What happens if you are invited to a supra but soon realize there is something strange going on? But what is it? Everything looks quite normal at first. The tamada is welcoming the guests, women are running around the room setting the table, the guests are taking their seats... but why are the women throwing strange glances at each other? Did they just lock the door? What are they whispering to each other? The tamada is just smiling through all this. When he gets up to speak the first toast, the whole evening turns into a different direction. No one can understand him, only a strange mumble comes out of his mouth, only the 7 women stand at the sides smiling and nodding knowingly. Slowly they are taking over... 

What is the Salon Tbilisi Berlin? 
The Salon Tbilisi Berlin was an interdisciplinary performance project, which took place regularly in Tbilisi and Berlin between 2010 and 2014. 
The motto of this first performances was "meetings and encounters.".\ 
The frame for this interdisciplinary performance project set the Georgian "Supra" with its "Tamada." The 14 female artists took the part of the tamada, entered this a male domain and celebrated their own supra. It was a performance and writing project about female identity, cliches and stereotypes we are facing in our society. It was also laboratory for artists who experiment together across the borders of their counties to see where they meet and where differences lie. 
Every two months the 14 women wrote free, associative texts based on the subjects of the Georgian toasts (such as family, home, peace, women etc). These texts were then translated into the other language and presented during a performance set around a "Supra" in Tbilisi and Berlin. The women took the part of the "Tamada" at the table and presented their own and a text of a women from the other city. This was not just an ordinary supra and reading of the texts, the artists steped into different characters, set amongst the audience and interacted with them. 

Salon Tbilisi Berlin was a performance project by the German actress Mareike Wenzel, in collaboration with female artists from Tbilisi and Berlin. 
The Salon Tbilisi Berlin are: Khatuna Chapichadze, Mariam Gagoshashvili, Eka Ketsbaia, Nino Kharchilava, Tamta Melashvili, Tamuna Qeburia and Natuka Vacadze in Tbilisi 
and: Katja Herrmann, Stefanie de Velasco, Marianne Mühlichen, Friederike Steinert, Eva Schumacher, Anja Wenzel and Mareike Wenzel in Berlin. 
Translations: Tina Gurchiani 

Salon Tbilisi Berlin was supported by: 
GeoAIR 
Women's Fund in Georgia 
European Cultural Foundation/Step Beyond Mobility Fund 
Open society foundation