Basically I don't but actually I do.

What if your best friend’s grandfather murdered your grandmother? This is the question choreographers Jochen Roller and Saar Magal pose in the Australian premiere of Basically I don’t but actually I do., an examination of German-Israeli relationships, and what it means to be grandchildren of both the perpetrators and the victims of the Holocaust. Using a photograph of an SS Soldier shooting a Jewish woman as their starting point, Roller and Magal compile a catalogue of images and situations they have stored within their hearts, minds and bodies, and use movement and spoken word to explore how these ‘phantom memories’ of the Holocaust have shaped their perception of one another: a German man and an Israeli woman, three generations on. Roller and Magal met while studying movement at London’s Laban Centre in 1995. Both felt the impact of their heritage – Roller’s grandfather an SS Officer, Magal’s grandmother an Auschwitz survivor – on their friendship. The constant reminders of the Holocaust they faced on a visit to one another’s hometowns formed an archive of contextual movement that became the basis of Basically I don’t but actually I do. Jochen Roller studied Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen and choreography at the Laban Centre. His work includes the critically acclaimed solo trilogy Perform Performing, mindgarden and JANCLOD! He also worked as curator of the dance program at Hamburg’s Kampnagel from 2007 until 2010. Saar Magal has choreographed for American director Robert Woodruff, the Israeli Beer Sheva Theater, Habima National Theatre and Polish director Krzysztof Warlikowski, with whom she has performed in Berlin, Hannover, Munich, Brussels and Paris. Recent work includes Comeback and Showdown for the Khan Theater in Tel Aviv.