Why is a Taiwanese military reservist so fascinated by Alicia Keys’ chart-topping hit Girl on Fire – a gay anthem he has sung countless times in karaoke bars? As he launches into the song’s climax, he is struck by a disorienting realization: He can no longer place himself in the timeline of his own life when this transformative song was released on September 4, 2012.
A fanatical search through his digital archives unearths fragments of memory and confronts him with a past haunted by violence and destruction. In a live performance that assembles a visual monument entirely from memory, Wang wrestles with the fragility of memory – and the unsettling reality that everything he has preserved could go up in flames in an instant, consumed by forces beyond his control.
Retina Maneuver is co-produced by TATWERK | Performative Forschung (Berlin), Freies Werkstatt Theater (Cologne), and Kaaitheater (Brussels).
The production is supported by Fonds Darstellende Künste with funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, as well as the National Culture and Arts Foundation Taiwan.
Additional support comes from the residency program at PACT Zollverein (Essen), funded by the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The project also receives backing from Mestizo Arts Platform, English Theatre Berlin | International Performing Arts Center, and the 2022 Thinkers’ Partner Project (TP Project), organized by Thinkers’ Studio.
Dates
Premiere: September 10th 2025 | 8 pm
Further shows: September 11th - 13th 2025 | 8 pm
Tickets:
15€ regular | 10€ reduced
20€ supporter | 25€ unicorn
in our Ticketshop
Questions about ticketing & special needs: tickets@tatwerk-berlin.de
An artist talk with producer and researcher Karen Ka Wan Cheung will follow the show on Septemberth 12 at 9 pm in the frame of the Theaterscoutings Program.
Tour dates:
March 14th 2026 | 8 p.m.
March 15th2026 | 6 p.m.
Freies Werkstatt Theater Köln
in the frame of Tipping Points
Work-in progess showings:
June 8th 2025
Fringify Hamburg
February 25th 2025
C.O. Nova, Antwerp (BE)
February 21st and 22nd 2025
KVS Box, Brussels (BE)
presented by both KVS and Kaaitheater
December 6th 2024
RIGHTABOUTNOW FESTIVAL 2024
March 8th 2024
Monty, Antwerpen (BE)
February 19th 2024
Expo Festival: A Showcase of Wahlberliner*innen
English Theatre, Berlin (DE)
October 20th 2023
WIPCOOP
KVS Box, Brussels (BE)
Further information
October 6th 2023
TATWERK | Berlin