CW#9 l SEASON 3 l Syntax

Theme: Comma

7 June 2023, Wednesday | Season 3, Episode 9

Apartment Project and online

 

Livestream link: https://youtube.com/live/kBzvB3Qgl-A

Organized by the Apartment Project Berlin and funded by the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe

 

 

Syntax

 

19:30 «Power Games», performances and presentations by Pet the Poet and Zorka Wollny

 

21:00 «Turbo Summation», music film, spoken word and rap performance by Mark Mushiva

 

 

With the performance «Power Games» Pet the Poet and Zorka Wollny ask «How can new communities emerge and find a language against pressing social justice issues?» To find answers to this question, the poet and composer collaborated with eight students in Mombasa, Kenya, to develop a performance, creating musical poems that depict contemporary life in Kenya from different perspectives. This creative process resulted in five poems titled Capitalist, Power is Beauty, She Mental, Technocratic City, and Kwaheri Kenya, which will be part of the upcoming «Chromatic Wednesdays» event.

 

«Turbo Summation» by Mark Mushiva features a manifesto, his synth-inspired hip-hop album, spoken words, a music film, and a homemade wearable device that function as speculation, blurring the lines between reality and the imagined parallel present that plays out in Mark’s mind. The piece is an Afro-cyberpunk love story told within the confines of late capitalism. It follows two Namibians yearning for a connection in a fragmented society, in a film shot in Namibia that features an all-Namibian cast, including Mushiva and the multi-talented Varaakuani Hambira. The audiovisual experience is layered with four songs from Mark’s eponymous synth-inspired hip-hop album.

 

 

Tangara Philip, known by the name Pet The Poet, is a spoken word artist whose works are deeply rooted in activism. Over the past four years, he has been performing in coastal Kenya, sharing his love for words and poetry with audiences. Believing that art is a powerful tool for driving change in society, Pet The Poet uses his talent to bring attention to important issues and inspire others to take action. In reference to his thought-provoking performances, he often says, «Writers should write sick pieces, for that is the only way the nation would realize it needs healing».

 

Zorka Wollny is a composer and a theatre artist who creates site-specific works responding to their architectural surroundings. Like a director, she collaborates with musicians, actors, and dancers, as well as members of the local communities she works in. She is the initiator of the DUOS Festival in Mombasa and coordinates it together with Lukasz Jastrubczak.

 

Mushiva is a Berlin-based Namibian street poet, rapper, and decolonial technologist. A member of the award-winning Hip-Hop poetry group Black Vulcanite and a trained computer scientist, Mushiva uses both of these experiences to access and project Afro-Accelerationist visions – the dangerous idea that a profound, rapid, and radical adoption of technology by African people can counteract the adverse effects of racial capitalism.

 

 

«Chromatic Wednesdays» is a bi-weekly event series bringing together creative thinkers across diverse backgrounds. As part of this interdisciplinary program, the performances will be shown at 19.30 (doors open at 19.00) at Apartment Project (Hertzbergstraße 13, 12055 Berlin) and can also be followed online on Youtube (https://youtube.com/live/kBzvB3Qgl-A).

 

The space of Apartment Project is accessible by wheelchair.