Wanaset Yodit

Yodit Akbalat and Abir Omer fled from Sudan to find refuge in Germany. In “Wanaset Yodit” the two friends welcome the audience to a coffee ritual. With humour and sensitivity, they share laughter, tears and stories about searching for endings and beginnings, about home and racism – all from a female perspective.

The stage is Abir and Yodit’s living room, the audience sits comfortably on cushions and listen to the two women’s stories and songs – just as the Egyptian director Laila Soliman listened to them both with fascination when they were involved in another production in 2019 and encountered the self-organised activist group “My Body Belongs to Me”, which campaigns against female genital mutilation. To generate attention for their cause, she devised a piece of musical documentary theatre together with Ruud Gielens and seven of the women. In their regular coffee breaks during rehearsals, she got to know Abir Omer and Yodit Akbalat and decided to create a more intimate evening with the two of them that would give them space to share their story.