Alienation III

As a star architect of 20th-century Germany, Ernst May designed, among other things, the urban planning program ‘Neues Frankfurt’ in Frankfurt am Main, the districts of Neu-Altona in Hamburg and Neue Vahr in Bremen, as well as housing projects in the Soviet Union. From a European perspective, he created social architecture inspired by the garden city model, which was intended to bring all areas of life together in one unit. But he also realized his visions on behalf of the British administration in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The city where Robert Ssempijja grew up, and the emerging artist’s view of May is devastating. In his performance ALIENATION III, Ssempijja, who lives in both Europe and Africa, reflects an urbanistically colonized population’s attitude to life in his choreography, because for him, architecture also includes ‘how we behave around buildings’. Until today, May's scheme for a ring-shaped new Kampala is perceived in Uganda as both a kind of fortress and a foreign body: While locals have to turn back at the gates, colonial rulers enjoy themselves inside, walking on streets named after their own heroes. Even in these times of decolonization, the choreographer, researcher and Pina Bausch fellow still feels like a stranger in his own city. Symbolically, he places street signs on stage whose names represent colonial history and connect the performance with the film ALIENATION I, which was created as an independent work. Also constantly present is the red earth of the region, which Ssempijja washes out of his hair every day. Mealy dust as his only home?