All rules are made up — it’s written on a wall along the Zeeburgerdijk in Amsterdam-East. Someone has created a small, funny figure next to it.
Yes, they’re all invented, those rules. And there are plenty of them, once you start thinking about it. You’ve got the clear ones: traffic laws, compulsory education. The unwritten kinds: a maternity visit lasts no more than an hour. And then there’s that vague but deeply persuasive zone of regulation — a tangle, a web of written and unwritten material. You can easily spend a whole life caught inside such a knot of rules.
What are we talking about here? Colonialism. And how it’s woven into everything. How even the most mundane things — urban planning, sewers, roads, the presence or absence of streetlights — can make people, deep down, believe they are worth more, or less, than others.
Robert Ssempija explores the postcolonial knot that his birthplace, Kampala, has always been. A city conceived by a German, placed without hesitation in an ancient landscape. The capital of a country drawn by foreign powers on an English-language map.
On November 5 and 6, Robert Ssempijja will appear at euro-scene Leipzig. During the festival he presents two parts of Alienation, the multidisciplinary quartet in which he unravels that knot.
On November 5, at 7:30 PM, the dance film Alienation I will be shown.
On November 6, at 5:30 PM, he performs Alienation III.
Note: During the festival he also teaches a masterclass (Between Body and World) on November 5, from 2:30 to 4 PM.