Staged Reading: The Most Unsatisfied Town – A new play by Amy Evans based on the Oury Jalloh Case

On Tuesday, 27 April 2010 at 7:30 PM playwright and performer Amy Evans in cooperation with the Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICI) and AfricAvenir presents the staged reading "The most unsatisfied Town" at |+| ICI Berlin (free entrance). The play is based on the widely mediatised case of Oury Jalloh who burned to death while shackled to the floor of a Dessau jail cell.nThere are three parts to this game. The beginning, where you set up your strategy. The midgame, where you execute the strategy. And the endgame, where anything is possible. The loser may become the victor, and the victor, the loser. The game may end in a draw, or in a crushing defeat. In the endgame we find out what all of our sacrifices, all of our hard work, have truly been worth …

On January 7, 2005, Oury Jalloh, a man who had come to Germany seeking asylum, burned to death while shackled to the floor of a Dessau jail cell. Three years later two police officers were prosecuted on charges of wrongful death and acquitted. Massive protests resulted in an appeal of the verdict, and, five years to the day of Jalloh’s death, the German Federal Court of Justice ruled in favor of re-opening the case against the police. Written in response to these events, The Most Unsatisfied Town highlights the insidious ways that institutionalized racism and asylum policy leave individuals vulnerable to gross human rights violations, and explores tensions between perceived truth and reality, reparation and gratification, triumph and loss, and the personal cost of mobilizing for social justice.nPlaywright and performer Amy Evans seeks through her work to critically examine the impact of displacement, alienation and political violence on the human spirit. She has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, and her work has appeared in several publications, including Velocity: The Best of Apples and Snakes performance poetry anthology (Black Spring Press, 2003); Mythen, Masken, Subjekte: Kritische Weißseinforschung in Deutschland (Unrast, 2005), a multi-disciplinary publication on critical whiteness studies in Germany; and How Long Is Never? (Josef Weinberger, 2007), a collection of short plays written in response to the crisis in Darfur.

Tuesday, 27 April 2010
7:30 PM
In EnglishnICI Berlin
Institute of Cultural Inquiry
Christinenstrasse 18 – 19, Haus 8
D-10119 Berlin
U-Senefelderplatz

photo © Johannes Neumann, Umbruch-Bildarchiv e.V.