The Agency
MATER DOLOROSA BLEED EINE IMMERSIVE TÖCHTERSCHULE

  • Performance

We are the makers of one another. And we could learn collectively to act like it. It is those truths that I wish to call real surrogacy, full surrogacy. Sophie Lewis

In “Mater Dolorosa Bleed”, The Agency and their ensemble deal with the myths of pregnancy and introduce a counter-figure: the surrogate.

The history of the Mater Dolorosa Girls School goes back to the 19th century: A disciplinary institution in which young women were trained into the roles of unpaid reproduction workers and wives assigned to them in the capitalist division of labor.

For several decades, however, the Mater Dolorosa has served the M_others as a place of refuge: Apart from the nuclear family, the “violators of the parenting norm” are born here, form a queer-feminist DIY underground clinic, a witches’ association and exchange practices and knowledge around pregnancies, abortions, herbal birth control, and self-examinations.This fragile ecosystem suddenly threatens to spiral out of control when one of the M_others comes up with a plan to transform the Mater Dolorosa into a surrogacy cooperative.

The audience is invited to visit the Mater Dolorosa as a novice where they will come into personal contact with the M_others, learn and share knowledge in small groups, observe their rituals and have the choice to join them – M_others of all genders unite!

 

With Susanne Sachsse, Brandy Butler, Yara Bou Nassar, Challenge Gumbodete, Nile Koetting, Jakob Leo Stark, Belle Santos, Sofie Luckhardt, Yana Thönnes, Alma Ehrenbaum. Artistic Direction: Belle Santos, Yana Thönnes, Sofie Luckhardt – THE AGENCY. Dramaturgy: Tine Milz. Sound design: Nile Koetting. Assistance in artistic research and conception: Magdalena Emmerig, Rahel Spöhrer. Artistic Production Management: Sofie Luckhardt. Assistant Director: Kenza Nessaf / Veronika Müller-Hauszer. Directing internship: Nina Vedova. Stage and costume assistant: Lea Niedermeier, Jana Brändle

Featuring terms, quotes and inspirations from Silvia Federici, Alexis Pauline Gumbs, Audre Lourde, Sophie Lewis, Amrita Pande, WITCH, dipetsa, Deirdre Cooper Owens, Leslie Jamison, Mathilde Cohen and Warsan Shire.

As part of  SCHWANGER WERDEN KÖNNEN

 

In Kooperation mit den Stadtbüchereien Düsseldorf. Eine Koproduktion des Theater Neumarkt, FFT Düsseldorf und donaufestival Krems.

Mater Dolorosa Bleed ist eine Produktion von THE AGENCY mit dem Theater Neumarkt, koproduziert vom FFT Düsseldorf und donaufestival Krems. Gefördert im Rahmen des Bündnisses internationaler Produktionshäuser von der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien.