Glow in the Dark is an audio story made in the context of the black lives matter movement. We follow Mourad who, because of his suboptimal love-life and the lack of representation in movies, lets his imagination run loose in a cinema with an overactive air conditioning system. His thinkings bring him to conclusions, but are they the right ones? A story about dignity, love, racism and police brutality. Four questions to Mourad Baaiz How did you come up with Glow in the Dark? The text didn’t come so easily to me, because in the beginning I wasn'’ inspired to write something about the Black Lives Matter movement. It is a really important movement, don’t get me wrong. But I didn’t know what to make about it. We got the chance at the theatre to make something ourselves, but I thought that the whole subject was too political and too intense for me to write something about. But then something shifted and I was like: ok, this is a challenge. Let’s try to find a solution and make something anyways! Could I write something about this topic? And how can I make it work for myself, that it’s not just a struggle, but also something I liked writing about. Then I went to a movie where the main characters were white and where I saw transitionshots of the city with skyscrapers and with sunsets and sunrises. Then I thought: what if in one of those skyscrapers a black protagonist would live. And what if we would zoom in on him and his life, and forget the movie with the white characters. That’s how Glow in the Dark started. Who are the protagonists of your text? The audiopiece unfolds on several levels. On the first level you have Mourad who is watching a movie. But that movie transforms on a second level into different other movies where we follow Phillips Keita and Brenda Tabotasa. We also follow two other people: the lady in Red and Daniel. Also Jack Montero plays a big role in this part. Most of my characters are people of colour, and there are also some characters that are gay. I think it is really important to tell stories about people who are not only white, male, straight, ... How is it for you to read your own text? I really like it. I liked it that the whole thing was my own project and that I could make every decision myself. From the text, to the music, to how I read it. Of course I got help and feedback from people like Koen Tachelet, Anne Rietmeijer, Brian Windelinckx, Angela Obst, and others, to whom I’m really grateful. It is nice to read my own text, because I can change things if I like it, if the rhythm is off, or if a sentence is actually too long, then I just change the text. It makes the whole thing also personal. It is the right choice for this story because I play at an autobiographical level, and the movies that the protagonist see, are projections of his imaginations, so it fits that he would read all the characters. Is there something else you want to share with the listeners? Not really, I think it is good to listen to the whole thing as a whole, because it’s one story. But if you do it while sporting, doing the dishes, or cooking. It’s all good. It could also be something to hear with a group of people, like you would watch a movie. That could actually be great.

englisch.