ANUSTHAN, a decolonizing ritual
In the name of our ancestors who have survived indentured labor and colonialism, and those who revolted against exploitation, oppression and dehumanization. Through this ritual, dancers Fazle Shairmahomed and Devika Chotoe follow the footsteps of their ancestors in the fight for decolonization. Guided by the beats and sounds of ‘..Formerly known as..’ they set off on a journey towards the past to create healing for the future. The mechanisms and effects from the colonial past can still be felt, and through this ritual they create a joint moment to bring about healing and call for recognition of a shared history.
Devika Chotoe is a performance artist, choreographer, writer, intersectional feminist, Capricorn, Queer, Shakti and many other labels she once inhabited, will still inhabit, or will probably never get to. Performance art and language are her entry points into understanding how technologies of bodies, times, spaces and their interrelationality function and disfunction. Engaging in artistic practises are her pathways of building resilience and embodying change, thus framing her art as a form of resistance to ossified hegemonic mechanisms. Her main focus is highlighting minoritarian positions by emphasizing the visibility of the ‘’othered’’ bodies and their lived experience according to what ‘’other’’ means in an imperialist, westernized, heteronormative, patriarchal and abled context. With this emphasis on visibility comes the negotiation of prevalent discourse, dominant gazes, access, expectation and safety. She views these moments of negotiation as catalysts for a radical rewriting of realities, emphasising the state of ‘transness’ as a flourishing state and hybridity as transformative praxis. Devika is currently based in Amsterdam and attends the School for New Dance Development.
Fazle Shairmahomed is a performance artist and dancer, who mainly creates decolonizing rituals, in which he transforms the relationship with the spectator, and challenges understandings of inter-sensoriality. Often he refers to problematics concerned with the politicization of his body as a Dutch Surinamese-Hindustani Muslim queer man. This experienced reality creates an urgency that shapes his artistic choices leading to themes such as death, rebirth, ancestry, belonging, colonial histories, and healing. Since 2013 he is also one of the members of CLOUD danslab, an artist run dance studio which supports research and practice of dance, movement, and performance art in the Hague.