as the performers get in formation onstage, within an abstracted urban space illuminated by spotlights and streetlights. The constant circling of white phantasms builds up to a revolution that defiantly returns the white gaze through the crosshairs.

ARTISTIC DIRECTION & CHOREOGRAPHY Joana Tischkau PERFORMANCE Aaron Samuel Davis, Emeka Ene, Shanice Trustfull, Sophie Yukiko SOUND Frieder Blume COSTUME Nadine Bakota COSTUME ASSISTANT Marie Göhler GRAPHIC DESIGN COSTUME Anke Sondi Rumohr SET Carlo Siegfried LIGHT DESIGN Hendrik Borowski MAKE-UP Lou Willis DRAMATURGY Nuray Demir, Maxi Menja Lehmann ARTISTIC PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Lianne Mol PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT Lisa Gehring PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Marlene Brandhorst MOTION CAPTURE TRAINING Ace Ruele (Creative Bionics) TRAILER Lennart Brede, VG Bild-Kunst NAIL DESIGN Franky Reyes OUTSIDE EYE Anta Recke