IT'S NEVER BEEN MORE CRUCIAL FOR US TO CONNECT WITH THE SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGY THAT TRANSFORMS AND HEALS” - Gulethu Anathi Duma
Oyoun* presents:
a n c e s t r a l b o d y n o i s e
A Collective Exploration Of Ritual and Performance
// podcasts // workshops // process // documentation //
__INTRO__
It is no secret that life on the planet for the body of colour moving in space has been riddled in heavy weight, resistance and resilience. It is no secret that the political imagination and the tools of imaginative resistance in the face of an ongoing global exploitation project has turned us into older versions of ourselves, into stronger versions of ourselves, into more anxious versions of ourselves. Truly, the experience of being of
African descent is riddled in ancestral layers that words cannot completely contain.
The poetry of music and sound connects, transforms and allows us to develop a language for experience that moves
beyond the mental, while simultaneously moving and transforming the mental state of stasis.
__ABOUT__
Dive into an immersive audio-visual performance led by Dumama with a group of activists, movement artists, and musicians comes together carrying inherited rituals with them in their artistic practice as they process positionality, ritual, and emotions, while collectively manifesting an anti-colonial future. Focusing on unpacking the rituals from the ancestral regions of Africa and using the expressive arts as a source of communicating a complex emotional, psycho-spiritual experience governed by political realities globally, in Africa and in European contexts, the embodied research would be encapsulated and distributed through weekly podcasts.
Join the journey, documenting a 5-week workshop process accompanied by podcasts and resulting into a public performance featuring seven extraordinary artists and bodies.
__BIO__
Dumama (born Gugulethu Duma), is a South African performing artist and researcher whose work has been grounded in intergenerational tension conversation and release. Her most recently project, is a critically acclaimed album with Kerim Becker (Kechou), buffering juju. It has been described by The Guardian Newspaper UK as a work reflecting
“Johannesburg’s constantly evolving musicality and the duo’s mixed heritages. This is their titular juju, their spiritual power.” You can explore more on Dumama’s website here.
Dumama has brought together a group of Afro-Diaspora identifying performing artists, black lives matter activists, and researchers all concerned with practicing embodied ritual release. This group of 7 is connected by their use of movement and sound systems, and their utilization of said systems as tools for spiritual rejuvenation and restoration as black bodies moving through this moment. Together, the group explores sensory perceptions of ritual relationships, the beautiful complexity of inter-cultural exchange, and the dimensions that emerge. The (re) construction of ritual and the exploration of emotions serves as a tool for cultivating radical empathy and collective healing for this Afro-Diaspora community., which is incredibly important right now. The creation of our final outcome, will be charged with this intention, held by the imaginary resistance tools of the countries our ancestors are from.
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__Artistic Direction: Madhumita Nandi (Oyoun)
__Curator: Gulethu Anathi Duma
__Artists: Adriana Jamisse, Kopano Maroga, Qondiswa James,
Yandeh Rivolta

* This project is part of Oyoun‘s curatorial focus:
"EMBODIED TEMPORALITIES"
Based on years of artistic research and production, the program sets to investigate the embodied memories and identities through diasporic and gender-critical perspectives. The body emerges as a changing relationship and at the same time unfolds as an ethical horizon and challenge for the (un)making of the self, identity, and belonging. “Embodied Temporalities’ will unravel the possibilities by the means of the language of art while exploring and diversifying collaborations through intersectional, anti-fascist, and decolonial perspectives.
For press and media enquiries, please email us at hallo@oyoun.de