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.This project is part of round 2 of the International Coproduction Fund, year 2016-2017.