WAKATI
INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS:
SCENEKUNST REVIEW: https://scenekunst.no/artikler/kroppen-holder-regnskap
UNIVERSITAS REVIEW: https://www.universitas.no/aerlig-og-naert-om-en-viktig-historie/386411
DANSEINFO INTERVIEW: https://danseinfo.no/intervjuer/tid-identitet-og-kultur-som-sammenvevde-fenomener-et-mini-intervju-med-dansekunstner-shelmith-oseth/
WAKATI is an interdisciplinary dance performance that explores how identity is shaped, displaced, negotiated, and remembered across time. Through choreography, multilingual spoken text, live sound manipulation, and a sculptural interplay of light and shadow, the work investigates how migration, inheritance, cultural memory, and perception influence both self-understanding and how we are read by others.
Rooted in lived experience, moving between two continents — from majority to minority — WAKATI unfolds as both personal excavation and collective reflection. It asks:
What do we carry from one place to another?
What transforms — and what endures?
Partners
Vibeke Flesland Havre, playwright and dramaturg
Stephan Meidell; musician and composer
Jan Holden; light technician
Producer: Camilla Svingen (Syv-Mil)
Olga Regitze; costume designer.
Carte Blanche: co - producer
BIT Teatergarasjen: co - producer
Fargespill: choreography adviser and help. as well as use of studio for rehearsals
Bergen Dansesenter: use of studio and helps with marketing Wakati
fundings: Kulturrådet, FFUK, Fond for lyd og bilde, Bergen Kommune.
more:
Artistic concept:
Wakati is a Swahili word for time. In Swahili it has a broad meaning and refers to the passage of time in big and small scales, and the effects that time has on individuals, cultures and identity. Wakati is an expression of and reflection on human relations towards each other within the context of time.
The era we’re born into, the environment we grow up in and the teachings we gain along the way each of these affects the way we see other cultures and peoples. Time records our experiences with our families and values. Time provides context for these experiences and provides space for wisdom to accumulate. Time reflects the way we choose to treat our environment and our people. It shapes what we choose to define as ourselves.
The kind of surface assumptions and the pre-judgement we make of others are common in most cultures. In Kenya it’s about one’s tribe. There are more than 40 tribal groups in Kenya. I belong to the “Luhya'' tribe. In Kenya, my tribe gives others an idea of who I am, my strengths, my weaknesses, my nature and my appearance. With each tribe there is a set of characteristics that you are automatically associated with.
These identities are tied to the history of Kenya and its 40 tribes. But also to the historic relationship of colonialistic pressures brought by the west, for example The United Kingdom, upon african nations. Kenya has been changed by time and by its relationship to the west. Just as my relationship to my own image has changed as I have immigrated from Kenya as a Luhya child to a norwegian adult. Wakati examines how individual experiences are woven into social change and historical events, and how art can contribute to understanding the past while imagining the future. |
We hope and want to share Wakati with broader audience to open up more conversations within this theme but also for the sake of pure love for dance.
