Crossing the Pale River (2020-2021)

in 2020 and 2021, Coila-Leah Enderstein and i created Crossing the Pale River – a 50 minute guided audio walk with intermittent performances. the site-specific work reflects on a street in berlin named after a province in south africa that no longer exists, inviting critical contemplation on the entangled colonial histories of germany and south africa through sound, storytelling, poetry, performance and guided listening prompts.

coila wrote this about the work that sums it up pretty well:

“The “Transvaal” was a province in South Africa from 1852 up until 1994. When the British took control of the Cape in the early 19th century, the descendents of Dutch farmer-settlers (the Boers) traveled north-eastwards with the hopes of establishing a homeland and to evade British colonial rule. The demarcation of territory north of the Vaal river (which has its source in present-day Mpumalanga province) was the culmination of this journey, commonly known as the “Great Trek”. This mass migration displaced indigenous peoples and played a prominent role in the formation of white Afrikaner identity.

The presence of a street named after the Transvaal in Germany’s capital betrays a complex set of historical relations and the racial project of nation-building, particularly in the ways it intersects with symbols of Germany’s own history of empire: the streets that cross Transvaalstraße being Lüderitzstraße, Togostraße, Guineastraße, Senegalstraße and Afrikanische Straße.

Starting from their perspectives as descendents of European settlers, the two artists interweave their personal narratives and lesser-known histories in order to critically reflect together on our relations to coloniality, land, naming and mapping.”

you can also read Parvathi Ramanathan’s beatiful review of the work here.

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creation & performance: Coila-Leah Enderstein, Nicola van Straaten | assistant: Vilja Mihalovsky | voice actors: Lena Astarte Posch, Mmakgosi Kgabi, Daniella Mooney, Ndinomholo Ndilula | dramaturgy: Hans Peter Kuhn, Scarlet Yu | music composition, mixing, mastering: Coila-Leah Enderstein | Script & editing : Coila-Leah Enderstein, Nicola van Straaten | zine design: Nicola van Straaten | translation: Lena Astarte Posch | documentation: Zee Hartmann

Crossing the Pale River premiered in September 2021 in the framework of Tanzfabrik’s Autumn Program. Supported by the NATIONAL PERFORMANCE NETWORK – STEPPING OUT, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media within the framework of the initiative NEUSTART KULTUR. Assistance Program for Dance.