The First Moment of Marwa El Sherbini, by Noa Gur

An activist video work and performance by Noa Gur, 2019. Performed by Xica Lisboa, Pauline Payen, Daniel Adams, K-ske sugawara, Sebastian Rein, Alexey Trubarov, Irina Demina, Zihern Lee

The piece relates to a hate crime which took place in a German courtroom in 2009: The killing of a young woman, who was murdered with eighteen stab wounds during a trial in which she testified on racist insults directed at her in 2008 by her eventual killer. During the sudden attack, el-Sherbini’s husband pushed himself between the attacker and Marwa to protect her and, as a result, suffered sixteen wounds. He eventually collapsed when a policemen shot his knee, having mistaken him for the killer. These disturbing occurrences pose urgent questions, which remain to a large extent unresolved, as the family’s lawsuit against that Dresden court has been rejected three times.

In this work, the trial that led to the murder is staged through the use of data from police files, and is presented in reverse order in public space.
On the one hand, the piece is an investigation on the questions raised by this incident: namely, how could such a thing occur in the public sphere, in an official building. On the other hand, it is a challenging choreographic task, in which dancers examine the course of events in physical-spatial dimensions while searching for truth. The time axis is reversed and the action is staged backwards to arrive at the beginning of the trial.

Performed on the 1st of July 2019 for the 10 years commemoration in front of teh German Kanzleramt. A10 minutes long performance followed by a short talk by activist prof. Sabine Schiffer.

Performers: Xica Lisboa, Pauline Payen, Daniel Adams, K-ske sugawara, Sebastian Rein, Alexey Trubarov, Irina Demina, Zihern Lee.

Director: Noa Gur

Assistant: Pauline Payen

The project has been supported by Berlin senate research Stipend, Ostrovsky foundation (N.Y, US), Artport Alumni grants and National Lottery Cultural Funds (IL).

Video article Al Jazeera : https://www.facebook.com/aljazeera/videos/334344590844539

Noa Gur : http://www1.khm.de/~gur/