ANO / ANO VON DAHOM

“ANO”

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“ANO” is the first part of the “Someone From Home” series and sees Silke Grabinger, together with Hungarian dancer Gergely Dudas, grapple with the social fabric, the history, and the culture of the Danube Swabians and trace their roots.

This performance and research project concerning the culture of the Danube Swabians is split into several parts and anchored in an open/informal and participative framework. The project was conceived in a performative-documentary style and addresses the history and popular culture of the Danube Swabians in the form of a performance. At the same time, Silke Grabinger, whose ancestors had to flee their home of the Banat after the Second World War, investigates her family history. The aim is to involve visitors in the entire project and to facilitate a new interpretation of the popular culture(s) concerned. However, it is also crucial that the social fabric and historical conditions in which this popular culture was embedded and how it is reflected in society today is understood. Dance performances were sites of exchange and therefore played an important role in communal life. In this project, the performances will become places where people engage with history and historical narratives, with a particular eye on minorities. During the Second World War, German-speaking inhabitants of the Banat were, to some extent, involved in the crimes of the Nazi regime. At the end of the war, the Danube Swabians were expelled en masse and, once again, became strangers in refugee camps in Austria and Germany. Locations of historical significance are artistically integrated into the piece. This project is to be implemented on a European level together with Serbia, Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria. “ANO” is a critical and modern examination of the conflict-ridden history
of the Danube Swabians.

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„ANO von Dahom“ (one from home)

ANO is a film performance and research project on the culture of the Danube Swabians (German speaking settlements along the lower regions of the Danube). The project will take place in an open/informal and participative frame. The project is a performative and documentary engagement with the social fabric, history and folk culture of the Danube Swabians, in the form of interviews, dance evenings and performances that constitute a contemporary artistic engagement with the traditional forms of movement. At the same time it is an investigation into the family history and identity of the artist who herself descends from refugees who fled the Banat region. The aim is to incorporate the local population and to open a possible reading of the traditional culture. Traditional forms of movement will be passed on, learned and understood due to the creation of a space of learning and exchange with witnesses of the displacement after WWII. It is at least as important to create an understanding of the social texture and the historical conditions that this culture was embedded in and to reflect it in relation to contemporary society. The dance evenings functioned as a place of exchange and were central to the social fabric. In this project they become a place of possible minoritarian narratives. Concomitantly the witnesses of the displacement will be interviewed and filmed. After the forced displacement during and after WWII, during which the Danube Swabians played a dark role in the holocaust of the Jewish people, the German speaking inhabitants of the Banat regions found themselves as foreigners in refugee camps in Germany and Austria. Places of historical importance will be researched and will in part be places where the project will be realised. ANO is a critical and current engagement with the conflictive history of the „returned“ Danube Swabians.

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