AZIMUT

Hajusom is an award-winning performance collective from Hamburg. Since 1999 it has collaborated with artists in various genres to develop innovative scenic and installation-based formats. It views itself as a transcultural ensemble of artists from countries around the world, e.g. Burkina Faso, Iran, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Chile and Mali.
To kick off its new three-year thematic cycle, Hajusom has developed a performance titled “AZIMUT” which explored colonialism and memory, and critically investigated post-colonial entanglements. The piece is based on the performers’ personal memories and life stories which have been shaped by migration and flight. Inside the largest hall at Kampnagel, visitors had the chance to aurally and visually experience personal and collective memories, presented in individual room installations, e.g. austere rooms containing a single object, hyper-realistic scenarios, surrealistic dream rooms, elastic rooms, foggy chambers and rooms turned upside-down. In these settings, the members of Hajusom have performed solo acts, music, re-enactments and choreographed sequences while audience members could move freely from room to room.
An accompanying symposium organised in cooperation with the former Hamburg Museum für Völkerkunde has discussed how and to what extent the Hanseatic city has come to terms with its colonial heritage. The symposium has served to advance efforts to thematically reorientate the museum. A second symposium took place at the Sophiensæle in Berlin in cooperation with the working group “Decolonial Aesthetics” at the Berlin University of the Arts. For the planned guest performances at the FFT Düsseldorf and the Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster, the installation has been modified to fit the spatial dimensions of the respective venues.

A co-production by Hajusom, Kampnagel Hamburg, Sophiensaele Berlin, Theater im Pumpenhaus Münster and FFT Düsseldorf, in cooperation with OTHNI-Laboratoire (CM) and Latai Taumoepeau (TO), Museum für Völkerkunde Hamburg
Artistic directors, stages director: Dorothea Reinicke, Ella Huck
Development team, co-stage directors: Latai Taumoepeau (TO), Martin Ambara (CM)
Performers, authors: Hajusom Transnational Ensemble (AF, BJ, BU, CL, EG, GH, IR, ML, NG)
Room installation, costume design: Michael Böhler, Markus Lohmann
Video: Adnan Softic (BA)
Choreography: Josep Caballero Garcia (ES), Jochen Roller
Music concept, composition: Viktor Marek

Additional Dates and Venues symposium, guest performances and residence programme:

Residence programme Latai Taumoepeau, Kampnagel Hamburg: 1–14 Aug. 2018;
Residence programme Martin Ambara, Kampnagel Hamburg: 1–10 Oct. 2018;
Symposium 1, Museum für Völkerkunde, Hamburg: 9–10 Feb. 2019;
Guest performance, Theater im Pumpenhaus, Münster: 17–18 May 2019;
Guest performance, Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf: 31 May –1 Jun. 2019;
Symposium 2, Sophiensæle, Berlin: 10–13 Oct. 2019