NKISI // TIRAN WILLEMSE // 08 AUGUST // SONAR CINEMA

(bb)RITUAL; an exploration in ritual performance 

When the Ancients Sang,  
they formed the rivers, the lands, the dunes and the ocean. 
Wherever they passed, they left a trail of music… 
They also devised the first RITUAL, 
as a sacrifice before reintegration, 
An embodied synaesthetic environment and experience. 
… 

Site specifically created by Tiran Normanson Willemse and Nkisi for DokuFest 2024 

(bb) is the need for one another; an encouragement for one another; unclear boundaries between bromance and romance; a brotherhood/sisterhood between sound and dance; the other's babe or baby; the rhythm that you don't understand, just feel. 

The collaboration between the dancer and director Tiran Willemse Normanson and the musician Nkisi was inspired by the idea of ​​"backup": (bb) is about stepping back and emphasizing everything that is not the focus of the stage. The performance explores the dialogue between sound and dance, which permeate each other, mutually transform each other, and constantly evolve in forms and textures. 

(bb) works in the operating fringes, the edges of representation, infiltrating one another and transforming independently as well as together. How does communal support relate to blackness? How does the relation of music and dance unfold in indigenous practice? How do people relate to each other, to land and identity?  

Nkisi produces intense powerful sonics influenced by ancient Congolese rhythm and noise, planetary electromagnetism and experimental improvisation. The creative musician and visual artist is one of the co-founders of the now legendary NON Worldwide platform. She recently launched both her label INITIATION and research platform ‘The Secret Institute’ - exploring the secrets and mysteries of vibrational rhythm, ritual as a socio-political tool, invisible gestural sonics, noise tantra and strategies of trance. Nkisi has performed at countless festivals throughout Europe such as Semibreve, Terraforma and Unsound, and at respected nightlife venues such as De School, The White Hotel and Inkonst. She has travelled extensively as a touring artist, performing at New York’s 

Dweller Festival and Montreal’s MUTEK. With a richly embedded and multilayered practice, Nkisi has worked with and inside esteemed institutions such as Palais de Tokyo, Callie’s Berlin and Wysing Arts Centre. 

Tiran Willemse is a dancer, choreographer and researcher from South Africa, now based in Switzerland. His performance-based practice is rooted in a careful attention to space, imagination, gesture and sound, focusing on how they relate to the ways in which constructions of race, gender and memory are performed, communicated and challenged. Willemse received the Swiss Performance Art Award in 2023 and is currently Artist-in-Residence at Gessnerallee Zurich while continuing to tour internationally.

(bb) press picture by Clara Janisch