Let the shows begin, day 10

This morning was a little different because each group had a scheduled time to meet with Manka, Julie, and Manuela to do a check-in on the progress of our projects. My group had to go to Humboldt at 10:15 am, and we had a brief discussion with our program coordinators on what we had done so far, what we were concerned about, and what we needed help with. Once our group meeting was over, we went to a nearby café that has spotty wifi and attempted to do some work until we had to all meet together again in the classroom at 1:30pm. At 1:30, we had a guest come talk with us about what it is like to be an asylum seeker in Berlin. An asylum seeker is a refugee who has apply for asylum with the German government. While their case is being reviewed and put on trial, the refugees are placed in Lager’s, which are camps located in remote towns, where they must remain until a decision is made. There are many restrictions for asylum seekers living in Lagers which are quite arguably inhumane. Our guest was an asylum seeker himself and he works with part of an organization that does demonstrations and activism to gain more privileges for asylum seekers. Once a decision is made, a refugee is either granted asylum, where they are then allowed to live in Germany, but with lower status and less privileges, or denied asylum and they must leave the country. What I have learned from our classes so far is that it is extremely hard to migrate in Europe, and once you are labeled as a refugee it becomes an immense struggle to regain rights to live a normal life. Refugees that were forced to leave their country of origin in order to seek safety are condemned for trying to live a peaceful, happy life. It doesn’t seem fair that a series of unfortunate events should lead them to a life as a homeless refugee seeking asylum in countries that see them as a burden to society.

After the discussion we went to the Maxim Gorki Theater to meet with Janka Panskus. Janka and an arts and theater student, Pia, led us through a workshop that the theater typically does with younger students after watching a performance in the theater. The first exercise was mostly to get us moving and was like a mix of cat and mouse and musical chairs. Everyone is sitting in chairs except one person who starts across the room from their chair. This person must walk one foot in front of the other to get to their open chair, but the rest of us can prevent them from getting to the chair by sitting in it. However, once you move out of your own chair you leave that chair open for the chair-less person to sit in. It was actually required quite a bit of strategy and quick moving to keep people from getting to the open chair. Then we did a similar game standing in two rows that faced each other. The person walking down the middle of the row of people had to walk back and forth and talk about their day. The people in the rows could not talk and had to communicate with another person using body language to switch places quickly and hope the person walking down the aisle didn’t take the spot that was left open before them.

After warming up, we moved on to the exercises that are actually done in the workshops. The first exercise everyone was broken up into groups of three or four people and given a photo of a completely random person. Each group had to determine the name, age, nationality, marital and familial status, occupation, religion, characteristics, and a common gesture for the person in their photo. Once everyone had completed the profile for their person we shared who we thought our person was with the rest of the class. Throughout our explanation we had to try to justify why we thought the way we did when deciding on what our person’s background was. Once a group had finished presenting their person, the discussion was opened up to the rest of the group to say whether they agreed or disagreed and why. Once all the profiles had been discussed we got to hear the actual background of each person. My group thought our person seemed quiet and serious and thoughtful in her picture and that perhaps she was an actress. As it turns out she is a psychopathic woman who murdered two husbands before being caught and persecuted. The whole point of the exercise was to point out how we project our experiences and knowledge on to other people when we first meet them, and that it is completely normal to do so. In this exercise Janka tries to get the students to see that stereotyping and profiling people is not good, but it is important to have discussions about why we have the stereotypes that we do.

In the next exercise we played Pantomime, which was like the game Telephone, but with acting out a scene instead of whispering a message. Janka performed the original act, which was a common chore, such as doing the laundry or brushing teeth, which one person from the group saw. The next person who was waiting outside the room was allowed to come in and the person who first observed Janka then performed the scene again for the next person. This went on until the last person performed the scene. As you would expect, the first scene and the last scene were very different and much detail was lost between the two acts. It was amazing to observe what kind of detail people would pick up and what things people would leave out. Often people were concerned with doing the right number of steps or repetitions of a movement, when really the number of times something was done was not the important part of the scene. For the group that did the scene that was brushing your teeth, everyone picked up that you were supposed to brush your teeth and spit at one point, but details such as unscrewing the cap and putting toothpaste on the toothbrush were lost. In addition, people often subconsciously included parts of their own teeth brushing routine into the act, like turning off a faucet, or putting the toothbrush back under the imaginary water stream. Janka wanted us to see that our brains work by making broad generalizations and remembering the larger picture instead of the smaller details, and that is similar to how our brain works with stereotyping. We see a person for the first time and make quick judgements in order to categorize a person and determine how to interact with that person.

After we were done at the workshop, Rouja managed to get us the last two tickets for a play called Common Ground that the Gorki theater was doing a production of the next day. After we had traveled back to the hostel Natalie, Mira, Leonie and I got burgers at a Burgermeister, which is not at all like Burgermaster in Seattle. We ate those at the hostel then went out and got a drink at the White Trash Fast Food restraunt down the road, which is owned by an American. We had great conversations with Leonie again and around midnight we decided to head back and get some sleep.