Rafi Martin & Julika Mayer (FR/DE)

Standing firm, persevering, enduring, creating and taking up space. Rafi Martin locates these actions in the realm of martial arts and the clash of bodies. The piece traces his experiences in the Berlin boxing club Boxgirls, a club with a queer and anti-racist focus. A trio is created between Rafi Martin’s balancing body, Joachim Fleischer’s pulsating light spaces and Méryll Ampe’s driving sound composition, orchestrated by Julika Mayer.
We are immersed in a mental, physical and symbolic space. It mirrors body states and mental re-conditioning that martial arts practice entails. A ceremony of shifting weight states and weightings. A ritual of transformation. A ritual of body experience.

Rafi Martin studied Figurentheater at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Stuttgart. Under the working title “Blocken und Schlagen” (To Block and To Hit) Rafi Martin, Julika Mayer and Joachim Fleischer gave an insight into the development of the piece at the international figuren.theater.festival 2021 via livestream from the Erlangen Experimentiertheater, the final version as “The ceremony of weight” premiered in February 2022.