Audio & video documentation of the walking tour

Played at Frankfurt’s main cemetery in front of a tree with hanging photographs.

Deep memory of their grandparent’s house, the recurring leak in the ceiling, the repairing of the leak, the transformation of the house through time, and as the economic means allowed. The old window in the new house, grandma’s baking of the minute bread. A juxtaposition of tree and house, both with roots, losing leaves, and growing new ones as an act of resilience and of putting memories into place.

Text authorship and voice: Debo Seabra
Text dramaturgy: Felipe dos Santos

Drifting homes

Played at Frankfurt’s main cemetery.

“There is the memory as stone and the memory as water,” says Bergie as he guides us through the memories of his parents’ beach house in Croatia, which they bought upon returning to their homeland after political exile. Within this apartment lies the memory of building a cupboard with a loved one and the dreams of a future they once shared. He then takes us through the steep geography of the Cape Town suburb where he grew up, and its only flat road—the place where he forged a lifelong bond with his best friend and his other, South African, father. This passage reaffirms belonging through solid memories, objects, and bonds, yet it also carries an undercurrent of anticipation: the fear of oblivion, of memories slipping away, of losing touch with people and places.

Text authorship and voice: Bergie
Text dramaturgy: Felipe dos Santos

Played and performed in Holzhausenpark by the water fountain.

These tracks were originally played before the audience’s live encounter with Bergie, where he teaches them how to tie sailing knots, as he weaves patches from his life story- from in hometown in South Africa to his life as a migrant in Germany.

Thread #1: Longing for silence and an exercise of dépaysement
Bergie spends most of his day outdoors in the city recycling plastic bottles. He walks us through the different soundscapes that he experiences throughout the day and evokes the mind games he uses to make himself feel closer to home from other latitudes.

Thread #2: Lemmings
Bergie narrates his encounters with other homeless people, critically reflecting on what he calls “Germany’s greatest disease.” He also reveals his unique perspective on what it means to be a superhero.


Thread #3: This is an additional track that didn’t make it to the walk. In it, with a thorough description of the vegetation, this Cape Town native approximates a small park in Frankfurt am Main to Company Gardens in Cape Town.

Text authorship, voice, and live performance: Bergie
Text and performance dramaturgy: Diana De Fex

Played on the U-bahn/railroad.

This passage weaves the voices of (post)migrants reflecting on migration, travel, love, urban environments, underground passageways, writing, editing, and reading.

Dramaturgy and edition: Bárbara Galego
Text authorship and voices: Bergie, Khabeer Singh, Sol Crespo, Walter Castillo, Diana De Fex
Singing voice: Sol Crespo
Song (text and music): Fernando Brant and Milton Nascimento

The time of childhood and our ancestors

This track is played at the mausoleum of Frankfurt’s Main Cemetery.

An old photograph is retrieved from frozen time and brought back to life through Debo’s childhood memories and their vivid recollection of the room where the photo was taken, as they helped their father shave their grandfather’s beard.

Text and Voice authorship: Debo Seabra
Text dramaturgy: Felipe dos Santos and Diana De Fex

Audio-track: A doll speaks from the display of a doll clinic, guiding listeners to her dwelling. As the audience stands before the doll clinic, Dajana’s voice transports us to Bosnia during the Balkans War. We hear about her family’s journey into exile and their narrow escape from death. At the time, she was just a five-year-old child, traveling with her baby doll—a companion she credits with saving their lives.

The video below contains Dajana’s audio narrative, juxtaposed with images that emerged during the creation process.

Text authorship and voice: Dajana Kubat (main) and Barbara Gálego (supporting, in audio-track only)
Text dramaturgy and video editing: Bárbara Galego

Sol engages with memories of her grandmother’s dementia, reflecting on how she herself still exists as a singing, playing child within her grandmother’s cycles of remembering and forgetting.

Concept, text authorship, speaking and singing voice: Sol Crespo
Performance: Sol Crespo
Text dramaturgy and video editing: Olga Popova

A voiced journey through a gallery of family photographs and the road where childhood friendships were forged—a road that witnessed a community of neighbors, friends, family, and elders supporting one another to survive apartheid.

Resilience

Minute Bread

A Drop Hollows Out a Stone

Sailing Threads

Movement perception

Žužulina

Abuela (grandma)

Letter to Grandpa

Walking in his current Frankfurt neighborhood of Bornheim, Walter invites the public to imagine it as Buenos Aires and Morón, the working-class town on the outskirts of Buenos Aires where he grew up. He shares how singing has traversed and transformed his life, from the lullabies his mother used to sing him to sleep, and his first unsuccessful attempts at singing as a child, to his journey of learning to sing and becoming an opera singer in Argentina, and later in Europe. Walter also shares his vision of a world without borders in which we are all simply human -brothers and sisters without nationalities- and his experience of how singing got him through German migration authorities, who initially didn’t want to let him in as they “couldn’t believe” that he was indeed an opera singer.

Text authorship and performance: Walter Castillo
Performance dramaturgy: Olga Popova

From Morón to Frankfurt: Bridging worlds through singing

On the way
Two tracks with text authorship and voice by: Khabeer Singh
Text dramaturgy: Felipe dos Santos
Played at Frankfurt's main cemetery.

The Black Tarred Road

Sweet

Delving deeper into “The Black Tarred Road,” Khabeer paints vivid memories of growing up in a Muslim neighborhood of Cape Town. He reflects on his dual connections to India, the land of his ancestors, and (apartheid) South Africa, his homeland. He recalls the constant floods that disproportionately affected communities of color, yet also brought the sweetest fruits and brightest flowers the following season. This passage unfolds like a heartfelt letter of gratitude, read aloud to his teachers and elders, as he reflects on the lessons learned while walking those streets.

(an immersive sound experience)

In Frankfurt’s main cemetery, the architecture of a war memorial becomes a resonant chamber for Olga and Sol. They invite the public to don blindfolds as they sing, share stories, and experiment with sound-making using various materials.

By and with: Olga Popova and Sol Crespo

Memory sounds

Image gallery of the creation process

Winged Resilience

This marks Khabeer’s first-ever filmmaking experience, accompanied by an audio track in which he reflects on the process and the ideas driving his film.

In the track, Khabeer contemplates how birds adapt to diverse environments during migration, even to hostile urban landscapes. Through his film, he also wonders why some birds choose to stay in one place when they have the freedom to fly anywhere. As a migrant who grew up in apartheid South Africa, he asks: “What does it take to spread one’s wings and soar, to be confortable in a new home, to feel like one is allowed to be, to sense that you belong, and spread your wings?

Concept, and editing: Khabeer Singh
With the support of  Arnab, Luis Tutalcha, Tracey Parsons, and Agni.
Dramaturgical and technical advice: Felipe dos Santos and Olga Popova