textOUR. Lyrische Performances in Deutscher Gebärden- und Lautsprache

In the organizer's words:

For the penultimate textOUR event, ad hoc meets performers from the deaf community. Jon Savkin and Alina Gervers, who write poetry in German Sign Language, and Sara Hauser and Manuel Irmey from the ad hoc poetry collective will create four new texts in response to the web of poetry growing online from reading to reading .

Before the reading, the artists will translate their texts from written to sign language and vice versa in tandems.

All the texts and their translations will be presented on the evening of the reading. The four poets will also share their exchange experiences, discuss the writing of literary texts between different languages and modalities, and reflect together on the meaning and experience of collectivity and care in the deaf community, in the hearing or hearing-dominated world, and in the encounter between the two. The evening will be hosted by deaf performer, actor and sign language artist Eyk Kauly.

The event is bilingual, with simultaneous interpretation from German sign language into spoken language and vice versa.

This project is funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Social Cohesion

Sara Hauser studied Philosophy and International Literatures in Tübingen and Stockholm and lives as a poet and literary mediator in Berlin. Her poems and spoken word texts have appeared in 'Stoff aus Luft' and the 'Jahrbuch der Lyrik', among others. Since 2019, Sara has been designing youth projects and lyrical interventions for multilingual creative writing with an Arabic-German focus. Sara is part of the poetry collective das ad hoc. She has co-curated the reading series textOUR since 2024.

Manuel Irmey (they/them) lives in Berlin. Manuel writes between poetry and spoken word, likes to mix languages (mostly English and German) and has been a member of ad hoc for more than five years and co-curates the reading series textOUR since this year. Texts have been published in parabolis virtualis 2, PS#7, Glitter (and others).

Jon Savkin, born in Munich in 1996, lives in Berlin. Jon Savkin is a sign language poet, dancer and actor. His artistic development began with his collaboration with Kassandra Wedel. In 2023 Jon Savkin took part in Hamlet at the Deutsches Gehörlosen Theater. As a sign language poet, Savkin was involved in "Shut up and Sign Speak" (2022) and "TextKörper-KörperText" (2021), among others.

Eyk Kauly, born 1987 in Dippoldiswalde. He was born deaf and is proficient in German sign language (DGS), German spoken language (LBG) and international sign language (IS). After graduating from high school (2006), Eyk worked in various projects as an actor, performer, poetry translator and sign language artist and various music videos in sign language (music performer).
Eyk Kauly has been the artistic director of the German Theater for the Deaf since 2023.