AfriQueer tours Accra, Ghana

For immediate release

AfriQueer tours Accra, Ghana

Friday, 15 December 2017 @ 16:00, Legon Botanical Gardens
Saturday, 16 December 2017 @ 16:00, Legon Botanical Gardens

Launched two years ago, AfriQueer has already presented groundbreaking iterations across Europe and Africa namely Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Mozambique, Botswana and South Africa capturing the hearts of audiences across the globe with the site-specific performance, which celebrates LGBTIQ human rights based on an ancient creation myth of how the stars were made. Created by Drama for Life AFRICA Project, written by Tlotlego Gaogakwe, directed by acclaimed director and collaborative theatre-maker Warren Nebe, AfriQueer closes its 2017 tour in Accra, Ghana from 8th to the 17th December. A new version of How the Stars Were Made will be created and performed as a collaboration between the original company and artists from Ghana. Nebe will be assisted by Ghanian alumni of Drama for Life, Alfred Elikem Kunutsor.

AfriQueer is a dreamscape, a queer meditation on masculinities. This ritual theatre performance explores what it is to be queer and African and takes the audience on a magical and dream-like re-telling of the creation myth of how the stars were created. The audience is challenged to look, witness, and contemplate masculinities, sexualities and relationships in open, non-judgmental and non-prescriptive ways. Moos van den Broek, Afrovibes Festival, Tolhuistuin – Amsterdam says, “AfriQueer exposes the pain of forbidden sexuality, melancholy and violence alternate in a poetic performance, which draws along hidden places in the city and subtly processes old rites and myths.” Nebe says that “the work has been a powerful drawing together of men at a time when men have needed to reflect on their own complicity in the cycles of violence perpetuated by men; men of culture and tradition, men of the church, men of the body politic, and men of history/ies.”

In partnership with the Goethe-Institut, this brave, original work opens up a space for reflection, compassion and understanding of and for queer identities, and adds to the already sounded clarion call for a human rights and social justice based approach to LGBTIQ. Moos van den Broek says, “AfriQueer draws us into a story of all time.”

The artists for Ghana include Songezo Mcilizeli, Kwanele Finch Thusi, Tlotlo Kefitlhile, Oarabile Tsholofelo, Bonginkosi Mnisi, Valerie Asare, Nenesenor Abloso, Adjetey Annang, Cornelius Phantomas, Kofi Anthonio, Jude Arnold Kurankyi, Jeremiah Atcheah Obadiah, Benedictus Mattson and Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi. They all bring their own artistic signatures to the performance. AfriQueer dreams into existence an Africa where queerness is not disavowed but embraced” says Paul Adolphsen, Howl Round (2016).

AfriQueer is the winner of the Adelaide Tambo Human Rights Award, Grahamstown National Arts Festival 2016.

AfriQueer performance dates 
Friday, 15 December 2017 @ 16:00, Legon Botanical Gardens
Saturday, 16 December 2017 @ 16:00, Legon Botanical Gardens

AfriQueer is made possible by the generous support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the Goethe-Institutwww.dramaforlife.co.za/projects/afriqueer
www.goethe.de/southafrica
www.goethe.de/ghana

#AfriQueer#AfriQueer2017

Social Media:
#AfriQueer has a substantial social media platform inclusive of:

Twitter: @Drama_for_life / @dfl_AFRICA / @AfricaQueer / @FUCKmeQUEER
Instagram: @fmqsafely / @AfricanQueer
High res visual reference:
https://www.dramaforlife.co.za/galleries/gallery-1