We are tomorrow Performance Theater

A performance by Mmakgosi Kgabi and Stompie Selibe

The multimedia theatre performance uses sound, language and movement to renegotiate identity and to challenge a form of forging an identity based on stereotyped classifications according to skin colour and origin. The dialogue draws on the myths of Sisyphus and Narcissus, and using photography, colours, drawings, voice and movement, explores inner and social conflicts between the “West” and the former colonies.

I am not the colour of my skin

The colour of my skin is brown, maybe a light shade of brown. If we were all using the same standards for identifying colours, that is the colour of my skin. When I knock against something, the red blood reacts and the spot turns purple or blue-black. The palms of my hands are … I don’t know the exact name of this colour. When I’ve been running or making love, I can see the red blood flow into the palms of my hands. When I’m cold, my fingertips turn purple or blue, just like when I jar a limb. My hair is curly. Naturally curly. For it to blow in the wind I would have to blow-dry it or use chemical hair relaxer. My hair is tightly curled.

I grew up in an open-minded home. I had access to books and met people from different cultures, religions, backgrounds and diverse political attitudes. We rose up from the oppression in our regions ‒ that which we imposed on ourselves and that which was imposed on us from outside. In this culture of oppression, education and open-mindedness seemed to be attributes assigned to white people. I believe these attributes belong to all of us. The material is accessible for all of us nowadays. The formerly oppressed will consider an educated Black person as someone who feels they are “better” or even “white”.

No, my skin is brown and I come from educators. Those who were still born during colonial times look at me and say I speak well-educated. […] I speak well-educated and am not sure if this should fill me with pride or shame. Sometimes I feel this conflict inside of me. I am not arrogant. I am just the way I am. I am the sum of the people I came into contact with; of the places I slept in; the food I ate; the books I read; the music I heard; the games I played; the lovers I cradled. I bleed a blood of the same red as that of my fellow being.

An event by Kultursrprünge at Ballhaus Naunynstraße gemeinnützige GmbH. In context of We are Tomorrow funded by the Stiftung Deutsche Klassenlotterie Berlin and the Federal Foreign Office.