Special Events
Street Art Corner

The BIGSAS festival of African and African-diasporic festival (25th -27th June 2018) will feature a 
Street Art Corner opposite of Markgräfliches Opernhaus starting at 15:30 each day. Musicians like Mr. Reed & Friends and the Sweet Peanuts will give a vibrant performance. The theme of space will be translated into music as it transcends notion of closure and opens up to improvisations with elements of jazz, blues and soul. The idea of an open space complements the theme of the festival in as much as pedestrians are welcomed to stop and engage in the musical event by listening and dancing. 
Spoken Word Night

On 25th June 2018 the BIGSAS Festival of African and African-diasporic Literatures will feature a 
Spoken Word Night. Blesz (Netherlands), Zainabu Jallo (Nigeria) & Batsirai Chigama (Zimbabwe) will perform on space, feminism and resistance. They will be in direct conversation with the audience as the poet’s declamations generate response and activation. An open mic welcomes further contributions like from Brady Blackburn. The night will be concluded by DJ BLESZ and his electronic music set.
Blumen für Othello

The 7th BIGSAS Festival of African and African Diasporic Literatures (25.6.-27.6.2018)
is dedicated to the topic of „space and resistance“, while emphasis is put on feminism, Nelson Mandela (on the occasion of his 100th birthday), street music as well as the NSU mord-series. The evening of the 26th June will be devoted to the latter issue. The awarded German Jewish author Esther Dischereit and performer İpek İpekçoğlu will be reading from Dischereit’s book Blumen für Othello. Über die Verbrechen von Jena. Dischereit was present at the public trial concerning the NSU killings as well as respective parliamentary hearings. Resulting from this experience a moving piece of literary history in two languages was propounded, in German and (translated into) Turkish by Saliha Yeniyol. This text encompasses different genres like poetry, dirges, libretto, reports and drama to give voice to the victims (10 people murdered between 2000-2007) and to aesthetically question the structures that deferred or stopped the investigations and that under the continued existence of the supervision from the “Verfassungsschutz” and the police it wasn’t possible for the authorities to stop the murder spree and that the perpetrators escaped law and justice from 1998 until 2011. Also it remains to be suspected that the network of the murderers might still be active. 

On 26th June 2018 Esther Dischereit (author and speaker) and İpek İpekçoğlu (speaker and sound) will perform Blumen für Otello. Über die Verbrechen von Jena in German, Turkish and English. After the performance, Susan Arndt will converse with the artists. In the center of attention in this conversatuion are the debates that are held by society and media about the background and the correlations since the NSU murder spree was brought to light and the question why Esther Dischereit refers to Otello in her work.

26. 06.2018, 19.30 Uhr / Iwalewahaus
Esther Dischereit: Blumen für Otello. Über die Verbrechen von Jena (German text published by Verlag Secession, Berlin / Zürich, 2014).

After a short break, İpek İpekçoğlu aka DJ İpek, who is well-known as DJ İpek from Marseilles to Baghdad, from Istanbul to Tel Aviv, will fascinate and invite to dance to her beautiful unique hybrid compositions.


ESTHER DISCHEREIT lives in Berlin. She has published fiction and poetry, and writes for radio and the stage. Dischereit has received many prizes for her work, including the Erich Fried Prize in 2009. She was Professor of Language Arts at the University of the Applied Arts in Vienna, Max Kade German Writer in Residence at the University of Wisconsin in Madison in 2013 and Visiting Max Kade Professor at the University of Virginia in 2017. 

Ipek Ipekcioglu is a queer-living DJ, producer and curator, based between Berlin and Instanbul. İpek İpekçioğlu has an established reputation across nightlife scenes worldwide. She has performed her music at the Glastonburry, Fusion, Sziget, At.tension, Berlin Festival and many more international electronic and world music festivals. Ipek has been creating a buzz amongst international crowds from New York City to the desert Sahara of Mali, developing an exclusive brand name with her unique & hybrid Soundmix and she regarded is one of the most popular DJ of the Berlin club scene and internationally as known as Queen of Eklektik BerlinIstan.
DJ İpek İpekçioğlu

“When Ipek plays people listen, they dance, they scream, they want more. That goes for Berlin, that goes for Stockholm and that goes for New York. At the moment she’s waiting for gigs in Hong Kong and Tokyo, then all the dance floors of this world will be hers.” (Magazine Sylvia, Stockholm, SE)

She is one of the most hottest DJ’s of the Berlin club scene and as internationally known Queen of “Eklektik Berlinistan” not in vain titeled as the "MC of cross-cultural understanding" (Daniel Bax - TAZ).

Based between Berlin and Istanbul, queer-living DJ, producer and curator, DJ İpek İpekçioğlu has an established reputation across nightlife scenes worldwide. She focuses on contemporary, everyday socio-political issues and transports those issues into her music. Ipek has a strong political agenda related to womyn, immigrant and queer and gender issues. In all musical events she has curated and participated in, she maintains a principle of cultural – gender diversity and pushing boundaries within the ethnic and electronic music scene for over a decade. 

She has performed her music at the Glastonburry, Fusion, Sziget, At. tension, Berlin Festival and many more international electronic and world music festivals. Ipek has been creating a buzz amongst international crowds from New York City, Tokyo, Beirut, Erbil, Yerevan, Istanbul, Montreal, Novosibirsk to the desert Sahara of Mali, developing an exclusive brand name with her unique & hybrid Soundmix and she regarded is one of the most popular DJ of the Berlin club scene and internationally as known as Queen of Eklektik BerlinIstan. 

In her musical spectrum, psychedelic turkish funk meets disco, balkanfolk to minimal, Anatolian folk to deep house, Armenian halay to electro, turkish tango to break beat, bhangra to moombahton, kurdish gowend drmn’s Bass, from dabke to reaggaton, albanian folk to twerk, iranian bandari to techno. Her EthnikFolkElektronikMix is free of conventionality, and it refuses to be limited by style, tempo or genres. 

Her „Eklektik BerlinIstan“ sets provide surprising breaks to the steady course of club music today. Inspired by her passion for ethnic music and genre-hopping dance beats, Ipek spins tunes from Turkey, Middle East, Anatolia (Mesopotamia) and Balkans. 

At her „electronic only ’’ sets, Ipek takes you into deep-house, tech-house, minimal and techno spiced up with ethnic - folk tunes, fuelled by kicking beats and dramatic basslines.and she creates live-remixes. 

This vibrant mix has earned her a place as “one of Berlin’s most important cultural contributors” [Zitty Magazine]. She proudly carries the title of "MC of cross-cultural understanding" (Daniel Bax - TAZ).

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Children's Workshop

As the this year's theme of the festival concentrates on spaces, we offer a Children's Workshop incorporating tape art. There, kids from Bayreuth and the region are invited to form and hand craft their conceptions of space with the help of different materials such as paint and tape. The event will take place on 27th June 2018 (16:00 – 18:00) in front of the Markgräfliches Opernhaus. Children will have produced an art work in cooperation with each other, giving them the possibility to create both individually and in-group.  
Open Air Concert

The BIGSAS Festival of African and African-diasporic Literatures will feature  an Open Air Concert in the city center (Maximilianstr.) on 26th June 2018, starting at 18:30 and running until 22:30. Musicians like Mr. Reed & Friends and the Sweet Peanuts will give a vibrant performance. 

Mr. Reed has performed on the many great stages of New York City and around the world. Mr. Reed represents a new era of the social media connected diasporic African-artist. He is a writer, drummer, djele/griot, vocalist, blues man, soul singer, rapper, Poet and master of words. He has built much of his following through unique viral social media campaigns and community -based projects that have involved him performing in public spaces all around the world. It was his fans who began to post his videos to their facebook and youtube pages that caused Mr. Reed's work to become viral. Some of these videos have taken place in Paris, France; Amsterdam, Netherlands, South Africa and soon Ghana, West Africa. Mr. Reed's performances in public space such as on the subway platforms, of New York City have served as an effective marketing tool to gain attention for Mr. Reed's unique, spoken and sung work. 

Mr. Reed has been a featured performer at multiple African-diasporic themed events, at such venues as New York City's famed Metropolitan Museum of Art, La Mama Experimental Theatre, CultureHub NYC, The Asia Society and Gettysburg, Virginia's, Gettysburg College, as well as at BIGSAS-Festival 2016 with Dj Spooky. 

Mr. Reed has also acted in, written original music, lyrics, score, and co-written treatments for commercials for major brands. Mr. Reed has collaborated with the likes of DJ Spooky; along with reputable House labels such as Have A Killer Time (HAKT Recordings Justin Miller, Brooklyn), Compost (Munich, Germany), Gueropa Records (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Touch of Class Records (NY) along with a number of other independent labels in the U.S., France, and Denmark. His music is an extension of African and African diasporic expression in the genres of jazz, soul, rock,funk, blues, hip-hop, hi-life, hip-life, afrobeat, and world music. 

Mr. Reed brings the Recession Free Music Tour to Bayreuth, Germany. On on 24th June 2018, he will close out of the BIGSAS Festival of African and African-Diasporic Literatures. The tour, starting from May 2018 and lasting to December 2018 will cross from North America to Africa and Europe with more dates to be added soon. 

Howard Stern, viewed by many as the most famed radio personality in the United States, spoke glowingly about Mr. Reed's performances on America's Got Talent, saying, "I think Mr. Reed is a huge star...my hat is off to you, when you open your mouth and sing, it is absolutely beautiful."

Mr. Reed can be found on all social media as @MrReedEnt

Social Media Links
You can also stream samples of his music here
Music


Sweet Peanuts and Friends is an international musical collective formed in Berlin. Their music is formed by authentic blend of american jazz, blues, soul, and roots music, all bringing echoes of howling old souls fresh to your front steps. Regularly featuring special guests from different corners of the world, Sweet Peanuts and Friends are guaranteed to bring a smile to your ears. Their memorable performances include Yorckschlösschen, Bar Tausend, Urban Spree, Tech Open Air Festival Berlin, Cafe Cinema, and Heimathafen Neukölln, to name but a few. 
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