Laia RiCa / KMZ Kollektiv (SV/MX/CU/ES/DE)

#GlobalePerspektiven

An evening with Alexander von Humboldt – scientist, eponym of the Humboldt Forum, second discoverer of America! In the role of both the discovered and the discoverers, three Latinx performers break the Humboldtian gaze. In sculptures, plants, stones and their own biographies they search for decolonial counter-histories: From two products – potatoes and plaster – they create a dazzling web of unsuspected images and dense narratives. In doing so, they illuminate how difficult it is to conduct a debate at eye level when there is a gap between the Western World and the Global South, a gap between “knowledge” and “belief”. The collective takes the Kogi people in Colombia, who are reclaiming their ritual masks from the Ethnological Museum at the Humboldt Forum Berlin, as an example.

The group from El Salvador, Mexico, Cuba, Spain and Germany already dealt with colonial continuities in their multiple award-winning production “Kaffee mit Zucker?” (Coffee with Sugar?), which was shown as a tryout via livestream from the Erlangen Experimentiertheater in 2021. With the new material performance “Fünf Exponate” (Five Exhibits), they pick up where they left off, using biographical material and historical sources, video fragments and live music to create a visually powerful, dense in terms of content and sensual production.

“Once again the KMZ collective creates a thematically intense confrontation in a way that is both artful and humorous. Outstanding is the great desire to experiment in dealing with materials on stage as well as with all other available theatrical means. In short: absolutely worth seeing!” (Fidena, The Current Review)