Arda Eşberk
THEATRE & FILM
Daughters of Cybele
17 April 2027 · UfaFabrik Berlin · 8 p.m.
Film screening · €20 / €17
Get Tickets →Drawing on the myth of the Mother Goddess Cybele, this work brings to the stage the lives of eight women from different cultures and geographies.
What they share is not success. Each of them stood at her own threshold — and crossed it. The play is about that threshold.
Eight Women
- Jeanne d'ArcShe defended her voice against everyone.
- Frida KahloShe turned pain into canvas.
- Coco ChanelShe freed women from the corset.
- Manal al-SharifShe took the wheel, went to jail — and the ban fell.
- Rita Levi-MontalciniBanned from her work, she built a lab in her bedroom — and won the Nobel Prize.
- Maya AngelouFor five years she did not speak. Then she became a voice.
- Ruth Bader GinsburgShe changed the law from within.
- Kara FatmaShe went to the front by her own choice.
Ensemble
A significant part of the ensemble is made up of women from different cultural backgrounds who had never stood on a stage before. Over months of work, these women wove the experiences of the historical figures together with their own life stories.
Why this work
Pandemic, migration, war, economic crisis. Every tremor outside finds an echo within — and most of us look for the answer outside.
Daughters of Cybele is a reminder that the place to look is within. Without peace inside, there is no peace outside — not in a home, not in a society.
Ten thousand years ago there was a world with the Mother Goddess at its centre. When that centre shifted, qualities like resilience and courage came to be seen as "masculine" — and it was assumed a woman had to give herself up to possess them. The play reverses that misunderstanding on stage.
The link to the method
The work is built on Joseph Campbell's concept of The Hero's Journey and Carl Jung's analytical psychology. The same source underlies Arda Eşberk's book "Rol Arkadaşım Olur Musun?" (German edition: "Erwecke den Helden in dir") and the CineDrama method.
On stage you watch eight women's journeys. In the programme you work on your own. Two uses of the same map.
The Journey
- 20208 March · UfaFabrik BerlinStage production
- 2022The play was filmed on stage
- 202320 October · Gallus Theater FrankfurtFilm screening
- 20248 March · Yunus Emre Institute BerlinFilm screening
- 202717 April · UfaFabrik BerlinFilm screeningGet Tickets →
Photography: Daniela Incoronato