In search of radical mutations

In this essay, author and historian Edna Bonhomme takes a look back at “Radical Mutation: On the Ruins of Rising Suns”. The festival, curated by Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Saskia Köbschall and Tmnit Zere for HAU Hebbel am Ufer, took place from the 23 September to the 4 October at HAU1 and online at HAU4 – in the fall of a year defined by not just the Coronavirus but also increasingly obvious social inequalities and racism. By giving visibility to queer and BIPoC narratives, “Radical Mutation” evoked the collective spirit of resistance under an artistic guise.

Last year, everyone regained an interest in biology. Suddenly, mRNA, genomes, and viruses were part of everyday vocabulary. For the curious, understanding how diseases spread and the conditions that made certain people susceptible weighed heavy on so many people’s minds. All of this happened in the wake of a global pandemic and the presence of the novel coronavirus. Everyone is not only searching for the ways to understand the origin of the disease but to apprehend the changes that it undergoes, the mutations, which form the genetic footprint of the virus. The word mutation emerges from Latin “mutatus”, past participle of “mutare”, “to change.” Today, it carries new weight given the various coronavirus strains that were first detected in Great Britain, South Africa, and Brazil. One turning point was when the virus mutated, causing even more alarm in a world that had been exhausted by the most common strain. Viral mutations are common. In fact, they mutate and undergo a change of state or condition for their survival, especially when the environment has not been hospitable for their growth.

The events of 2020 have caused a set of changes that have gone from global pause to global unrest. That unrest came from two angles – Covid-19 and police brutality. Scholars, writers, and scientists reflected on racial inequalities by writing about social discomforts. The African-American Princeton University historian, Keeanga Yahmatta Taylor, noted in her New Yorkeressay, “Black Death”, that, “this macabre role call reflects the fact that African-Americans are more likely to have pre-existing health conditions that make the coronavirus particularly deadly.” These inequalities were further sketched out by the novelist Zadie Smith in “Intimations”, a 2020 book which addresses the perennial nature of death in Black America. She writes: “Death has come to America. It was always here, albeit obscured and denied, but now everybody can see it.” What Zadie Smith is pointing to, is how the death of Black, indigenous, and other people of colour were hastened and intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic, mirroring the hierarchies that pre-existed. But these events are not unique to the United States.

January 2021 marks 16 years since the death of Oury Jalloh in the Dessau-Roßlau police station in Saxony-Anhalt, Germany. One by one, the state authorities covered up the evidence and presented his death as suicide or accident. Oury Jalloh, who emigrated from Sierra Leone, survived a civil war in his home country but died in police custody in Germany. Jalloh’s advocates argue that his death was a result of state-supported racism against a refugee. Anti-racist activists in Germany continue to call for a complete investigation into his murder and the other entanglements within the police and the state authorities. Jalloh’s murder might seem like an exception, but it happened in a climate where the far right in Germany have carried out racist violence in Chemnitz, Hanau, and Halle. These extremist attacks deepen the isolation that some people of colour might feel, especially in light of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Racial discrimination is global and the spectre of pain has left so many people exhausted. Yet, this is not the only narrative that exists. There is radical resistance, people are responding to the mutations in society through a collective fight on the streets, through creative expression, and most importantly, through care. And, for a rare moment, that collective act of resistance was present on stage.
 

Context of the project and its creators

“Radical Mutation: On the Ruins of Rising Suns” was a series of conversations and artistic contributions that took place from 23 September to 4 October 2020 at HAU Hebbel am Ufer in Berlin, Germany. Upon the invitation of HAU, Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro, Saskia Köbschall and Tmnit Zere – forming together Nyabinghi_Lab curatorial collective – curated the programming which was ultimately an invitation for people to think of mutation in a new way. Nathalie Anguezomo Mba Bikoro is a visual artist whose works cut critically across sound, performances, archives, processes of power, and science fiction by engaging in migrational struggles and colonial memory. Tmnit Zere, a political scientist, has implemented projects at the intersections between political education, activism, and culture. Saskia Köbschallis a curator, scholar, and editor whose work interrogates decolonial narratives. Together, they were able to bring over 70 creative people, mostly Black, indigenous, and other people of colour, mostly people who live in Berlin to be part of “Radical Mutation: On the Ruins of Rising Suns” and to really think about recovery healing and what it means to create art in this moment during a pandemic.

The three founded Nyabinghi_Lab to implement collaborative projects at the intersection of art, culture, education, and activism, with a focus on critical, decolonial narratives, and sustainable structural change. They began during their research by delving into the history of German colonialism, but also by looking at resistance movements against the German colonial empire in Africa. Nathalie’s work tries to iron out the ways that Black women suffered under the German colonial regime and the ways in which they appear, or, perhaps, not appear in the archives. What they found is that there is more to German colonial history than the voices of the powerful. Instead, there were Black voices that could be found, and Nyabinghi_Lab acquires its name from a female African warrior with the same name who protected her village. As the collective remarked, this woman was a resistance figure who fought against German colonial troops. Nyabinghi was believed to be possessed by a spirit, so it seemed appropriate that Nathalie, Tmnit, and Saskia were drawn to this name for their curatorial-artistic practice, one which centres upon queer-feminist, BIPoC and migrant positions, stories, resistance strategies and critical voices.

To some extent, “Radical Mutations” was not just based on finding women in the past but finding Black people and other people of colour currently based in Berlin. Their intention was to create a new set of archives through performance and sound, by generating the collected acts of repair and resistance and the possibility to hope for dreams as manifested on stage and on the radio waves.

Nyabinghi_Lab’s curation could be generously supported by HAU Hebbel am Ufer within the framework of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. Subsequently, the programming reflected the forging of bridges between historical struggles for equality, anti-racism and representation in the burgeoning culture which current efforts. Yet, it did not stop there. Rather, it was a collaboration that included Wearebornfree! Empowerment Radio, an audio collective consisting of Moro Yaph, Bino Byansi Byakuleka, and Muhammed Lamin Jadama. As migrants who use the power of the radio to voice their opinions about social movements, arts and literature, they were able to document the music and meditations of alternative voices from Berlin. Their integration into the program set the stage that migrant-controlled programs – through radio – change the state of German archives.

Alienation, in a pandemic, can be strongly felt, but “Radical Mutations” was not just a moment for bereavement: it was a chance to celebrate BIPoC talents – spoken and literary, musical and written.

Woven into this 11-day event, the lessons drawn from these artists outlined a roadmap to healing, an insistence on disobedience, and a desire to change. Due to the pandemic, the theatre was at a smaller capacity than normal. Prof. Janina Audick’s UdK (Universität der Künste) class of stage design redesigned HAU1 into a hybrid space that oscillates the boundaries between stage and audience. Chairs in the upper levels were blocked off to maintain 1.5 metres of separation. The lower-level featured sofa-like chairs, designed for an individual person, thus functioning as moveable borders. People were required to wear their masks until seated, but many kept them on the entire time. We were in a new age, one where our theatre experience no longer meant sharing a hand rest with a stranger, or hearing the low sigh in their breath. Anonymous intimacy has been placed on pause in the age of Covid-19.

The stage, an immense surface rippled and corrugated by a blue streak, the antibody, provided a texture which deepened the mood. The opening night began when members of Nyabinghi_Lab and Wearebornfree! Empowerment Radio, highlighting the name of tonight’s event “Nobody Knows the Trouble I‘ve Seen,” which echoes the ballad of the African-American singer Louis Armstrong. Although the song is morose in capturing suffering, that deep painful agony coming from within, the night was anything but that. It began with a German-language stand-up comedy by well-known Idil Nuna Baydar and her alter ego Jilet Ayşe. She captured the subtle and not-so-subtle stereotypes about Germany, the ways that some people are perceived as perpetual migrants even when they were born and raised in Germany. The audience welcomed the comedic critique.

That night, musical history also found its way on stage with the String Archestra. Under the direction of Dr. Dr. Daniele G. Daude, they performed a short orchestral piece by the African-American composer Florence Price. The first recognized and notable African American woman symphonic composer, Price garnered visibility during an era where racial apartheid was alive and well in the United States. The absence of Black women in the classical community did not stop her from performing on stage. So, it stands that a century later and thousands of kilometres away, Price’s piece still has significance, and perhaps even more so. In a moment of social distance and isolation, there is a different formation, a different type of urgency and vocabulary that allows us to see how classical musicians are of various ethnic groups. They are not alone, rather, they are anchored between a past that actively excluded them and a future of their own device.

“Radical Mutations” was also enlivened by dance. During her performance “Sonic Healings,” Nasheeka Nedsreal danced while Natalie Greffel played the bass. Accompanied by a video collage, the piece was a collection of images, both personal and familiar. When I asked Nasheeka about her intentions she remarked, “Natalie Greffel and I decided to break the fourth wall with the audience. And so, at midway through the show or close to the beginning, we spoke to the audience and invited them to give us words that they relate to healing and self-care.” Born in Louisiana, Nasheeka revealed to me that she had a very safe environment growing up in a community full of Black people and seeing Black people everywhere. She had Black doctors, Black teachers – that is Louisiana. A centrepiece of that performance was care, self-care, and collective care and healing in these times.

The last night formed a fine bracket with the opening night as actress Thelma Buabeng performed her alter ego Gladys alongside the musician Celina Bostic. Together, they blended folk music and improvisational comedy. Thelma used humour to point to hierarchies of grief highlighting that some people have lost loved ones, while others profess their pain. Gladys remarked: “I can’t go to Berghain.” The result was a room full of laughter understanding the unimportance of this temperament. In her view, not being able to go to a techno club was the least of one’s worries.

In the film “A Place of Rage”, the African-American poet June Jordan states that “the sanctity of an individual’s right to love who I want” is necessarily “the same issue” as that championed by the anti-racist activists. She reminds us that racist violence and homophobia exist on the same oppressive continuum as we struggle for Black liberation. Versions of Jordan’s sentiments were augmented, on stage, through video carrying the words and images by Mandhla, a gender non-confirming multimedia performance artist who depicted anti-Black discourses on queer dating apps and ZOE’s dance performance that provided and reflected on Black femme bodies. The exhortations and constellations of these two pieces moved between the world of experiment and desire, between the white gaze, while also holding on to the infinite possibilities of self-love. ZOE and Mandhla also captured how Black queer bodies in Germany cannot not only survive but, with some flare, they can also thrive.

All these performances were made possible by a team that responded to the crisis. This year brought pause, with many theatres closing their doors, adjusting, adapting, and mutating their programming. Speaking with Annemie Vanackere, Artistic and Managing Director of HAU, and Ricardo Carmona, Curator of Dance and Performance, they reflected the challenge to come up with a program like that during a pandemic, especially having only two months to prepare for “Radical Mutations.” It was extremely ambitious, but also an opportunity to offer a new avenue of freedom.

The curatorial team at HAU has a variety of theatrical and interdisciplinary backgrounds, creating a diverse programme spanning theatre and dance productions, workshops, music, installations and discourse, often speaking to the new modes of art and current hot topics in Berlin. “Even if HAU has a solid team of curators, inviting Nyabinghi_Lab with their vast knowledges and networks was so invigorating for us,” said Annemie Vanackere. “It was them who invited all those artists and we could enable them to carry out their productions.” Ricardo Carmona added that the festival “Radical Mutations” was an opportunity to reformulate HAU1 into a new space, literally and spiritually, in the age of Covid-19. Given that safety was a priority for the performers and audience, HAU curators provided the artists with as big a freedom as possible while also re-designing the space so as to implement social distancing measures.

Curation and performance look different today than they did in 2019 – before the coronavirus pandemic. In the age of Covid-19, curators have come up against some health, political, and social challenges that have raised questions about how society is organized, who has access to spaces, and what stories get told. “Radical Mutations” highlighted that it is important to reassert a sense of history and beauty in the arts, the importance of humour and the power of archives that are currently in the making. Berlin is a city that has gathered people of various descents, a patchwork of communities from different ethnic backgrounds, however, there are hierarchies that exist within every ethnic group based on gender identity, sexual orientation, physical ability, and social class, all of which can be reproduced on and off stage. Yet, the capacity to gather can be a source of power, love, and care.

The pandemic and the reshuffling of our society is part of centuries-long racial capitalism throughout the world. Germany is connected to colonial histories, migration histories, and divided histories. These histories, however, are not static. How we understand them, document them, and heal from them is the change we need, the social mutation that is necessary for repair. That means reshuffling the arts from the male-centred perspective to more feminist, migrant, and queer dimensions.

“Radical Mutations” showed how diasporic people claim their own stories and create their own categories by telling their narratives through active engagement with a community that might appear peripheral but seemingly not. It was about intimate stories that reclaim a multitude of bodies. It is about the radicality of love and it is recognizing that survival is not only being able to function in society, especially in the context of a pandemic.

Mutations are common in biology, and they can work with us, they can mean adapting to new ways. Mutations also give us the strength to act. During the closing ceremony of “Radical Mutations”, Bino from Wearebornfree! Empowerment Radio reminded us to “never undermine the power of your voice.”

© HAU Hebbel am Ufer, 2021