'Fugitive Translations' in Konstanz

At the beginning of this month, I presented a 20-minute piece of verbatim theatre at an academic workshop at the University of Konstanz in Germany. The workshop brought together six or so academics and myself around the theme "Revisiting Fugitivity." The piece I created is called Fugitive Translations exploring what I would make if I allowed ideas of fugitivity to inform my artistic choices.

When I was invited to participate, I thought of the work of Ambrose Muyisiwa — poet, activist, and founder of the African Migration Report Anthology Series. He founded this series to gather the stories of people with experiences of migration around the report which provides policy recommendations made by the African Union and the IOM on migration within Africa.

To create the piece, I interviewed Ambrose about the report, selected a poem from the anthology to learn (with permission), developed a structured dance improvisation drawing on information from the report, created some laminated images to use as props, and put together a PowerPoint of 'section titles'.

The interview with Ambrose took place in a café not far from where I live, called Jollof Republic. Afrobeats was playing in the background as I asked questions shifting my phone as close to him as possible. Ambrose had wanted an "interview me as we go” kind of interview. I complied, doubtfully. I had wanted a quiet space and a microphone, but this was about Ambrose, not me. The outcome was that a scene ended up in the piece where I dance to Afrobeats music, asking an invisible Ambrose what he wanted to order.

Feedback from the workshop participants suggested that this scene was what held the deliberately fragmented performance together.

That surprised me — I thought the PowerPoint running in the background was doing that job. I will be revisiting the piece in rehearsal why this scene worked in this way. Was it the liveliness of it? Was it that the music in the scene chimed with the Afrobeats sounds that you could hear within the recordings of Ambrose’s voice? Creativity and Meaning have an interesting relationship.

Many thanks to the workshop organisers — Dr Jeannine-Madeleine Fischer (University of Konstanz), Dr Danielle Isler (University of Bayreuth), and Dr Claire Vionnet (Coventry University) — and all the participants.

More on the African Migration Report Anthology Series: [CONCEPT NOTE] Africa Migration Report Poetry Anthology Series.docx