Node17 & Choreographic Coding Lab Nairobi/ Frankfurt, 2017

Somewhere under the rainbow we sat down and analyzed its colors. We thought, we sang and we danced, keeping up the spirit. We looked at screens for messages of hope, we looked beyond, we said our prayers. We loitered in the sun, waited for the rain and the winds of change to come. We climbed up a hill, we faced wilderness, and blinding light of love. We got used to it. We worked on, we read, we sang and we danced. We shared our thoughts and when we parted – nothing was finished. More is to come, more is to share and if we hold on to it……*CODE HOPE-SAFE STATION*…….Ground control……there’s trouble till the robins come….plz join as much u can…

The Choreographic Coding Production Lab Nairobi/Frankfurt was a new and unique format and a collaboration between NODE17, Motion Bank and the Goethe Institut Nairobi. It brought together four artists from Kenya and four Germany based artists for a collaboration and exchange on the NODE17 topic of ‘Designing Hope’. Unlike the usual Motion Bank CCLs, where artists spend a week to share knowledge and discuss their practices at the intersection between contemporary dance, performance and technology, the artists have been collaborating for several weeks to develop a collective project for NODE17. 
The interdisciplinary artistic team of choreographers, performers, directors, writers and designers started their shared process in a two-week working phase in Nairobi in March and continued their collaboration in Frankfurt just before NODE17. The exchange of the artists, the discussion of the dispositive of HOPE and the reflection on the different circumstances of production are central for the project. Out of that distinctive working process the artists are creating an exhibition space where technology meets philosophy, choreography meets sound and which invites to come in and idle, either in the real or in the virtual world.

With: Awour Onyango, Alacoque Ntome, Jared Onyango, Melisa Allela, Benjamin van Bebber, Else Tunemyr, Leo Hofmann, Amelie Hinrichsen. Curation: Jeanne Vogt. Dramaturgical Advisor and Production: David Ritterhaus.