by and with ZOE, Mandhla Ndubiwa and Aaro Assy , ECHOES By HAUS MAWU

A ritual sound performance in which three multi-disciplinary artists with diasporic experience weave movement, sound, and poetry into a shared act of vulnerability – a space for the sorrow over injustice and loss, for dedication, transformation, and for joy. Through echo, call-and-response, and emotional expression, the performers invoke the presence of their ancestors and trace fragmented stories and their persisting effects in the diaspora.

The audience will be invited to enter a safe space of bearing witness that gradually transforms into relation and, eventually, into actual participation. Led by the art of ballroom commentary which functions as a bridge between ritual and club space: A guiding voice holding and reading the room, transforming the energy. It simultaneously carries both grief and joy, leading into the subsequent afterparty as the performance’s continuation.

With the aim of reflecting on realities through folklore, fiction, and pop culture, performance artist and director ZOE founded the HAUS MAWU company as a space to visualise bodies and stories within a post-patriarchal heterotopia. The company sees itself as a collaborative initiative for diverse artists that focuses on the intersection of diasporic, feminist, and queer perspectives. Against this backdrop, ZOE has teamed up with performers and artists Mandhla Ndubiwa, a trans-feminine Zimbabwean multimedia performer, musician, and the voice of the German ballroom community, as well as with Aaro Assy, a trans-feminine Egyptian DJ, music producer, and ballroom performer, to create ECHOES.

For everyone aged 16 and up.

Trigger Warning: Discrimination, strobe lights/ flashing lights, very loud sounds and music, haze, invitation to the audience to participate