This performance is in English.
Kaspale's Playground is a theatrical performance with an installation that takes a closer look at Kenya's recent history.
Performer and visual artist Syowia Kiambi portrays Kaspale in various characters, a playful impostor who goes to Nyayo House in Nairobi, the place where every Kenyan collects his/her official documents. It was also the place where government opponents were imprisoned in the 1980s and 1990s. Kaspale is tearing down this building to pay tribute to the mothers' protest of 1992, when mothers in an attempt to free their sons from Nyayo House stripped naked in public in Nairobi's Uhuru Park.
In this theatrical installation with costumes, video and performance, Syowia Kyambi takes the audience into a world of resistance and protest, where women display their ultimate means of struggle: undressing in the street and showing their bodies to the police as representatives of the established power who go on the run seeing the naked bodies. Work by Syowia Kyambi is also currently on display in the Kenyan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
After the shows there will be an artistic talk with Kwanele Finch Thusi and Syowia Kyambi
Director & performance - Syowia Kyambi
On 13 and 14 October the 19th edition of Afrovibes Festival will land in Theater Kikker in Utrecht. Artistic director Jay Pather (South Africa) and programmer Marjorie Boston (Netherlands) have again created a program that shows the diversity and power of change in the African continent. This year with dance, theater and music in Utrecht by contemporary choreographers and theater makers from Guinea/France, South Africa, Ivory Coast/France, Kenya and the Netherlands. And of course music with DJs and discussions with the makers.
The theme of the 19th edition of Afrovibes is RUPTURE | RAPTURE. The division and disruption that can arise between people and cultures. But also the intense pleasure and delight we get from our contact with others. It is the tension between encounter and disruption that Afrovibes is putting to the fore this year. This year's program has a special focus on theatre makers and artists from West Africa and the African diaspora in Europe. The program of Afrovibes takes place at Theater Kikker and Stadsschouwburg Utrecht.