“Dambudzo” by Nora Chipaumire – where is experience?

Unlike historiography, history will not be experienced linearly. There is no coherent narrative in experience. This applies particularly to the history of violence, as well as any excess – even ecstasy cannot be historized. By experience I do not mean individual feeling, but a collective process; A counterpart that exercises violence needs to experience, experience or resist.

In particular, times of upheaval show the political dimension of violence – for example in Rhodesia (today’s Zimbabwe) of the 1970s. Two years before independence, Dambudzo Marechera’s famous story “The House of Hunger” appeared in 1978 and describes the social situation at that time. There is war time: militants and African nationalist groups are fighting the government of the white minority, while colonial social structures, repression and the omnipresence of racism shape everyday life.

Terms like “Communist” or “Guerrilla” appear or a sign on which “Whites only” is, but these are just details that indirectly indicate the context. It is about the actions and thoughts of the black, mostly young characters. They live in poverty, with a feeling of futurelessness, have internalized misogynia and racism and expand them in permanent brawls, alcohol excesses and rape. Physical and verbal border crossings are characterized by their coexistence, but also the search for black hero and for forms of expression and escape.

None of this displays “Dambudzo”, even if Nora Chipaumire relates this multimedia work to Marechera’s story. Germany premiere was in the old coin in Berlin at the “Dance in August” festival. The dancer and choreographer Nora Chipaumire was born in the city of Umtali in 1965, which has been called mutare since 1982. To call “Dambudzo” as multimedia is not entirely correct. In an interview with Alina Lauer from the festival team, Chipaumire talks about anti-genre art: art that theater conventions do not want to submit. Rather, her work is characterized by the relationships within her music band – as the ensemble – which consists of musicians and dancers from Zimbabwe, Egypt, the USA and England.

In “Dambudzo” they actually embody a band or a team. Shortly, after the viewers entered the first room and surrounded the dancers, they come through a walk to a bright courtyard where a group of male dancers plays football. We, the viewers, become an informal football audience in a field without stairs, cheer on the players and try not to get a shot at the head. Later we follow a group of dancers to the large interior. They hold up umbrellas and posters and sing “Halleluja!” A multilayered soundscape is permeated by the entire work: a mixture of aggressive dog barks, shots as well as dance music and jazz. Saxophone also plays one of the football players. As he slowly grinds his feet forward, he plays with the clothing full of clay stains from a dispute shortly before, in which he could be pushed against the wall full of fresh clay – the wall was thrown at clay balls.

They sing in the Shona language, which has only been recognized as a national language since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980 – before that it was reserved for private space. “Dambudzo” is an untropped term from this language. We watch the music band and drink beer out of a fridge for free. The fact that we do not understand the words and are still sensually addressed by live music and beer is in the center of “Dambudzo”. In Africa, “we are not alone, our ancestors accompany us,” said Chipaumire in a speech during the music performance.

I hear the voices of the singers and understand their call, not through the promising and translation of knowledge, but through the skills of my body as a resonance room. Some of us had shyly danced moments before; Movement also transforms the body into a transmission medium of experience. What we experience is difficult to put into words. There is no linear narrative from the shared moments. What there is is a number of evoked pictures: in addition to a soccer field and a live music bar, pictures of fights and war. The dog bark in particular creates a permanent feeling of threat, but the source of the threat remains invisible at first.

Only towards the end is the model of a dog, or rather its outline, down from the ceiling, which also shares the room. The performers each pick up a small model of it and illuminate it with flashlights against a transparent, blue-yellow partition. They bark the wall and become the dogs that were previously only audible in the background. The audience usually stands in front of the wall and looks at the shadow play. After all, the barking people are illuminated from behind so that their bodies throw silhouettes on the wall.

From football game to music performance to the shadow game, “Dambudzo” is actually anti-genre art: art that exploses the rules of shape and coherence in order to be experienced. For them, this work, but also work in general, is the same as life, says Chipaumire. The black body is always working in Europe and in Africa, even if in different intensity. How far can black experience divisible? And what is not divisible, what should not be shared, and for whom not? “Dambudzo”, a self-made term from the Shona language, calls for a critical encounter.