Dekoloniale ästhetische Praktiken im Theater

Based on the Hajusom ensemble's staging of Azimut, which deals with the long-term consequences of German colonialism in Africa, the panel explores the question of how decolonial aesthetics can be produced within theatre. Which artistic strategies and means were and are chosen for decolonial shifts? Which production-relevant decisions and working approaches contribute to decoloniality? The panel will include actress and director Lara-Sophie Milagro, artist and expert on body politics and colonial history Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro and theatre scholar, Pepetual Mforbe Chiangong.

LARA-SOPHIE MILAGRO works as an actress, director and dubbing artist. In 2000 she graduated from the Academy of Dramatic Arts and Goldsmiths College UK with a BA in Drama. In September this year it will be shown at the Münchner Kammerspiele under the direction of Anta Recke. The play Satoe at the Nationaltheater Mannheim (2013), which she also directed, was awarded the special prize of the Jury Hauptstadt Berlin.

NATHALIE ANGUEZOMO MBA BIKORO is an artist, curator and lecturer. In her work, she analyzes the processes of power and fiction in archives that critically address migration issues and develops environments for untold narratives of the resistance movements of African women and indigenous communities. Embedded in these narratives are testimonies from nature sound archives, queer ecologies, and postcolonial feminist accounts. Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro has received numerous awards, including the Fondation Blachère & Afrique Soleil Mali Prize for Best Artist at the Dakar Biennale (2012), the Arts Council England (2016) and the Goethe-Institut (2018).

PEPETUAL MFORBE CHIANGONG is a theatre scholar with a focus on Cameroon. Since 2012 she has been a lecturer at the Institute for African Studies at the HU Berlin, where she was awarded the Prize for Good Teaching in 2013. Her research focuses on postcolonial literature, critical theory, theatre criticism, drama and performance, development theatre, people cinema and the representation of age in literature.

GRIT KÖPPEN, theatre and cultural scholar, currently director of the Screenplay Academy at the Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, was previously a postdoctoral fellow at the University of the Arts Berlin in the Graduiertenkolleg Das Wissen der Künste. She is the author of the book Performative Arts in Ethiopia: International Cultural Relations and Postcolonial Articulations (2017). Her research focuses on decolonial aesthetics and art strategies in contemporary theatre and postcolonial francophone drama in an African-diasporic context. She also teaches scenic writing at the Berlin University of the Arts.