MITUMBA-The happening:

Project Coordination: Tuchangamka Group, Kenya, and company Mouvoir, Germany.

Using a typical African flea market, the makers of Mitumba contemporary dance with music and drama and create an exciting formative setting that directly includes the audience.

Mitumba uses the circulation of second-hand clothing as a starting point for its artistic work to pretest the mechanisms of the neo-liberal market. Mitumba asks how mobility and constantly changing society affect artistic practice. searching for new forms of presentation, a collective of choreographers and dancers from Kenya, Tanzania, Germany, Spain, Italy, France, the United States, and Taiwan. have known each other for years, and combine ethics of the discourse with aesthetic principles.

The participating artists came together during several artistic residences in Kenya, Germany, and Tanzania between 2010 and 2012. During those meetings, our focus was placed on addressing and discussing the social, economic, and cultural layers of Mitumba and also on exchanging artistic and practical notes on dance techniques, song, music, video, and visual art.

Acknowledging our life realities including economic dependencies and linkages, we agreed on a special format of the market where trade and (economic) exchange provide an ‘honest’ setting of encounters with each other and the audience/public. Mitumba will make use of this theatre format combining the interaction and atmosphere of a second-hand market with contemporary dance performance, theatre, song, music, and live video feed projected on a wall

Partners/Funders

Akademie der Künste der Welt, Auswärtiges Amt, RheinEnergie Stiftung Kultur, KunstSalon Stiftung, Goethe Institut Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania, Goethe Institut Nairobi/Kenia, Tanzhaus nrw, Düsseldorf

https://www.dw.com/de/mitumba-der-tanz-der-altkleider/a-16797800