ALIENATION III

He was one of the star architects of 20th-century Germany: Ernst May designed, among other things, New Frankfurt, Neu-Altona in Hamburg, Neue Vahr in Bremen and housing estates in the Soviet Union. From a European perspective, he created social architecture inspired by the garden city model. But he also realised his visions on behalf of the British administration in Kampala, the capital of Uganda. This is exactly where Robert Ssempijja grew up, and the up-and-coming choreographer's view of May is devastating. In the performance ALIENATION III, the artist, who lives between Europe and Africa, dances the attitude towards life of an urbanistically colonised population, because for him, architecture also includes ‘how we behave around buildings.’ Even 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 the locals have to turn back at the gates, the colonial rulers enjoy themselves inside, walking on streets named after their own heroes. Even in these times of decolonisation, the choreographer and researcher, who was awarded a Pina Bausch scholarship in Germany, still feels like a stranger in his own city. Symbolically, he places street signs on stage whose names represent colonial history and links 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?