PLATEFORME

During the next ten days, the author, dramaturge and translator Marie Yan writes about her impressions from africologneFESTIVAL. This is her first text, about the official inauguration and her experience of the opening production «Samson».

In cooperation with the africologneFESTIVAL we present a series of four essays by African and Afro-diasporic artists who reflect on their performance work as an act of resistance and at the same time take a critical look at postcolonial power relations. In his contribution, the Ugandan poet Kagayi Ngobi, who will present his spoken word performance For my negativity during the festival, describes how dangerous life can be for a political poet in his home country  – and how he finally abandoned his law studies to dedicate himself to a precarious existence as a poet.

Here is the second part of Marie Yan’s report on the panel «Recognise, restore, repair», in which the panellists explain their strategies for the future of reparation.

Today’s final essay by Marie Yan marks the end of almost two weeks of thoughtful, sometimes critical reporting from africologneFESTVAL. Despite all her gratitude for the festival’s hospitality, our author highlights a few hard-to-digest contradictions at the end – and leaves the gaze into the future to Ugandan performance poet Kagayi Ngobi.

In her report on the third day of africologne, Marie Yan sums up the extremely dense discussion «Recognise, restore, repair» at the Cologne dialogFORUM. A second part on these multi-layered impressions will follow tomorrow.

In today’s contribution, Marie Yan looks at different types of gazes, at a film screening, a staged reading and a concert – and takes a critical look at future perspectives for the festival.

Mit dem heutigen Abschlussessay von Marie Yan enden knapp zwei Wochen aufmerksame, manchmal kritische Berichterstattung vom africologneFESTVAL. Bei aller Dankbarkeit für die Gastfreundschaft des Festivals legt unsere Autorin zum Schluss noch ein paar schwer verdauliche Widersprüche offen – und überlässt den Blick in die Zukunft dem ugandischen Performance-Poeten Kagayi Ngobi.