Jua Kali

Jared Onyango (Kenya), Lea Pischke (Germany)

The interdisciplinary dance project "JUA KALI" draws its inspiration from pedestrian walk in public spaces and the understanding of walking in contemporary dance.

It uses the act of daily walking of both the citizens of Nairobi and Berlin as a case in point and puts its focus on their individual perception of the city. Central themes in this project are: mobility, the impact of history on human behaviour, people’s appropriation of a cityscape.

Both cities of Nairobi and Berlin with their particular histories and cultures are ideal places to achieve rich experiences by comparing and contrasting their citizens' movements and perception in public space. We are interested in how the act of walking differs between these two cities, how these differences are articulated, how the respective city-specific, political circumstances influence this typical human activity, and which possibilities exist to transpose a pedestrian's experience - including those to avoid the walking altogether into a joint Kenyan-German artistic space.

The project feeds from a variety of aspects which all contribute to the artistic process in equal amounts: different cultures and languages, personal stories, historical facts. Jua Kali as the Kenyan method of creative re-use, representing an inventive reaction to the daily burden of having to walk to work, will serve as our guideline in terms of the project's aesthetics and realisation methods.

The international cooperation's team consists of the Kenyan choreographer Jared Onyango, the German choreographer Lea Pischke as well as of the dancers Jack Bryton (KE) and Vera Piechulla (DE). Over the course of eight weeks comprising a one month's stay of all project participants in Nairobi and Berlin respectively, a dance piece together with a video installation will be conceived and performed at the Goethe-Institut Nairobi and the theatre tak Theater Aufbau Kreuzberg, Berlin, with additional performance dates at the theatre Barnes Crossing in Cologne, Germany and Huipalas Foundation, LandMark - Kariobangi, Nairobi, Kenya.