Drums & Bones

Claude Jansen, born in Dorsten, lives in Hamburg; since 2012 also temporarily in Cape Town and Windhoek. With her studies in Applied Theatre Studies / Giessen, she is a founding member of the women's performance collective She She Pop. Since 2000, she has also been involved in pre-colonial African (ritual) practices. Her focus is on the artistic exploration of spiritual mediumship, using looted art objects as an example. Her work as a freelance dramaturge and curator, as well as her teaching and lecturing activities, focus on transnational (artistic) mediation and decolonisation practices and are situated in contemporary debates on animism, posthumanism and post-activism.

Tuli Mekondjo is a Namibian artist living in Berlin. In 2022, she was awarded the DAAD Artist-in-Residence Programme in Berlin. The artist works with various media and materials, including embroidery, photo transfer, resin and mahangu, a staple food in Namibia. Mekondjo uses photographic archives from colonial and wartime periods as the basis for her artistic practice. In doing so, she explores Namibian history and identity politics. Her works arise from an examination of stories of change, loss and subjugation, with a particular focus on the role of women. In doing so, she combines elements of the past with those of the present. In many of her more recent works, the artist positions herself in dialogue with her ancestors. In doing so, she shows direct recognition of their pain while simultaneously citing diverse African folklore traditions.

Fabrice Mazliah is a choreographer and performer living in Frankfurt am Main. After working with the Forsythe Company until its closure, Fabrice initiated a long-term investigation into the embodied knowledge and heritage inscribed in the actors in this field. He is interested in understanding and renegotiating the relationship between our environment, its objects, its atmospheres and our bodies, ourselves and their possibilities. In his work, he regularly focuses on the role of the recipient/perceiver and celebrates the wealth of possible perspectives that can be embodied on stage. He is interested in combining movement and language to develop new forms of narrativity and poetry.

Norbert Pape is a transdisciplinary artist based in Berlin who works in the fields of dance, choreography and mathematics. His work explores the interdependence of sensory perception, abstraction and technology in the process of meaning-making – particularly in the creation of space.