Chombotrope
Choreographic fashion concert (EU-AFR) – (2018)
MOUVOIR/ Stephanie Thiersch wins with Chombotrope the Cologne Dance Award 2017.
The Jitta Collective
Stephanie Thiersch & Kepha Oiro
Through a surreal, raucous fashion concert that blinds and purifies us deliberately cheerful, the African-European collective attempts to rethink the heritage of cultural appropriation. In a playfully subversive change of perspective, “Chombotrope” connects voguing and dance with rap, drums and turntables. A mix of futurist identities are created, stirring and captivating. Tradition and cultural loot are combined, twisted and focussed, allowing for new narratives to emerge that have a confusing lack of identifiable origins. Chombotrope was awarded the Cologne Dance Prize 2017 and was invited to Theatertreffen Berlin in 2018.
About the Collective: Choreographer Stephanie Thiersch is working on an unusual choreography together with her Kenyan colleague Kefa Orio, dancer Alexandra Naudet and voguer Marie Zoe. Composer and exceptional drummer Dodo NKishi, who drums with the band Mouse on Mars among others, turntable virtuoso DJ Elephant Power from Brussels and percussionist N’deye Seck from Senegal will be collaborating for the first time ever and providing the live soundtrack. Combined with the texts of the spoken word activist and Ugandan fashion designer Xenson, whose costumes play a pivot role in this fashion/voguing/electro/beat spectacle, they fearlessly will be crossing the frontiers of sound and mixing and blending each other’s material.
CAST
Project-initiation & idea: Kepha Oiro, Stephanie Thiersch
Concept: The Jitta Collective
Artists:
DJ Elephant Power (alias Nicolas Baudoux) – music composition, turntablism, Belgium
Marie Zoe Buchholz – voguing, singing, choreography, Germany
Alexandra Naudet – dance, performance, choreography, France
Dodo NKishi – music composition, drums, beatboxing/singing, Germany
Kepha Oiro – dance, choreography, concept, Kenya
Georgina Philp – voguing, choreography, Germany
N’deye Seck – music composition, drums, Senegal
Stephanie Thiersch – direction, choreography, text, Germany
Xenson (alias Ssamson Ssenkaaba) – art, fashion design, poetry, Uganda
Musical support: Checkmate Mido alias Mido Dembebe, Kenya and Judith Namacheke Bwire, Kenya
Voguing Support: House of Melody (Berlin/Düsseldorf), artzone dancers (Nairobi)
Dramaturgy/Scientific Support: Alexandra Karentzos Mode & Ästhetik, Technische Universität Darmstadt
CREDITS
Production MOUVOIR e.V. Germany & Tuchangamke Group, Kenya.
In coproduction with Akademie der Künste der Welt / Köln in the frame of PLURIVERSALE VII, tanzhaus nrw, Nairobi Festival of Performance and Media Arts – NFPMA and Goethe Institut – Internationaler Koproduktionsfonds.
Cooperation partner freihandelszone – Ensemblenetzwerk Köln, GoDownArtsCenter, Nairobi.
Funded by: Kunststiftung NRW, NATIONALES PERFORMANCE NETZ (NPN) Koproduktionsförderung Tanz aus Mitteln der Beauftragten der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien, Ministerium für Kultur und Wissenschaft des Landes Nordrhein-Westfalen, Kulturamt der Stadt Köln.
„The perspectives are changing. […] The glasses, with which we, the audience, like to take a sharp look at the actions: […] ‘Chombotrope’ dazzles, rumbles and purifies.“ Excerpt of the laudatio by Melanie Suchy – Dance Award Cologne 2017
“… a fashion concert […], which irrupts the audience like a natural force.” Westdeutsche Zeitung
“What starts as a parody of a fashion show, where the upcycling couture of Ugandan fashion designer Xenson (aka Samson Ssenkaaba) is presented, soon afterwards mutates into a breathless dance performance, drifted by drummer Dodo NKishi, to flirt with spoken word passages, to rap and soul concert, and finally to a fanatical appeal to the African art of the present, to condemn the exploitation of its own culture.” choices
on Tour:
02.11.2019, 21 h
SPRING in Autumn, Stadsschouwburg Utrecht, Lucasbolwerk 24 , 3512 Utrecht, Niederlande
https://stadsschouwburg-utrecht.nl/
30.05.2019, 20 h
Festival TRANSLOCAL
Schauspiel Köln / Depot 2, Köln
18.05.2019, 20 h
Festival tanz nrw
Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster
31.08.2018, 16 h
at internationale tanzmesse nrw
internationale tanzmesse nrw / Fabrik Heeder Krefeld, Virchowstraße 130, 47805 Krefeld, Deutschland
https://www.tanzmesse.com/de/programme/2 ...
26.05.2018, 20 h
Mercat de les Flors, Lleida, 59, 08004 Barcelona, Spanien
http://mercatflors.cat/en/
15.05.2018, 20.30 h
Haus der Berliner Festspiele, Schaperstraße 24, 10719 Berlin, Deutschland
https://www.berlinerfestspiele.de
13.11.2017, 19 h
The Jitta Collective
The Nairobi Festival of Performance and Media Art, Nairobi, Kenia
11.11.2017, 19 h
The Jitta Collective
The Nairobi Festival of Performance and Media Art, Nairobi, Kenia
08.11.2017, 20 h
The Jitta Collective
110 on 7th, (Industrial Area, 7th Street, Plot 110, Big red gate), Kampala, Uganda
07.11.2017, 20 h
The Jitta Collective
110 on 7th, (Industrial Area, 7th Street, Plot 110, Big red gate), Kampala, Uganda
30.09.2017, 21 h
Festival Pluriversale
Stadtgarten, Venloer Straße 40 , 50672 Köln, Deutschland
https://www.stadtgarten.de/
29.09.2017, 21 h
Festival Pluriversale
Stadtgarten, Venloer Straße 40 , 50672 Köln, Deutschland
https://www.stadtgarten.de/
22.09.2017, 20 h
tanzhaus nrw, Erkrather Str. 30, 40233 Düsseldorf, Deutschland
https://tanzhaus-nrw.de/de
21.09.2017, 20 h
PREMIERE
tanzhaus nrw, Erkrather Str. 30, 40233 Düsseldorf, Deutschland
https://tanzhaus-nrw.de/de
14.06.2017, 18 h
Open Rehearsal
tanzhaus nrw, Erkrather Str. 30, 40233 Düsseldorf, Deutschland
https://tanzhaus-nrw.de/de
