Tiran Willemse

Untitled (Nostalgia, Act 3)

Untitled (Nostalgia, Act 3) by Tiran W

Photo: Tiran Willemse

Th 5.9.2024, 20:00-21:00, MDT

In Untitled (Nostalgia, Act 3) the South-African born, Europe based choreographer Tiran Willemse invokes his own multiple histories of dance through a kaleidoscope of the 19th century ballet classic Giselle, the Kuduro from Angola, and the Nigerian genre Alanta.

The ghost story of Giselle becomes the primary vehicle through which Willemse gives his past selves space to be as they are - ghosts, not dead, who have not left fully, though they may have been asked to. The emerging dance is both a solo by Willemse and an ensemble performed along with the unresolved tensions that move him.

Untitled (Nostalgia, Act 3) is an exercise and an exorcism. It’s an evocation of Black experience within European contexts, and a thinly veiled masquerade of its absurdities. As differently gendered bodies claim space for expression, their haunting simultaneously haunts cisnormativity. What bubbles to the surface may be headless but it's not shy, it may be choreography but it's not objectifying. As it unfolds, the uncanny sense that this dance is not merely for us, but aims to implicate us, unfolds too. Perhaps it’s we who are haunted.

Tiran Willemse

Tiran Willemse is a dancer, choreographer and researcher from South-Africa based in Zurich and Berlin. His performance based practice is rooted in a careful attention to space, imagination, gesture and sound, focusing on how they relate to the ways in which construction of race and gender are performed, communicated and challenged.

He worked and collaborated with Trajal Harrell, Meg Stuart, Jerome Bel, Ligia Lewis, Eszter Salamon, Susanne Linke, Andros Zins-Browne and with Cullberg Ballet under Deborah Hay and Jeftha Van Dither. His work has been shown in Arsenic Lausanne, Impulstanz Vienna, Tanzquartier Wien, Gessnerallee Zurich, Sophiensaele Berlin, Palais de Tokyo Paris, Santarcanagelo festival and MCBA in Lausanne and continues touring internationally.

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Concept, Artistic Direction & Performance

Dramaturgy

Andros Zins-Browne

Music

Tobias Koch

Sound operator

Thibault Villard.

Choreographic Advice

Laurent Chétouane

Light design

Fudetani Ryoya

Production

Paelden Tamnyen, Rabea Grand

Co-production

Gessnerallee Zürich, Arsenic – Contemporary Performing Arts Center, Lausanne

Supported by

Stadt Zürich Kultur, Fachstelle Kultur Kanton Zürich, Pro Helvetia, Schweizerische Interpretenstiftung SIS, Migros-Kulturprozent

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