“The Future Market and the Current Reality”: Zaimoglu/Senkel’s Black Virgins and Interculturalism in the German Context

Abstract

What happens to the relationship between theatre and interculturalism in a contemporary European country of immigration? How does making “intercultural theatre” differ from making theatre in an “intercultural society”? This chapter explores these questions with reference to the emergence of “postmigrant theatre” in Germany, and particularly Feridun Zaimoglu and Gunter Senkel’s Black Virgins (Schwarze Jungfrauen). This controversial semi-documentary play about Muslim women premiered to great success in 2006 and has since appeared in at least ten further professional productions in Germany alone. Focusing on productions in Bremen, Hannover, and the Ruhr area, I situate this proliferation against a broader background of “interculturalism” in cultural policies within Germany, tracing the way in which intercultural policies have both enabled and demanded the production of new forms of engagement with postmigrant theatre. The title quotation, taken from the play, suggests an awareness of the uneasy positioning of the play’s success between market demands and a more rights-based approach to inclusion and recognition in contemporary Germany. A focus on the dynamics of intercultural policies allows us to unpack this positioning further, and explore what the production histories of Black Virgins have to tell us about interculturalism and performance in the German context and beyond.