Is this a human?

An Afrofuturistic STREET/RITUAL/OPERA-PERFORMANCE about the Future of the Human in the Anthropocene
Njara Rasolomanana / Battle 4 Peace Festival (Madagascar), kainkollekitv Mirjam Schmuck / Fabian Lettow (Germany), Cie Zora Snake (Cameroon), Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, Mülheim / Kampnagel, Hamburg / FFT, Düsseldorf / tak, Berlin (Germany)

The project “Is This A Human?” refers to the black manifestos of Afrofuturistic visions as a response to the alienating experiences of slavery and colonialism and their aftermath since the 16th Century. However, the performance ritual that we develop in a group of dancers, performers, singers and other artists from Madagascar, Cameroon, Congo, Canada, Germany and Poland is not a reenactment of past visions or historical facts. It is supposed to open up a (personal) space between the shared movements of a street dance ritual and the alien songs of a space opera. It shall give space to a contemporary (artistic) experience of the present which is stuck between the (post-)colonial heritage of the past and its future consequences right ahead of us in what today is called the new age of the Anthropocene. What, in the near future, will this concept have been: A HUMAN (BEING)? And who will WE have been after all?

Credits:
kainkollektiv (Germany), Compagnie Zora Snake (Festival MODAPERF Kamerun) & Njara Rasolomanana (Festival BATTLE FOR PEACE – AMBONY AMBANY Madagaskar) a Coproduction of Ringlokschuppen Ruhr, FFT Düsseldorf, tak Berlin and Kampnagel Hamburg. Supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation TURN – Fund for Artistic Cooperation, durch das

Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, NRW Art Foundation, International Coproductionsfund of the Goethe Instituts as well as Goethe Institut in Kamerun, Goethe Centre in Madagaskar and NRW KULTURsekretariat.