Fragmented Shadows - WKcollective

Choreography by Wanjiru Kamuyu

Trio, dance

Creation 2023

Running time : 55 minutes

Suitable for all audiences

“Our bodies are like a tapestry, a quilt woven together by stories and memories, which are constantly being shredded over and over again by a million scissors.

In collaboration with 2 dancers, we question the body’s capacity to free itself from the entanglement of certain stories, certain memories.
How can we use the body as a site of liberation?”

Wanjiru Kamuyu

The body as a museum, a library, a mausoleum, a guardian of memories imprinted in hidden crevices safeguards our collective and individual memories – ancestral, familial, personal, societal, cellular and genetic. Our cells, muscles, tissue, fascia, organs, blood all hold spaces of refuge for our memories, our stories contributing to our well and (un)well being. These memories unknown or known, conscious, or unconscious dispense and manifest beneficial and non-beneficial energies into our bodies.

In collaboration with two other dancers, Wanjiru Kamuyu explores through dance and imagery, the idea of the body as a site of liberation.

Consciously and unconsciously, I use my dance as a practice of healing justice and liberation work within which I celebrate, release and self heal.

With this dance work, we deepen our collective and individual practices of healing and liberation through our physical expression and exploration. We have created visceral, sensorial and emotional landscapes within which we dance and the audience experiences.

The scenography plays an integral role in the work. It contributes to the visual landscapes in which the body is in relationship to and exist within. The landscapes are abstractions that lend to a stimulating, evocative, mysterious and beautiful visual journey for the audience.

Wanjiru Kamuyu

Choreography | Wanjiru Kamuyu with Sherwood Chen and Elodie Paul

Performers | Sherwood Chen, Wanjiru Kamuyu, Elodie Paul

Artistic associate | David Gaulein-Stef

Producer | Dirk Korell

Original music | LACRYMOBOY

Lighting design | Cyril Mulon

Costumes/set design | Birgit Neppl

Executive production | camin aktion

Co-production | Le Tangram, scène nationale Evreux Louviers | Le Quartz – Scène nationale de Brest | L’Onde Théâtre Centre d’Art, Scène Conventionnée d’Intérêt National – Art et Création pour la Danse | Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes – Direction Ambra Senatore | VIADANSE – Direction Fatoumi/Lamoureux, Centre chorégraphique national de Bourgogne Franche-Comté à Belfort in the frame of the studio program – a device of Ministry of Culture and Communication and DRAC Bourgogne Franche-Comté | Compagnie DCA / La Chaufferie

Support | Direction régionale des affaires culturelles d’Île-de-France | Région Ile-de-France | The creation of Fragmented Shadows receives commissioning support from New York Live Arts’ Live Feed creative residency program, which is supported in part by Rockefeller Brothers Fund and Partners for New Performance.

Sponsorship | With the support of Caisse des Dépôts | With additional support provided by Sweat Variant

Rehearsal space | CN D Centre national de la danse, Pantin | La Briqueterie, CDCN Val-de-Marne

“Fragmented Shadows requires patience and trust. It pulls the audience into its gravitational center, encompassing and holding us within an experience that binds performers and viewers alike. Transformative, it invites us to surrender to an immersion in movement, breath, light, and sound. It offers a somatic opening toward something unnamed yet profoundly felt.”

Catherine Tharin, The Dance Enthusiast