New Institute for Dramatic Writing

Seduce!

»Seduce! Strategies against Brutalization« gathers individual and collective voices – whether they come in the form of an anecdote, a linguistic analysis, a political activist motivation or written in blank verse. The apparatus of language shall be explored in the most diverse ways, according to the questions: How can we counter the current brutalization of language? What can we change? How can we act?

Review

Violent Joke of Fragile Masculinity

None of us wants a “joke” that substitutes bullying masculinity with another destructive version of masculinity, do we? In the opening scene, Arthur sits in front of a mirror and forcefully hitches both sides of his mouth up and down. This evokes a powerful reference to two key landmarks of Ancient Greek theater. A bitter expression of happiness and a jagged expression of sadness. Here, the person we will watch transform from Arthur to Joker signals to us what we

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Seduce #11

We need the truth

»When they do bits on the war I flick to something else cos I Don’t wanna know but they don’t do the war much cos it’ all the same really, isn’t it. Once one kid’s been blown up then what’s there to say? It’s just body bags and that’s just boring really.« MOTHER Game Twelve Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat Mark Ravenhill The above quote is from Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, a play, which is an epic cycle of 16 short plays written by Mark

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In Remembrance of Musaab Sadeq Khadeel Al-Tuwaijari

Zig Zag

I am in a forest, and after the phone call with Maxi, I switch my phone to silent. What I am thinking of is food, because I feel nauseous; because my fingers are somehow going numb. And I think of low blood sugar and that I should eat something soon. The sun is shining. While going for a walk, I call Maxi and I am happy to hear her voice: Do you have a few minutes? – No, I’m actually

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In Remembrance of Musaab Sadeq Khadeel Al-Tuwaijari

Seven Spices

* We are sitting on a balcony, bursting with laughter, yet trying not to make a sound. I wipe the tears out of the corner of my eye and desperately gasp for air. The suppressed laughter gurgles too loudly in my throat. Again and again during this night a quite decisive PSSST! comes from the neighboring rooms. With time, fatigue lets our words drop more softly but not any less frequently into the night. We can hear the cows move

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Obituary: Musaab Sadeq Khadeel Al-Tuwaijari

Musaab Al-Tuwaijari died after he was attacked with a knife at the Red Cross center in Saarbrücken, where he worked as a psychologist and counselor. We would like to use our blog »Seduce! – Strategies Against Brutalization« to give everyone the opportunity to remember Musaab – as a friend, as a writer, as the special person that he was, and as a psychologist who offered his help and support to others. Through his writing and his actions, Musaab made us

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Seduce #10

A Diffracted Gentleness?

A Diffracted Gentleness, An Agential Mutation, A Plurality of Worlds: A Thought Performance You can feel the breath now lingering behind your ear, and so I ask you to read, to imagine yourself being read this, to hear it in a whisper, to hear the whisper of this text – to feel it on your neck or your back, the breath…   1. We have to start from the acknowledgment of a plurality of worlds, or worldviews, of worldly and

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Seduce #9

THE MOTHER OF
ALL CHOCOLATE CAKES

»I was sitting at the table. We had finished dinner. We’re now having dessert. And we had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’re ever seen. […]. And I was given the message from the generals that the ships are locked and loaded. What do you do? And we made a determination to do. So the missiles were on the way.« – 12 April 2017, FOX News   »I’m a man of beauty. I love beauty. Beauty. Great

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Seduce #8

» You’re not doing as bad as…«

Two years ago I stumbled over the following text: »You know how 1st world feminists get told that they don’t need feminism? They’re told that they should be glad they’re not »really oppressed« like the women in 3rd world countries. That things could always be worse. You know what my mother tells me? She says I don’t need feminism because I should be glad I’m born in an urban city of Pakistan. She says, at least I wasn’t born in

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Seduce #7

tools of force in the language of power

1. a language of confusion is a language of infiltration we recognize the words, sometimes even how they are arranged but neither sense nor communication is the goal a language of confusion is a ›non-lethal‹ language imperial power brands its own vocabularies in which to speak its non-hate hate more open discrimination extreme vetting all lives matter alternative facts alternative right these words come to confuse disrupt incite/sudden/rage/ distract terrorize scatter create more words shot, cross-fired into public spaces –

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Seduce #6

monsterlesen

* »in the world you will have tribulation« (john 16.33) * »it is the principle that does not fail, even when all other principles fail.«(niklas luhmann: ecological communication) * »he built a trap as his burrow. he set himself inside it, passed it off as a normal burrow.«(hannah arendt on heidegger: essays in understanding 1950-1973) * »Angstloch (fear hole)! please enter slowly!« (anonymous) i saw it sitting on the coatrack as i left the kitchen: a round, white being. i got

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Seduce #5

Seduced!

Read text in German. And yet another evening that the right wing populists could claim as their own, without even being there, without even having to be there. As soon as the word was dropped, everyone launched themselves at it – even though this should have been about something else. About a world out of tune and how to play on it. The answers to that: pushed aside, or put up against the wall? It’s as if we love to

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Seduce #4

Battling Images

Read text in German. We think in images. Thinking would be impossible without mental images. Without mental images there would be no memory. As writers we paint with language, no matter if our words are written for the stage, film or simply to exist inside our reader’s mind. Images, in turn, create feelings, emotions. Emotions move us. If the movement they create is strong enough, we act upon it. Yet, most of the time, these externally created emotions fizzle out

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Seduce #3

I’m breaking my word.

Read text in German. The intellect of these times yells: »Listen, you fools!« The feelings of these times batter and bellow: »Fear!« All dialogue stumbles and falls when the argument is nothing but an unintelligible feeling, when the argument is nothing but unfelt intellectual reasoning. But there you are, like a paradox: you most powerful semantic singularity: You, Fear. Where are Love and Desire and Comfort and Grief? Besides you, Fear? Fear, you stolen, raped, emotional word. You popularized and

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Seduce #2

Wiping History the Grin Off Its Face

Read text in German. In the linguistic understanding of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, one’s specific approach to the world, to reality, is determined by the use of a language. In short: language defines the way we think. »Good books are written in a kind of foreign language.« Marcel Proust In spite of its futuristic, almost extra-terrestrial appearance, the presence of this. Thing. Had nothing strikingly invasive or aggressive to it. On the contrary, it existed in a kind of tranquillity that

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Seduce! #1

Seduce! – Strategies Against Brutalization

Read text in German. Generated by right wing populist factions, an authoritarian language is being spoken. A language that delegitimizes, that goes and lowers down to face a degraded opponent. A language that cuts – cuts off and cuts out everything: people, thoughts, perspectives. And forces everyone through the lens that it cut out for them, turning a blind eye, the fist raised in the face of anyone who inordinately glances back. We know it as the language in the

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