A performance as an introduction to an exhibition – this was the starting point of my work Übersee-Zungen: a staged reading based on Yoko Tawada’s novel The Bath, developed in the context of the exhibition Cool Japan at the Übersee-Museum Bremen.

In her novel, Yoko Tawada describes life between two cultures – a constant oscillation between arrival and observation within everyday life in Germany. While engaging with the exhibition, in which my own culture was staged for a German audience, I recognized this very sense of in-betweenness that Tawada captures so precisely in her writing.

My performance translated this condition into a theatrical form: a continuous movement between Eastern and Western cultures, between familiarity and estrangement. The labyrinthine exhibition spaces further intensified the motif of searching and losing one’s way.

The actress Gina Haller, the dancer Marie-Laure Fiaux, and the musicians Jinok Lee (violin) and Dieter Weische (shakuhachi) guided the audience through a world of ukiyo-e imagery, karaoke, and cosplay – accompanied by the poetic texts of Yoko Tawada.