Mainly in English, partly in German and Spanish

An intimate documentary performance - for fourteen guests around a huge table - about a gay couple, travelling through its family histories, to write its own story. Getting in touch with ancestors who can only be, who they want to be, when they are not at the place where they believe they would belong to.

The audience is welcomed to their place at the table where photos, maps, documents and a song book are scattered and mate tea is being served. With their documentary performance “On the first night we looked at maps – Los Alemanes del Volga” the Argentinean-German artist couple Federico & Wenzel Vöcks de Schwindt invite their audience on both a historical and biographical journey.

Following the Volga Germans who emigrated in the 18th century, it traces their passage from the German region of Hesse to Russia, and a hundred years later as they continued their path to the Americas. The performers confront themselves with fragments of past migration and the contradictions of family identity in an always shifting narrative of a couple searching for a queer heritage – and for a homeland that perhaps never existed.

Trailer of the pre-corona version of the piece:

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