The Black Circus of the Republic of Bantu
Albert Ibokwe Khoza
55 min | Parental rating 14+
8/3, Friday, at 9pm
9/3, Saturday, at 7pm
10/3, Sunday, at 7pm
Praça Ramos de Azevedo, s/nº, Sé
SYNOPSIS
The show highlights the violent and shameful history of human zoos, ethnological exhibitions that took place in Europe between 1870 and 1960 in which people were displayed as exotic animals. In this performance, South African artist Albert Ibokwe Khoza investigates the impact of the imperial and colonial gaze on black bodies, both past and present. The work bears witness to the ongoing pain caused by historical and persistent racism, while also engaging in collective healing and the reclamation of dignity.
Trigger warning: contains full frontal nudity, amplified sound and shouting.
HISTORY
South African natural performance artist Albert Ibokwe Khoza continually reveals and projects the state of mind of a loner individual who is a non-binary womanly man, as well as being a sangoma (traditional healer). Through sexuality and ancestral practice, he expresses his thoughts moving between different artistic mediums to outline social ills and what his divergent nature sees and interprets about the world in which he lives in, critically questioning his surroundings, his leaders and life itself. Khoza won, in 2023, the Bessie Award for the performance in And So You See … Our Honorable Blue Sky and Ever Enduring Sun … Can Only Be Consumed Slice by Slice …
CRITIC
[The performance] is deeply disquieting: there are hats with cable ties sticking out, a whip flung over a clothes rail, monkey masks with sharp teeth, a pot of salt and a pile of sand, rubbish and bones with footprints […]. Even the soft tutus with their gentle feathering become unsettling hung from the ceiling like dead bodies. Apparently, the performance involved Khoza picking people out of the audience at random to wear the masks and dance while the artist cracked a whip. […] But it’s nothing compared to what generations of Black people endured.
In The Black Circus of the Republic of Bantu, South African artist Albert Ibokwe Khoza informed us, over the course of an hour of performance, nudity and hilarious audience humiliation, that ‘the children of the colonialists’ – i.e. most of those present – are condemned to perpetuate the ‘imperial gaze’, reducing him to the status of a performing monkey.
TECHNICAL SHEET
Direction: Albert Ibokwe Khoza and Princess Mhlongo
Authorship: Albert Ibokwe Khoza
Performance: Albert Ibokwe Khoza
Stage managing: Miranda Vuyo
Production: African Entertainers
