CHOMBOTROPE – The Jitta Collective

Nairobi Festival of Performance and Media / Kefa Oiro (Kenya), MOUVOIR / Stephanie Thiersch (Germany) and Tanzhaus NRW (Germany)

In a surreal fashion-concert, the African-European Jitta Collective searches for a sensually subversive take on cultural appropriation, which, for example, manifests itself in the unauthorized adoption of African styles in Western fashion. Stolen traditions are reclaimed, mixed up and interwoven with metropolitan modernity. The performance is inspired by the bricolage of informal handymen in Kenya, called Jua Kali, recombining broken appliances, creating dazzling new hybrids that work at least for a while. The Jitta Collective takes this principle of re- and upcycling to an extreme. Beatboxing, rapping, spoken word, turntablism, dance, and voguing create a mash-up of futurist identities that question strategies of self-empowerment. 

Cast: Marie Zoe (Vogue dancer and choreographer), Alexandra Naudet (Classical dancer and choreographer), Dodo NKishi (Producer and drummer), Nicolaus Baudoux (DJ Elephant Power), Ndeye Seck (Percussionist), Samson Ssenkaaba (Fashion designer and poet), Stephanie Thiersch (Choreographer and multimedia artist), Kefa Oiro (Dancer and choreographer) | In cooperation with freihandelszone – Ensemblenetzwerk Köln, Go Down Arts Center, Nairobi, and Stadtgarten | Funded by Kunststiftung NRW, Nationales Performancenetz (NPN) / Coproduction Fund for Dance, kindly supported by the Federal Government's Commissioner for Culture and the Media, the Ministry for Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the Office for Cultural Activities Cologne | In coproduction with Academy of the Arts of the World Cologne as part of Pluriversale VII and the International Coproduction Fund of the Goethe-Institut