Colonastics
26.10. – 25.11.2023 Joana Tisckau – Colonastics
Joana Tischkau’s video work “Colonastics” is a fitness training that is also a lecture on critical whiteness. “Colonastics” was developed during the first phase of the European lockdown and thus joins the overabundance of home workouts that follow the promise that at the end of this quarantined life we can emerge as a stronger, fitter, and better version of ourselves. Starting with the white man’s ideal, “Colonastics” brings to light the colonial and neo-colonial practices of the fitness industry and calls for making room for a sweaty workout that frees the body, mind, and spirit from the vestiges of colonization. Because possibly, in the end, you can have it all: The rationality of the heterosexual white man and the physicality and sensuality of the black woman – let’s get physical!
The video work will be shown free of charge in the Ecksalon West always one hour before the start of the performances.
Duration: ca. 15 min
Language: English
Running Time: 26.10. — 28.10., 02.11. — 05.11., 09.11., 12.11. — 13.11., 17.11. — 18.11., 24.11. — 25.11.
Joana Tischkau, born 1983 in Göttingen, is a choreographer and performer. She has always danced, in youth centers, hip-hop clubs, discos, in stadiums, on carnival stages, in semi-professional contexts and in the local dance school. She received formal dance training only later, at Coventry University in the UK, where she completed her bachelor’s degree in dance and acting. In her Master’s program in Choreography and Performance at the Institute of Applied Theatre Studies in Giessen, she explored how pop-cultural, black-connotated dance practices attributed to social space can be interwoven with intersectional, feminist, postcolonial theories into an artistic practice. Her artistic practice is a hybrid jumble that allows the writings of bell hooks to meet beatboxing, in which a fitness workout is created out of white movement material and homage is paid to Roberto Blanco as King Black German Entertainment Art. Her work has been shown at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm, Tanzplattform 2020 in Munich, Danshallerne in Copenhagen and Hebel am Ufer Theater in Berlin. Joana Tischkau lives and works in Frankfurt am Main and Berlin.
Colonastics is a production of Joana Tischkau.
Concept & Choreography: Joana Tischkau
Artistic collaboration & dramaturgy: Elisabeth Hampe
Sound design: Frieder Blume
Camera & Editing: Malu Blume
Graphic design & animation: Justus Gelberg
Production management: Lisa Gehring
The work was commissioned by the Goethe Institut in the context of the digital festival Latitude.
