blue nile to the galaxy around olodumare
Jeremy Nedd & Impilo Mapantsula
Basel - Johannesburg
In 2022, NASA unveiled the first images from the James Webb telescope. At more than ten billion light-years away, ancient galaxies reach us, fragments of a past so distant it seems like the future. And what if seeing so far back in time mainly revealed how much we still have to learn?
Through this performance, the South African collective Impilo Mapantsula and Jeremy Nedd explore Afro-futurist and Black diasporic dimensions by grounding themselves in pantsula—a dance born under apartheid, at once resistance, expression, and pride.
In this artistic work, the bodies improvise to the rhythm of the cosmic and spiritual jazz of Alice Coltrane and Bheki Mseleku. Each leg that shoots out, each spiral becomes a star's pulse, an expansion of the galaxy. Births, disappearances, collisions: the dancers inhabit the dark matter of history, that of past struggles that illuminate the future.
Between cosmology and memory, the stage becomes a compressed space-time, where pantsula becomes lyrical language to dream of other worlds — and rethink our illusions of progress.
Friday, 10 october - 9:45 PM
Zaouia Sidi Ali Chiha
Saturday, 11 october - 9:45 PM
Zaouia Sidi Ali Chiha
Duration : 1h
Single ticket: 5 DT
Reduced rate: 3 DT for childrens and students on presentation of student card
Free: for residents of the medina on presentation of proof of residence
For online sales on Teskerti, a tax of 1,500 DT will be added to the price shown.
Concept, choreography: Jeremy Nedd
Technical management and lighting design: Thomas Giger
Performance et choreography: Sicelo Xaba, Sello Modiga, Thomas Motsapi, Bonakele Masethi, Sibongile Mathebula
Stage design: Laura Knüsel
Costume design: Tara Mabiala
Sound design: Fabrizio Di Salvo, Rej Deproc
Dramaturgy: Anta Helena Recke
Technical management Touring: Chiara Leonhardt
Diffusion: ART HAPPENS
Caroline Froelich (Moin Moin Productions)
In coproduction with: ARSENIC Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Internationales Sommerfestival Kampnagel, Kaserne Basel,
Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Festspielhaus St. Pölten (AT)- Festival Tangente St. Pölten Festival für Gegenwartskultur, SPIELART Theaterfestival
With the kind support of: Fachausschuss Tanz & Theater BS/BL, Pro Helvetia, Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS.
