africologne 2014/2015

Cologne’s long-term goal is to establish itself as a leading centre of contemporary arts from Africa. The Theater im Bauturm at the Freies Schauspiel Cologne organized what is now the third edition of the “africologne” festival in cooperation with numerous project partners. The event became significantly larger in 2015 in terms of participants and performance venues; in addition to the six established venues, the Schauspielhaus Cologne and the alternative art and cultural centre Odonien agreed to host festival performances as well. The feature presentation of the festival was the play “Coltan Fever – The Future of Raw Materials” – a co-production by the Goethe-Institut Kigali in Rwanda and the Congolese performance collective Tarmac des Auteurs from Kinshasa.

The piece explored the effects of coltan mining, an extremely valuable metallic ore required for high-end technological products. In several African countries, it has sparked and fuelled social maladies, corruption, war and the irresponsible exploitation of nature. The play, written by Aristide Tarnagda and directed by Jan-Christoph Gockel, premiered in October 2014 at the Burkinan Récréâtrales theatre festival, one of the most prominent of its kind on the African continent, and was later shown in Cologne in 2015. The festival also included numerous guest productions. The project presented a number of African artists, who are not as well known to European audiences, such as the choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly from Burkina Faso and the Ivorian-Haitian choreographic duo Massidi Adiatou and Jenny Mezile. The broad spectrum of performances was accompanied by an extensive programme of workshops, symposiums, discussions and dramatic readings. In this way, the organisers tried to stimulate public interest in intercultural themes in the areas of theatre, dance, film, fine arts and literature and promote networking between artists from African countries and Germany. Together with the city of Cologne, the project hopes to establish a long-term cultural partnership between the metropolitan city on the Rhine and Burkina Faso’s capital of Ouagadougou, as well as secure regional financing to ensure that the biannual art and cultural festival “africologne” can continue being staged in the future.

Artistic director: Gerhardt Haag
Project director/Curator: Kerstin Ortmeier
Production manager: Lisa Kihm-Dolmaire
Artists: Massidi Adiatou (CI), Panaibra Gabriel Canda (MZ), Serge Aimé Coulibaly (BF), Jan-Christoph Gockel, Nicolas Guyot (F), Laurenz Leky, Harvey Massamba (CD), Jenny Mezile, Yves Ndagano (CD), Michael Pietsch, Tarmac des Auteurs (CD), Aristide Tarnagda (BF), Tim Winsey (BF).

Additional Venues:

Festival Récréâtrales (Artistic director: Etienne Minoungou), Burkina Faso: 25 Oct. – 2 Nov. 2014; world premiere Coltan Fever on 31 Oct. 2014