Dorothée Munyaneza
How can we make something resonate that is not there any longer? How can the breath, the lives and the dreams of those, whose very existence was denied and destroyed by the slave trade and the colonial system, be brought into expression? Through words? Through the body? Toi, moi, Tituba… is a ‘collective solo’: A multitude of voices and perspectives converges in one single body. Dorothée Munyaneza dances and sings in their place – for Elsa Dorlin’s Guayan great-great-grandmother, or for Tituba, a Caribbean woman who was persecuted during the Salem witch trials. The music to this comes from oud player and electro producer Khyam Allami. In their interplay, a living archive emerges, a resonant space, to make the traces of the extinguished, the ignored, the forgotten audible, visible, and palpable.
With Toi, moi, Tituba…, Munyaneza references Maryse Condé’s 1986 novel I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem, and philosopher Elsa Dorlin’s 2021 text I, You, We: “I, Tituba” and the Ontology of Traces. She asks: How can I refer to my own history of which no written traces bear witness, apart maybe from a number of ‘historic eliminations’, to use Elsa Dorlin’s expression that describes colonial-era administrative archives? Is it possible to create ancestry, for the duration of the time of a dance? Engage in relations with those history forgot, with our lives, but also with those who are yet bound to be born?
Dorothée Munyaneza is a multidisciplinary artist utilising music, singing, text, and movement in order to understand rupture as a dynamic force. Her artistic work draws from the diversity of her cultural heritage – her extended family in Rwanda, the experiences in London, her move to Paris and her subsequent settling in Marseille –, but most of all from her joy in encounters. In 2013, Munyaneza founded the Kadidi company in Marseille. As a choreographer, she is affiliated with the Théâtre National de Chaillot, the Lyonnaise Maison de la Danse, and the Camargo Foundation in Cassis.
Duration: 60 min.
English, French & Kinyarwanda with German & English Translation.
| Sat 15.02. |
subsequent An Artist Talk(s) with Dorothée Munyaneza moderation: Balindile ka Ngcobo, in English e (for more info see below) |
An Artist Talk(s) with Dorothée Munyaneza
It is in the antiblack world that there is no history of those not remembered, whose past is not made present, and whose past is deemed to have no presence. The black subject’s existence in the antiblack world is not recognised, and this denies blackness any possibility to claim its recognition, thus their past, present and future become a mystery. The absence of history… means ontological absence. Blackness does not exist even in the contemporary as it has no history to be remembered with. (Mpungose, 2016)
The work of Dorothée Munyaneza is deeply political, and deeply invested in understanding and responding to the afterlives of historical violence. In this particular work, Toi, moi, Tituba, Munyaneza delves into epistemic violence – the absence, or erasure, of Black people in general and Black women in particular from the historical/colonial archive. Researcher and artist Balindile ka Ngcobo discusses with Munyaneza how performance, which, in itself is ephemeral – bound to disappear – becomes the method through which Munyaneza brings her own history, the history of Tituba, and perhaps the histories of all Black women out of the margins by creating and piecing together an archive of existence. Questions of memory and remembrance, of the Black female* body as archive, and of ontology are engaged, as well as what considerations exist for radical hope and joy in the midst of it all?
In co-operation with the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group (DFG) Dramaturgies in the Afterlife of violence: transnational Theater between Global South and North at the Ruhr University Bochum: https://dramaturgies-afterlife.de/
Dorothée Munyaneza is a multi-disciplinary artist using music, song, text and movement to deal with rupture as a dynamic force. Munyaneza draws from real stories seizing body, memory and our present time to create a space of resonance. Her artistic research draws from the diversity of her cultural heritage – her extended family in Rwanda, the experience of the 14 years spent in London, her move to Paris followed by her settling in Marseille –, but more so by her appetite for encounters. Dorothée Munyaneza sings since her childhood, trained at the Jonas Foundation in London and studied music and social sciences in Canterbury. She collaborated e.g. with François Verret, Radouan Mriziga, Ko Murobushi and many more. In 2013, Munyaneza founds the Kadidi company.
Balindile ka Ngcobo is a South African performer, theatre maker and writer. She is a doctoral candidate at the Ruhr Universität Bochum, where she contributes to research on Dramaturgies in the Afterlife of Violence. Her work investigates representational violence, dismantles colonial tropes and traces the ways in which the Black female body serves as a repository for memory – in postapartheid South Africa and across the diaspora.
Original music: Khyam Allami, Dorothée Munyaneza; Costumes: Stéphanie Coudert; Based on a text by Elsa Dorlin; Lighting: Marine Le Vey; Sound direction: Camille Frachet; Production: Cie Kadidi, Virginie Dupray.
A co-production of Tanz im August - HAU Hebbel am Ufer Berlin, Chaillot Théâtre National de la Danse, Maison de la Danse Lyon - Pôle Européen de creation, DeSingel Anvers, Pavillon ADC Genève, TransFabrik Fund - a German-French fund for the performing arts.
Studio residency at CCN - Ballet National de Marseille, Friche Belle de mai Marseille, Centre d'art Montévidéo Marseille, DeSingel Antwerp.
With the support of the Fondation Camargo, Cassis, DRAC Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, Montévidéo Art Center - Festival Actoral Marseille.
Dorothée Munyaneza is an associated artist at the Chaillot Théâtre National de la Danse, the Camargo Foundation, the Maison de la danse and the Biennale de la danse Lyon - Pôle européen de création. Supported by the Kunststiftung nrw. With the kind support of the Institut français and the French Ministry of Culture.
