An Artist Talk(s) with Dorothée Munyaneza (tanzhaus NRW) 

An Artist Talk(s) with Dorothée Munyaneza

Following up on the performance of “Toi, moi, Tituba…” by Dorothée Munyaneza: https://tanzhaus-nrw.de/en/event/2025/02/toi-moi-tituba

It is in the antiblack world that there is no history of those not remembered, whose past is not made present, and whose past is deemed to have no presence. The black subject’s existence in the antiblack world is not recognised, and this denies blackness any possibility to claim its recognition, thus their past, present and future become a mystery. The absence of history… means ontological absence. Blackness does not exist even in the contemporary as it has no history to be remembered with. (Mpungose, 2016)

The work of Dorothée Munyaneza is deeply political, and deeply invested in understanding and responding to the afterlives of historical violence. In this particular work, Toi, moi, Tituba, Munyaneza delves into epistemic violence – the absence, or erasure, of Black people in general and Black women in particular from the historical/colonial archive. Researcher and artist Balindile ka Ngcobo discusses with Munyaneza how performance, which, in itself is ephemeral – bound to disappear – becomes the method through which Munyaneza brings her own history, the history of Tituba, and perhaps the histories of all Black women out of the margins by creating and piecing together an archive of existence. Questions of memory and remembrance, of the Black female* body as archive, and of ontology are engaged, as well as what considerations exist for radical hope and joy in the midst of it all?