Wednesday, 11/13/2024
at 8:00 PM


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by Lois Alexander

The smell of golden pampas grass, the damp fog blanket above, trees reaching up to the sky. When I tilt my head, I hear the vibrations of the elevated train and multilingual overlapping voices, reflected by semicircular concrete facades. Both are real, both are me. And as I continue the rotation with my upper body, the taste of sweet-sticky rice returns to my tongue. Fragments of memory overlap like sediments: mobile, rubbing against each other, generating tensions and propelling me forward. I want to bring forth the embedded knowledge that helps me, strengthens me, that I can share.

Identities are founded in diversities. The protagonist of Eventually Causing the Shake is Black, female, the middle child of several siblings, Californian, Kreuzberg, the waves of the Pacific Ocean left traces, the roar of the Atlantic settled in… She is shaped by traversed landscapes and diasporic crossings. By staying. And by dance. It is the medium to grasp the influences of the surrounding landscapes, to experience the tremors outside and within, and to relate them. For seismic tensions run through ground like body, connecting the past with the future. Can a bridge be spanned in dance?

Eventually Causing the Shake is part of the dance series How I Become, How I Want to Be at Ballhaus Naunynstraße, where three Black choreographers inquire about the important inspirations, solidarities, and connections for the empowerment of self-determined Black femininities.

Most recently, Lois Alexander was seen in Space Creators directed by Jasco Viefhues at Ballhaus Naunynstraße. Eventually Causing the Shake is Lois Alexander’s first solo work at Ballhaus Naunynstraße.

Photo: Naima Maleika

Event data provided by: Reservix