Imagination as Agency

Thursday 12 October 2023

In Paradiso - Main Hall

Doors: 19:30, Main programme: 20:00

This program is cancelled. Ticket buyers have been notified via e-mail.

Program is seated only

What role does decolonizing art play in unlearning oppressive, compelling narratives shaped by violent colonialism and patriarchy? Several generations of makers explore this question on the occasion of the appearance of two Dutch translations by Zimbabwean writer and film director Tsitsi Dangarembga: the essay collection Black and Female and the novel Nervous Conditions.

During Imagination as Agency, an evening in an intimate setting in the main hall of Paradiso, Zimbabwean writer and film director Tsitsi Dangaremgba will show her short film Kare Kare Zvako (Mother's Day) and a scene from In My Father's Village. She will be interviewed by Sarah Ozo-Irabor, literary critic and founder/host of the British literary podcast Books & Rhymes. Moderator Simone Zeefuik will then engage have a conversation with Tsitsi Dangarembga, Ernestine Comvalius, Pelumi Adejumo and Sarah Ozo-Irabor about the ways in which imagination shapes creative making. The audience is invited to ask questions.

About Black and Female
Black and Woman is a collection of essays by Tsitsi Dangarembga. In her first nonfiction work, she writes about race, class, colonialism and feminism. In these stylish essays, she interweaves the personal with the political. Drawing from her own experiences as a black woman in Zimbabwe and England, she writes about history, philosophy and skewed international relations. Dangarembga manages to expose the painful reality of discrimination and exclusion in beautiful sentences.

Nervous Conditions
In Nervous Conditions by Tsitsi Dangarembga, the intelligent 13-year-old Tambu begins her education. On her shoulders rests the duty and expectation of bringing greater prosperity to her family. In her heart burns the desire to be independent. But along the way, it becomes increasingly clear what price she must pay for her development. In this novel, Dangarembga makes a strong case for denouncing oppression and domination. Nervous Conditions movingly depicts the experience of having to live between two worlds.

This program is curated by Simone Zeefuik, Paradiso Amsterdam, Spui25, Uitgeverij Mozaïek and Uitgeverij Ten Have.

Programme:
20.00 Kare Kare Zvako - Mother's Day (Mother's Day, 2005, 30 min)
20.30 opening by Simone Zeefuik
20.40 interview Tsitsi Dangarembga by Sarah Ozo-Irabor
21.10 panel discussion with Tsitsi Dangarembga, Sarah Ozo-Irabor, Pelumi Adejumo and Ernestine Comvalius, moderator Simone Zeefuik
21.45 In My Father’s Village (2017, 02:35 fragment)
21.50 panel discussion part 2 and Q&A
22.15 closing by Simone Zeefuik

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Line-up

Main Hall

About Tsitsi Dangarembga

Tsitsi Dangarembga is a novelist, playwright and filmmaker. She is also director of the Institute of Creative Arts for Progress in Africa Trust. Nervous Conditions was awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and in 2021 Dangarembga received both the PEN Award for Freemdom of Expression and the German Peace Prize for her work.

Films by Tsitsi Dangarembga:

Kare Kare Zvako (Mother's Day, 2005, 30 min)
This short film by Tsitsi Dangarembga is based on an old Shona folk tale and rendered as a musical celebrating a diversity of contemporary Zimbabwean music. Drought has struck and father pushes his wife away from the family dinner of termites. In anger he digs a pit with brutal purpose, but little does he suspect that Mother can retaliate just as powerfully.
> Watch the trailer here.

In My Father's Village (2017)
In My Father's Village is a powerful short film about the inheritance of trauma, produced by Tsitsi Dangarembga. Rhuveneko goes back to her family's village to claim her inheritance. Her father, Chief Matsika, died during Zimbabwe's brutal liberation war in the 1970s. His brother is now Chief. As his greedy and corrupt nature is exposed at the village meeting, Rhuveneko learns of her father's true nature. A scene (02:35) from the short film will be shown during this evening.

About the speakers

Pelumi Adejumo
Pelumi Adejumo is a Nigerian-Dutch runaway pastor's child, interdisciplinary writer, and lucid dreamer currently based in Rotterdam. They publish poetry, create performances and music, sometimes in collaboration with the collective Public Relations. Their work is strongly influenced by West-African spirituality and mythology, incorporating both Christian and Yoruba influences, as well as queer and feminist theory. Working with themes as migratory grief, the grammar of the “poor” and researching the role and reclamation of spirituality in queer lives. They understand language also as a place of struggle. Using unintelligibility and the mix-match of languages to open up disruptive creative and musical possibilities.

Collaborators in the past include Sonsbeek biennale 20-24, de Appel, Metro54, National Theatre Young, National Opera & Ballet, Pank Magazine, deBuren, De Gids, Into The Great Wide Open and Montez Press Radio. Within the literary and visual art fields they work as an editor/programmer for Girls Like Us Magazine in Brussels, for the international literature festival Read My World in Amsterdam, and as a writer for Mister Motley Magazine.

Sarah Ozo-Irabor
Sarah Ozo-Irabor is the founder of the Instagram page and podcast Books & Rhymes. She has made considerable impact on the African literary scene. She has been instrumental in opening up transnational conversations on works by writers of African descent, not least through founding Books & Rhymes, a literary podcast that reimagines the transformative power of books and the way music and literature dialogue with each other. Her visual method of making readers draw connections between books and other realms of aesthetic experience expanded into the exploration of music and literature with the launch of the Books and Rhymes podcast in May 2019. Each podcast episode asks guests to pair a given book with songs or albums that are on the same emotional wavelengths as the book in question. The podcast debuted with Namwali Serpell as a guest, followed by Sarah Ladipo Manyika, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Ayesha Harruna Attah, among others. Ozo-Irabor has also done a lot to promote African literary culture in the digital sphere, which is why we named her Brittle Paper’s Social Media Influencer of the Year for her use of social media to redefine literature for a new generation of readers.

Ernestine Comvalius
Ernestine Comvalius is manager, trainer, spreker, dichter, schrijver, coach en werkende oma. Ze was de mede-initiatiefnemer en eerste directeur van het Bijlmer Parktheater en directeur van Theater Krater. Comvalius is gespecialiseerd in thema’s als leiderschap, inclusie, literatuur, cultuureducatie, podiumkunsten en talentontwikkeling.

How to get to Paradiso

Paradiso is on the Weteringschans 6-8 in Amsterdam. That is very close to Leidseplein. From every part of the city there are trams heading towards Leidseplein. From there on out you can walk to Paradiso. Free and secured underground bike parking is available on the opposite side of Paradiso. Travelling by car is difficult, since there are only a few busy parking lots nearby.

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