ZAPFENSTREICH

Frankfurt LAB - F•LAB Festival, Frankfurt (DE) 2024 - (The Power Of Posing)
Ballhaus Ost - Berlin (DE) 2024 - (The Power Of Posing)
TOASTER / Husets Teater - Managing Discomfort Festival, Copenhagen (DK) 2024 - (Mother Europe)

Boys* in Sync is focussing on the military in Europe, with two big projects in Denmark and Germany: In 2021, Chancellor Angela Merkel retires from office. She is being honored by a grand military ceremony, broadcasted live. Although the socalled “Zapfenstreich” (tattoo) is a 300-year-old German military tradition, the images of German soldiers marching through the night while holding burning torches disturb both German and international audiences: many associate the show with historical images of the Nazis. Despite the different context, the ceremony sparks a discussion:
How problematic is the portrayal of military power by Germany, 80 years after the horrors of World War II? Or more generally: How should military institutions present themselves as part of a modern democracy today?

“As we know, Germany does not have an untroubled relationship to its army for… historical reasons. So the Zapfenstreich, this ceremony that we are about to see, is not uncontroversial?”

Melinda Crane, Deutsche Welle News

Three years later, the international group Boys* in Sync is looking back at the ceremony. In ZAPFENSTREICH - Mother Europe / The Power Of Posing, they are reflecting on Denmark’s and Germany’s roles in the newly emerged European defense situation. Drawing from the live broadcast by DEUTSCHE WELLE, the Boys* reconstruct the key moments of the ceremony, treating the military movements as choreographies that question masculinity, conformity, and power and eventually blending them with moments of disruption, queerness, and intimacy.

60 min dance performances
with and by Ragni Halle, Jakob Schnack Krog, Simon David Zeller, Jay Tebogo Fiskerstrand & Gregers Hansen
Music: Dragongirl / Niko Ursin
Light design: Christian Vest Berntsen / Frithjof Gawenda
Special thanks to Mie Kristensen and Frankfurt LAB
Promoted by the Fonds Darstellende Künste and the Culture Department of the city of Frankfurt am Main. ZAPFENSTREICH is part of the Boys* in Sync project „Mother Europe“, with support from Statens Kunstfond, FFUK, Grenland Friteater, Fossekleiva Kultursenter and TOASTER/Husets Teater Copenhagen.