SPIELART Festival: KIZAZI | ESQUIVE

World premiere

In this double bill, two performances can be experienced one after the other that deal with identity, the body and resistance in different ways. KIZAZI [engl. "womb"] is the first solo work by choreographer and performer Stéphanie Mwamba. What does it mean to grow up as a woman in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo, in a region where the female body has been an oppressed territory, a combat zone, for more than 15 years? With her dance, she reclaims the sovereignty of interpretation over her body: between improvisation and choreography, she creates organic, powerful movements that weave themselves into a political act of emancipation.

In ESQUIVE, the first solo piece by the up-and-coming artist Zantara from Abidjan, the body becomes the setting for attributions, omissions and inner struggles: blindfolded, thrusting and rubbing, it escapes - and yet repeatedly encounters itself. This performance, inspired by the Roukasskass dance, is both an act of evasion and confrontation, and poses the question of what remains of the self beyond all projections.