COCONUT is an exploration, examination and confrontation of and with diaspora (diasporic dances). The performers converse with contemporary notions of blackness, whiteness, and the surrealism of being required to fluctuate between the two. Drawing from the performers’ diverse personal bodily archives, varied experiences of afro-ness collide through dances, texts and songs to create a world of hybridity. In this hybridity emerges a type of afro-surrealism, and the performance becomes an attempt to reconcile the past with the present.

Apocalypse, as understood by Akwugo Emejulu is “the unveiling of something unknown that could not be known except through the process of unveiling.”

the new white aesthetic is dance performance that re-enacts imagery of canonical marble statues. Using the movement practice of ballet – understood as an ethnic dance of the Indo European diaspora - in developing a practice of dilapidation or “butchered ballet”, the bodies traverse the space. Transitioning from image to image, they dance an erased polychromatic history, embodying the crumbling of the empire and of the new white aesthetic.

Choreography and direction: kemelo nozipho sehlapelo

Performers (COCONUT): Tamira Kalmbach, kemelo nozipho sehlapelo, Hlengiwe Sehlapelo Performers (THE NEW WHITE AESTHETIC): Isidora Gazmuri, kemelo nozipho sehlapelo, Margareta Sinković, Santiago Mariño

Dramaturgical support/advice: Amelia Uzategui Bonilla

Costume design: Joelle Oliha

Lighting design: Tamira Kalmbach, Dana Maxim

Sound design: kemelo nozipho sehlapelo

Videography and video editing: Nadia Perlov

Premiere: Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm, Frankfurt