BALD︎︎︎

Mariah Stuart - Heads will roll
   
THEATER DER JUNGEN WELT LEIPZIG
Premiere 30. Oktober 2024


Vier Piloten (von Till Wiebel)
   
SCHAUSPIELHAUS BOCHUM
Premiere 20. Dezember 2024


Faust: Der Tragödie nächster Fail
   
THEATER KONSTANZ
Premiere 21. März 2025


Kontakt ︎︎︎ julimahidcarly(at)gmail.com

VITA


Juli (alle Pronomen) wurde 1997 in Baunatal geboren. Dann in Göttingen Deutsch und Geschichte, in Ludwigsburg Regie studiert, in Rom versucht Italienisch zu lernen, in Mumbai erfolglose Karriere als Bollywoodstar hingeschmissen. Julis Arbeiten waren und sind am Schauspiel Stuttgart, Volkstheater München, Theater Konstanz, dem Schauspielhaus Bochum und bei unterschiedlichen Festivals zu sehen.



Popkultur, Biografien und den ständigen menschlichen Drang, gesehen zu werden, verwende ich als Ausgangsmaterial für postkoloniale und queere Erzählungen, Immersionen und Grenzüberschreitungen, die keine Angst davor haben, trashy und flamboyant zu sein. Ich schreibe Texte, führe Regie, performe, gebe Workshops und kollaboriere mit unterschiedlichen professionellen und nicht-professionellen Künstler:innen

EDUCATION

   seit 2023
Promotion an der UDK Berlin // Kunsthochschule Kassel

    2017-2022
Akademie für Darstellende Kunst Baden-Württemberg, Ludwigsburg
Theaterregie (künstlerischer Abschluss)

    2019
Austauschsemester am Film Institute of India, Pune
Documentary Film Making Class

    2018
Austauschsemester an der Filmakadmie, Ludwigsburg
Produktion, Dokumentarfilm und Montage

    2015-2018
Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen
Deutsche Philologie und Geschichte (BA)



PREISE, STIPENDIEN, JURYARBEIT


    2024
- Stipendium der Kunstiftung Baden-Württemberg
- Nominiet für den Retzhofer Dramapreis in der Kategorie Junges Publikum
- Jury für das Stipendium für Nachwuchkünstler*innen der Stadt Kassel

    2023
- Spaltmaße-Literaturstipendium der Jürgen Ponto Stiftung
- Stipendium für junge Dramatik der Berliner Senatsverwaltung
- Jury für den Vielfalter Literaturpreis

    2022
- Förderpreis WORTMELDUNGEN für kritische Kurztexte
- Residenzstipendium des FONDS Darstellende Künste für einen Forschungsaufenthalt am Theater Rampe in      Stuttgart

    2021-2022
- Stipendium des Dramatiker*innenfonds des Berliner Ensemble

    2021
- Kataklyse-Stipendium für Künstler*innen der Stadt Stuttgart
- Ausstellungstipendiat des Literaturmuseums Marbach
- Flausen+ Forschungsresidenz am Theater Vrede Oldenburg

    2020
- Preis als bester Film für WEISSABGLEICH beim Bundesfestival Junger Film, Rostock
- Einladung zum Körber Studio Junge Regie am Thalia Theater, Hamburg

    2019
- Osnabrücker Dramatiker*innenpreis für VERBINDUNGSFEHLER

    2018-2022
- Stipendiat der Künstler*innenförderung der Studienstiftung des dt. Volkes

    2015-2018
- Stipendiat der Studienstiftung des dt. Volkes


REGIEARBEITEN, URAUFFÜHRUNGEN, AUSSTELLUNGEN


   
2023
A Sweet Escape,
Volkstheater München (Text, Regie)
Kabale+Liebe,
Theater Konstanz (Text, Regie)
Juli Monsun: Comeback Again,
OUTNOW!-Festival Bremen (Konzept, Performance)
anti.aging.apfel,
Theater Drachengasse (Text, Regie)
Gap Year,
Stellwerk Weimar (Künstlerische Co-Leitung)



    2022
Fata Morgana,
Volkstheater München (Regie, Text)
We ate that up,
Theater unterm Dach Berlin (Performance, Konzept)
Tere mere beech mein,
Diskurs-Festival Gießen (Regie, Performance)
Kliffhänger,
Junges Nationaltheater Mannheim (Text)
Turing-Test,
Studio Lev Kassel (Künstlerische Leitung)


    2021
Fehlt Ihnen Schiller?,
Schillernationalmuseum Marbach (Gruppenaustellung)
Juli Monsun:
Back from Bollywood, Sprungturm-Festival Darmstadt (Konzept, Performance)
Mermaid Cut,
Schauspiel Stuttgart (Regie, Text)
Verbindungsfehler,
Theater Osnabrück (Text)
Mono.log,
Theater Vrede Oldenburg (Konzept, Performance)


    2020
Festival Junger Film FISH,
Rostock (Screening, Artist Talk)
räuber.bachelor.paradie,
Körber-Studio Junge Regie Thalia Theater Hamburg (Regie, Text)


    2019
Juli Monsun: Orakel von Lichterfelde,
Artlake Festival (Performance)
Kein Wolf kein Schafpelz,
Studio Naxos Frankfurt und HR-Hörspiel (Text)
   
    2018
Bund auf Zeit,
Wilhemburg Ulm (Rauminstallation, Performance)

    2016
Stereotopia,
Studio Lev Kassel in der Unteren Königsstraße 14 (Rauminstallation, Performance)

TEACHING EXPERIENCE AND WORKSHOPS

     2024
Leiter des Theaterprogramms am Middlebury College, Vermont (German Summer School)

    WiSe 2022-SoSe 2023
Künstlerischer Mitarbeiter an der Kunsthochschule Kassel in der Klasse für Mehrdimensionale Strategien
   
    2022-2023
Trainer und Workshopleiter für die Deutsche Unesco-Komission und den Frewilligendienst KULTURWEIT 

     2021
“transethnic identies and racial stereotypes in german film”, Seminar am Film Institute of India, Pune
“Performancebegriff und Identitätspolitiken”, Seminar an der PH Ludiwgsburg
Queer dekolonisieren, Queercademy Berlin (JGW)

    2018
Political Drags, Workshop für die Kulturakademie der Studienstiftung des dt. Volkes

    2015-2017
Tutor für Germanistische Linguistik, Mediävistik und Neuere Deutsche Literaturwissenschaft an der uni Göttingen

    2015-2016
Lehrer für Deutsch als Fremdsprache (Bildungsvereinigung: Arbeit und Leben Niedersachsen)



WHITE BALANCE


Experimental documentary video essay
(German with English subtitles, 17 min. at catalogue of AG Kurzfilm)





Protagonist Julian tries to fit in in an extreme way.
Being German, being beautiful, bleaching creams. He confronts other people with his desire to become white: His mother is shocked, but doesn't really take the whole thing seriously. A right-wing extremist activist talks a lot but says very little. A plastic surgeon thinks he can "help" Julian on his way by laser treatment. But is skin lightening really a cure for Julian's problems?

Conzept, Production, Directing: Julian Mahid Carly
Montage: Maxie Borchert
DOP: Markus Ott
Sound, Music: Dominik Kröhnert, Dominik Matzka

Screenings
Hofer Filmtage (2019)
Film Institute of India Pune (2019)
Kalkutta Doc Festival (2020)
Sehsüchte Potsdam (2020)
Bundesfestival Junger Film St. Ingbert (2020)
Furore Festival (2020)
Coronale Ludwigsburg (2020)
Theater Rampe (2020)
FISH-Filmfestival (2022)


Main Prize: Bundesfestival Junger Film, Rostock (2020)







HÄNSEL&GRETEL: A SWEET ESCAPE


Queer Fairytale Performance



Dinner with the family. Gretel can't manage to eat anything except for her fingernails, while Hansel can't get enough. Since his thyroid cannot compensate for binge eating in the long run, but he absolutely does not want to gain weight, he demands a firm hand from his parents. Because the brats' consumption behavior also does not align well with the local inflation, the mother is forced into the role of the evil stepmother, and the well-known fairy tale can unfold. Hansel and Gretel are abandoned in the forest and can't find their way back. But suddenly, the bitterly cold darkness gives way to a seductive landscape of cream with a mysterious magical lady as the topping. With her, there are not only plenty of cakes but also the antidote on top: an elixir that satisfies the annoying hunger and helps with nail-biting. Hansel and Gretel desperately need the recipe.


Text, Concept: Juli Mahid Carly
Costumes: Hanna Rode
Stage: Nathalie Schatz
Music: Andreas Niegl
Dramaturgy: Bastian Boß, Leon Frisch
Design Assistance: Lasse Fischer
Photos: Gabriele Neeb
On Stage: Anne Stein, Lukas Darnstädt, Max Poerting, Julian Gutmann, Henriette Nagel




KABALE+LIEBE


Museal RomCom // Weimarer Klassik at Spiegelhalle Konstanz




"The lemonade is as flat as your soul," Ferdinand says to Luise. Of course, that's understandable when there was no carbonation in the 18th century. But nowadays, with carbonation available, there's no reason it can't fizz nicely in the stomach. And in the soul.

So, it's high time to take a new look at the gossip mill, the intrigues, and the grand love between Luise and Ferdinand. In the bourgeois tragedy "Intrigue and Love," premiered in 1784, Friedrich Schiller transcended social boundaries with his characters: Ferdinand, son of the courtly President von Walter, and Luise, daughter of the town musician Miller, love each other and want to build a life together. However, parents, jealous rivals, and the prevailing social order of the time stand in their way. In typical Schiller fashion, coerced, swapped, and fabricated letters circulate among the characters, driving the emotional carousel to the extreme. A plot that could inspire telenovelas.



Text, Concept: Juli Mahid Carly
Costumes+Stage: Sonja Hoyler
Dramaturgy: Sabrina Toyen
Assistance: Marleen Seiter
On stage: Sara Siri Lee König, Jasper Diedrichsen, Anne Rhode, Odo Jergitsch


I. JULI MONSUN: Back from Bollywood

Biografic-Autophagic Pop-Performance






In July the rain. Three feature film offers in Bombay. I could have stayed there. They really wanted me to continue.
But the summer is long gone, the the gates of heaven over India can soon no longer hold what will come crashing down on you in Europe.
It must come out, everything must come out, back on stage!
Then the lights flicker and it booms out of the boxes:
Postcolonial
vorm Süßwarenregal!

LINK TO VIDEO RECORDING

Text, Conzept, Performance, Raum, Kostüm: Julian Mahid Carly
Backgrounddancers: Sara Adina Scheer, Luna Deina, Julian Moritz
Producer: Maxie Borchert

Festivals
100Pro-Festival Ringlokschuppen (2020)
Sprungturmfestival Darmstadt (2021)
Bipoc-Festival Kassel (2022)
United Queer Festvial Berlin (2022)



II: JULI MONSUN: Orakel von Lichterfelde

Immersive Installation with Oracle


Nocturnal spirit conjurings, reading the future from the hands and cards but what if the personal destiny becomes political, if the private vision
matures into a social utopia. With utopian social games, obscure background stories and sound-induced trance-like states, Juli Monsun as a medium tries the balancing act between esoteric blabla and an actual dialogue about individual and global wishes and dreams.


A work from Amanda Lasker-Berlin, Sara Adina Scheer und Julian Mahid Carly (alias ROKOKOKOMPLEX)

Festivals
Artlake Festival (2019)
WHOLE Festival (2021)
Kultursommer Kassel (2021)




III. JULI MONSUN: Toxic, Exotic

(Digital) Exhibition, Galerie Oberwelt Stuttgart, Live Performance on Zoom.








Derweil in den Mangroven,

Ich tue jetzt nicht mehr so, als könnte ich eine andere Perspektive einnehmen.
Ich mache es transparent. Ich weiß, dass das unsexy ist. Genauso unsexy, wie Flüsse, Seen und Meere die über ihre Ufer treten.
Ich bin meine Tante in Bangladesch, in Burkina oder Belize. Ich hab geheiratet und fünf Kinder. Dir ein Video geschickt von der Hochzeit.
Dass du dir immer in der Weihnachtszeit anschaust. Mein Mann ist der Bürgermeister von Munjigang. 2 Millionen ungefähr. Und mein Mann dealt mit Drogen.
Und mein Mann besticht die Justiz. Und wir setzten die schärferen Gesetze zur Arbeitssicherheit in Kleiderfabriken oder zur chemischen Verunreinigung der Flüsse nicht um, wir boykottieren sie sogar, weil die Subsidärfirmen von H&M uns bestechen. Ich selbst leite so eine Fabrik. Das hat dir dein Vater teilweise erzählt.
Das hast du teilweise dir selbst ergooglet. Du fragst dich, ob wir in Bangladesch auch eine Hautfarbe haben, oder in Burkina, oder in Belize und die Antwort ist ja.
Wir gehören hier zu den hellen. Den Reichen. Den Schönen.
Du bist neidisch darauf.
Dass du einem Schönheitsideal irgendwo auf der Welt tatsächlich entsprechen könntest, das nimmt dir Trauma und gibt deiner Existenz Tragik.
Im Gegensatz zu mir weißt du, dass mein Heimatort wahrscheinlich innerhalb der nächsten 25 Jahre unter Wasser stehen wird.
Ich werde darauf nicht vorbereitet sein, ich werde es langsam bemerken, aber weil ich Macht habe, werde ich mir keine Sorgen machen und einfach mein Haus immer höher bauen. Ich werde auf Leichen wohnen, ich wohne schon auf Leichen.
Du wohnst auch auf Leichen, aber bei dir wirkt das weniger rücksichtslos, weil ich und meine Familie die Drecksarbeit hier in der Subalterne verrichten, die deinen Wohlstand garantiert.
Das macht dich traurig.
Das kann ich nicht verstehen.
Das wird immer zwischen uns stehen.
Denn ich bin so stolz darauf, dass ich Geld verdiene, stolz auf meine Villa, in der Sklaven arbeiten, stolz auf meine Fabrik, in der Nähte aufplatzen und Kinder verbrennen und stolz auf dich, die ich nicht kenne, dass du im fernen Westen unter einem Mangobaum im Gewächshaus sitzen kannst und kreative Texte schreibst, die sicher mal irgendwann im Fernsehen von irgendeiner sehr talentierten Schauspielerin gesprochen werden, oder so.



Coming from somewehere, that always hurts so much, I heard my grandma say as a child. In this digital zoom performance Juli Monsun shows different works of her artistic creation to interested visitors, comments on them and partly reenacts them live. All while she forgets why she is where she is, why she is sitting in front of a small camera somewhere in Stuttgart, although she should be a big star somewhere in India. And how can it be that the best pop song of all times is based on a sample from her favorite Bollywood movie and she didn't suspect that for 24 years.

A work from Julian Mahid Carly

Granted by the Kataklyse-Stipendium of Stadt Stuttgart

räuber.bachelor.paradise

Immersive Pathosperformance freely adapted from Friedrich Schiller, @whyniels und Ulrich Seidl




SINGLE-BACHELOR-PARADISE-PARTY, sponsored by Saeculum-Dating-App #bringyourprivilege. Franz Moor's struggle against the physiognomic conditions of his involuntary celibacy makes him cross the boundaries of good dancefloor taste. His brother Karl and his loyal student friend Schweitzer give up their promising careers as influencers because of unfortunate algorithmic "conjunctures", turning into merciless social justice warriors. And what does the (in)transparent Amalia von Edelreich have to do with all the "desires"? 

LINK TO VIDEO RECORDING


Text, Conzept, Performance: Julian Mahid Carly
Performance: Sara Adina Scheer,  Marcel Jaqueline Gisdol, Katharina Kurschat, Eva Schön
Szenography und Costume Design: Sonja Hoyler
Dramaturgie: Marvin Neidhardt


Eingeladen zum Körber Studio Jungen Regie 2020 ans Thalia Theater Hamburg LINK



Fehlt dir Schiller

Digital Group Exhibition at Schillernationalmuseum Marbach


Schiller characters made with the Sims avatar editor that rebel against their depiction convention while still trying to keep the kitsch and essence from their original character drawing.

Appropriation of Schiller's Antirttsvorlesung in Weimar, which critically refers to his ethnology, but tries to imitate his linguistic gesture. In addition, the text reflects the strange context in which it is itself exhibited.


The group exhibition ran from May to July 2021, and the special thing about it was that the different artists could also comment on the works and refer to each other with their works. 

LINK TO EXHIBITION






BUND AUF ZEIT

Immersive room installation in the vaults of the Wilhemsburg Ulm, with video and soundscape

We make a temporary covenant and vow to experience the fortress.
Together with the visitors, we explore the history of the fortress, ask ourselves which alliances can stand the test of time and how much cohesion is necessary. At the communal banquet table, we will explore why alliance always means exclusion and how much spirituality an alliance can bear.

The Wilhelmsburg has experienced a changeable use. As a military facility where many young soldiers lived for centuries, but also as a camp of Nazi forced labor for the Telefunken company, which manufactured televisions and audio equipment. Finally, refugees and displaced persons lived there after the World War and again in 2015-2016. Now the empty castle is being repurposed as an art and cultural space. 


Conzept and Installation: Amanda Lasker-Berlin, Sar Adina Scheer, Julian Mahid Carly
Video and Audio: Julian Mahid Carly
Performance: Amanda Lasker-Berlin, Sar Adina Scheer, Julian Mahid Carly, Marcel Jaqueline Gisdol, Stella Hanheide

















METAMOPRHOSIS

Zoomperformance with Lockdown-Teasers.

A family in the heart of Germany, in their apartment, on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Squatting on top of each other and chronically irritated, the Samsas find themselves in crisis - with different coping strategies. Father Samsa is beside himself, Mother Samsa at the stove. So far, so stereotypical. While daughter Grete digs into Reclam notebooks for her German A-levels, a big secret is made about son and sole breadwinner Gregor. Because the money shortage is more real than anything else, the big fundraising gala is now imminent. The Samsa family asks for evening dress.


For eight weeks at the beginning of the first Lockdown, the artists dealt with Kafka's Metamorphosis and looked for an artistic exaggeration for their isolation.


Concept, Staging, Scenography: Julian Mahid Carly
Video and Audio: Julian Mahid Carly
Performance: Dominik Tippelt, Joao Kreth d`Oray, Jannik Süselbeck, Luzia Oppermann
Dramaturgy: Lena Meyerhoff

ADK Baden-Württemberg
2020












PARTIZIPATION




QUEER DEKOLONISIEREN (WORKSHOP)

How do colonialism and orientalism shape the ideas and norms of body, sexuality, gender and national identity? On the basis of
examples such as #BlackLivesMatter, gay and lesbian tourism labels, discriminatory
tourism seals, discriminatory legislation in former European colonies, homonationalism
pinkwashing, racism on dating apps as well as positions from postcolonial studies, we will investigate
how queer activism can become more intersectional and how our society could deal with its colonial heritage from a queer perspective.

We will engage with the central ideas of Edward Said, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Achille Mbembe; and apply them to our own everyday life in Germany. Where do we ourselves reproduce colonial structures? How do we describe travel to other countries? Especially in relation to progress in terms of freedom rights. In a next step,we will reflect on the role of the queer emancipation movement within postmodern cultural and social sciences. 

Queercademy Berlin (Für junge queere Erwachsene in den ersten Semestern ihres Studiums)
Akademie Waldschlösschen Göttingen (Angebot für angehende Lehrer*innen)
Arbeit und Leben Niedersachen (Sensibilitätstraining für Mitarbeiter*innen)
Pädagogische Hochschule Ludwigsburg (Blocksmeinar)
Studio Lev Kassel (Coach the Coaches)





PAUSE! NOW POSE (WORKSHOP)


Movement research on cultural appropriation.  Participants are encouraged to make movements together that are now considered problematic by some. Together, the group asks how can a movement, a gesture, a rhythm be understood as racist appropriation and what can be done about it?
In doing so, the group develops a utopian mini-performance with movements and sounds that they mark as their own and mutually acknowledge each other's up-cycling. 

Studio Lev Kassel







ME:FRAGMENTA (COMMUNITY STORYTELLING)


World-building workshop in which techniques of creative collective work are explored together with a changing group working on a storyworld. Writing exercises, musical jam sessions, and dance improvisations are combined with questions about the society represented, the aesthetics, and the feel of the newly built world.

Studio Lev Kassel




#dugehörstaufdiebühne (THEATRE PROJECT)


Theater empowerment workshop that explicitly addresses young people who so far have had little conscious contact with art and culture and leads to a common exchange in an extremely heterogeneous group through playing, rehearsing and performing together about life-worldly, political and utopian concerns. 
In addition to and getting to know each other, we visit different theater performances in Kassel, Germany. And we have follow-up discussions with professionals. Finally, there is an intensive final week with a joint final presentation.





REVIEWS,
TEXTS ABOUT MY WORK




TERE MERE BEECH MEIN, I DONT KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS


(Wortmeldungen Award for critical short texts)


“Juli Mahid Carly writes about the impossibility of an organic perspective from the Western diaspora on the "homeland" Bangladesh and one's own existence in between. In an aesthetically sophisticated sampling of orientalist clichés, pop-cultural references, and insightful observations, 'Tere Mere Beech Mein'—I have no idea what that means—reveals colonial dependencies and ambiguities within a transnational family network, sentence by sentence.” (Jury statement)

LINK


KABALE+LIEBE


“It is also a piece about how one could view Schiller today. Suddenly, a huge pearl necklace is unpacked that could have belonged to Schiller's mother and might be looted art, acquired from slaves during the colonial era. Schiller's life is excavated on stage because men of Schiller's status at that time were by no means disdainful of "conquests" with girls who could not refuse.

And there really was a Luise in his life as a "young love" who had to enter a convent in disgrace when her relationship with the poet was revealed. On the other side, the poet laid his fingers on the double standard of the society in which he lived. There's no question that in this play, the layers between the original and Juli Mahid Carly's adaptation change so swiftly that one could watch the play several times to gain a new perspective each time.”

(Oliver Fiedler, Singener Wochenblatt)



A SWEET ESCAPE



“Under the title "Hansel & Gretel: A Sweet Escape," escapism meets a variety of tangible problems: child poverty, eating disorders, diabetes, homo- and transphobia. Carly throws everything into a wild ride through the Grimm fairy-tale world. Because in addition to the usual suspects, there is also room for Rapunzel, the wolf (who will later reveal himself as Jacob Grimm in wolf's clothing), and Bernd das Brot.

The fact that this star of children's television is not from Grimm? Completely irrelevant. Here, things are wildly associated and connected that don't actually belong together. Carly is far from making pedagogical moralizing theater; this is about a genuinely painful kind of fun.”

(Anne Fritsch, Nachtkritik)



ANTI.AGING.APFEL


“The brilliant CEO Ilona Masc of Masc for Mascara and her assistant Shamini Shamhaar-Schmidtke save the planet with their latest invention for eternal rejuvenation, which turns out to be a microwave, or rather a time machine. The project convinces with iconic pop culture references and a lot of makeup. As confirmation, there is thunderous applause after the all-too-short 20 minutes. The spectacle was more than refined and dripped with gender-fluid fun. Solely because of this piece, I would seriously consider taking on the stolen future again.”

(Lara Kastler, Subtext AT)



FATA MORGANA



"All this is not real
One would never have thought that this funny song by the relentless EAV would one day be honored in the theater, and then also in a production by young people who were not even born when the song appeared. Now, however, the performance is called "Fata Morgana", just like the sounding madness of that time. From this alone one can gauge that the evening itself is so. Insane. And fast-paced, except for a few places where it stands still.
Julian Mahid Carly wrote and directed the text himself, the first time at the small Bühne 3 of Volkstheater München. There it is in exactly the right place, because one has to imagine "Fata Morgana" best as a flash of inspiration, elaborately but somehow implemented as if in the moment, which does not want to have anything general. And lets four people play, sing, rave unleashed.

Everything can be bought, everything can be foisted on people.

It's about influencers who move to Dubai or other places in the Gulf, earn a lot of money there, for which they pay very little tax, in return for which they have to keep quiet about all the abuses that prevail there. Once there, however, Stormy and Toni, two influencers who find themselves in adventurous thought loops, encounter a strange institution called precisely Fata Morgana, which is a kind of cloning lab for super-designed, influential manifestations on the Internet. Fata Morgana, that is. Not real.
Everything is snappy, colorful, funny. Luise Deborah Daberkow plays Stormy as an overwrought condensate of all kinds of influencers and their foibles; she is a theatrical force, unsparing and accurate. Ruth Bohsung, whose Toni is repeatedly tormented by intellectual impulses, does the same, Maral Keshavarz and Lorenz Hochhuth are plenty crazy, but also very friendly rulers in the human laboratory. Everything can be bought, everything can be foisted on people. At the end there is the immediate product: You. With that, you can finally advertise everything."


(Egbert Tholl, Süddeutsche Zeitung)



MERMAID CUT



"Julian Mahid Carly's Mermaid Cut picks up on the current social debate about
gender, body roles and body images and takes them to extremes in an intelligent
and entertaining way. His staging is eloquent and witty, surprisingly different and: very musical. (...) The male or female body, according to the conviction of the director Julian Mahid Carly, determines our existence, our everyday life. Carly's concern therefore: The complete deconstruction of body images."

(Cordelia Marsch, SWR)

"And yet everything was supposed to be so beautiful: The little mermaid
with her prince, and then she is lying on the floor of his fish restaurant, wrapped in plastic film on the floor  and is stared at from all sides. A sweating, human-sized sushi roll, which suddenly no longer wants to fit into the image of the lovely princess. Ashamed by the disgusted looks, the prince finally buckles and, instead of helping her he courts someone else. Doesn't sound very fairy tale, does it?

Well, it's not supposed to. "Mermaid Cut," which premiered last Tuesday at the Nord
is based on Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tale "The Little Mermaid".
But Julian Mahid Carly's play skilfully takes the material apart, confronts it with itself and then embeds the components in a thought experiment: What if theLittle Mermaid was not the image of the femininity to be worshipped, but - God forbid - trans?

Gender inflates
The production combines its queer protagonist with an underwater
society of absolute tolerance. The kingdom of the sea king becomes
a world that abolishes the binary gender system, has made self-acceptance its motto, and has proclaimed the end of constricting role models. The result: people who, in their
utopia, hosting wild balls, recording TikToks, and constantly getting tangled up political discussions. The fact that the community simultaneously grows and suffers from this self-created discourse space is beautifully staged on stage: The
gender - manifested in the form of a huge, dark-green plastic film
- inflates during the scenes, sometimes enveloping the characters on stage,
makes them stumble again or offers them a hiding place.

Freed from the fin
All of this, in all its shrill exaggeratedness, often has something pleasantly irritating. "Mermaid Cut" provokes moments of getting out of sync,
in which the audience is jolted out of its comfortable everyday truths. What would really be, for example, if there were no more attributions from the outside? In some places this works works particularly well. For example, when the evil sea witch Ursula - here a dubious underwater beauty doctor - frees the mermaid from her fish fin and catapults her into the ideal of beauty of the land society, this is a perfect performance, both in terms of acting and scenery. Linguistically the play also benefits enormously from its self-deprecating pop culture references:
Disney's "Arielle the Mermaid" makes an appearance, as do Judith Butler and Netflix's "Queer Eye" series. All of this is realized on stage so quickly
and rhythmically  that an energy is created that is easily sustained hour and a half. In this story, too, the little mermaid loses for the love of the
Prince, both her fin and her voice. Only a happy end the romance does not have. And how could it, when the fairy-tale wedding is the symbol
of everything that "Mermaid Cut" wants to question? Instead, the production succeeds in something else: the telling of a queer character who is to be taken seriously, queer character."

(Sabine Fischer, Stuttgarter Zeitung)


VERBINDUNGSFEHLER


"Julian Mahid Carly, the young author of Verbindungsfehler, is well versed in the latest chat fads - and in racist and sexist agitation. He writes in a youthful, casual, fast-paced language that illuminates the depths of real emotional distress. He's mastered the art of making seemingly flippant blather turn into genuine despair. To do so, he effortlessly commands a sea of metaphors and poetic imagery."

(Christine Adam, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung)

"In the text, AYALI, TAO and KAYA know all the discourses, correct phrases and
hashtags of the time. Nothing remains unspoken between them. They flirt,
debate, and shamelessly and obsessively discuss everything, even if they do not get any closer to themselves. In between, again and again surreal (if it were not so  so brutally real and present): A child with his mother drowning off the coast of southern Italy. You avoid here any naturalism and any kitsch by depicting the child not childlike, but almost poetically in a "high stage tone". Precisely in the style of a contemporary identitarian then again the hate language of the "patriot" 
The play is as realistic and safe as it can be in a world between digital and analog.
Carly negotiates the great discourses of our time in the meta-level and makes amazing arcs down to Seehofer's belly button. The opulent first work is colloquial, then again lyrical, then elliptically internet-speak or awkwardly like an amateur moderator.
We hear the language of self-absorbed tutorials in the
backfire of users or that of intimate conversations and confessions."

(Oliver Bukowski, Author)


WEISSABGLEICH


"The film thrives on interesting actors and optical contrasts: while some colorful, whimsical interludes are shown in a kind of "colonialism peep show" in which Carly presents himself to his viewers in a soaring pose, the scenes in which he gets advice and changes are kept deliberately sober. The content of the film, the desire of skin bleaching becomes a personal concern that can affect the viewers emotionally. For this, Carly uses his different antagonists, his mother, as a good-natured but not understanding representation, the right-wing extremist identitarian as the evil worst and the plastic surgeon, as the capitalist who makes money with racism. The film constantly calls for identification and demarcation, and does so with a variety of forms and speed that seems thoroughly overwhelming, but also extremely funny and sensually plausible."

(Johannes Koch, Ludwigsburger Kreiszeitung)

A SWEET ESCAPE AT VOLKSTHEATER MUNICH (28.12/ 20./21. 1.)︎APRIL: KABALE+LIEBE AT SPIEGELHALLE KONSTANZ ︎WE ATE THAT UP / FREIBAD AT THEATER UNTERM DACH BERLIN