Katrin & Geralf Pochop: Tanz auf dem Vulkan. Widerständige Punk-Frauen in der DDR

In the organizer's words:

In a mix of narrative, reading and image spots, Katrin, a protagonist of the GDR punk scene, together with Annette Benjamin, the former singer of HANS-A-PLAST and the author Geralf Pochop, presents a piece of GDR history that has hardly been dealt with so far, which Nancy, one of the 23 protagonists who have their say in the book, describes as follows: "Being a punk was a provocation in itself. But to walk around like that as a girl was probably a double breach of taboo, something like a sacrilege in the GDR's understanding of real socialism."

The protagonists:
Katrin, born in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1970, organized punk concerts and parties with friends in rooms of the Protestant church. She moved to Erfurt in the mid-1980s. When Katrin became pregnant, the Stasi threatened to take her baby away after the birth and lock her up. She then fled to West Germany.

Annette Benjamin, along with Nina Hagen as the singer of the band HANS-A-PLAST, was unknowingly the most important influencer of most GDR punk women. Both wrote a foreword for the book.

The author:
Geralf Pochop, born in Halle (Saale) in 1964, came into conflict with state power as a squatter, East German punk and conscientious objector. In 1983, he was arrested for the first time during an attempt to form a human chain between the Soviet and US embassies and transferred to the Stasi's "Red Ox" detention center. He was arrested again in 1987 and sentenced to 6 months in prison in a fictitious trial. In 1989, he was expelled to West Germany as part of the Stasi actions "Symbol 89" and "Nelke 89". Since his rehabilitation and recognition as a political prisoner of the GDR, he has been working intensively on the GDR past. He is the author of the autobiographical books "Untergrund war Strategie. Punk in der DDR: Zwischen Rebellion und Repression" and "Zwischen Aufbruch und Randale. Der wilde Osten in den Wirren der Nachwendezeit" and "Tanz auf dem Vulkan. Resistant Punk Women in the GDR". He has also been making music with the quirky fun punk project GLEICHLAUFSCHWANKUNG for almost 30 years and created the scene hits "Punx understand no fun" and "Skindergärtnerin", among others.
www.untergrund-war-strategie.de
www.facebook.com/PunkinderDDR/
Supported with funds from the Federal Foundation for the Reappraisal of the SED Dictatorship

Free admission!
Please register by e-mail to gastro@bollwerk107.de.