Mark Požlep first performed Blueprint for Revolution in New York 2017, when he made a circular navigation around the island of Manhattan in a canoe. One of the main goals of this project was to explore human reconciliation through conflicting notions of freedom. By the physical act of sailing, he activated ideas of fantasy, discovery, conquest, and survival by confronting the island’s overwhelming capitalist system. In this performance, he aims to bring nuance to relationships with history, the current political state of affairs, and social complexities of the island, based on the conversations he has had with descendants of the Native inhabitants of Manhattan.

Mark began his American adventure with Winnetou, a fictional hero devised by Karl May. Through May's books and films, produced mainly in Germany and Yugoslavia, Winnetou became a symbol of an indigenous tribe for entire generations that grew up behind the Iron curtain. It was an image of a tribe that never really existed. What is the reality of colonized indigenous populations in North America? What have they endured so that the white American myth of freedom, which only really exists for the select few, could be built? How are they resisting the rule of Capital today, when their land is no longer being plundered by railways but by pipelines? And what is our role, for those of us who grew up with a nostalgic vision of a 'noble savage' without really establishing a critical distance towards the colonial context of the United States and Karl May's writing?

With the generous support of HISK and coproduced by Gledališče Glej Theater.