Nigamon/Tunai | THEATER DER WELT

In the organizer's words:

Music and ritual: indigenous women from North and South America tell poetic stories about the threat to their way of life.

A dark, damp forest, permeated by water. Sounds emanate from the depths, from the distance, from human bodies. In Nigamon/Tunai, the staging is not only observed, but entered. The audience sits in the middle of a jungle landscape of water surfaces, plants, shadows and sound, surrounded by breath, song and vibrating bodies. Visual axes offer no orientation, only resonance can be perceived.

Both words in the title of the piece - Nigamon and Tunai - mean song, once in the language of the indigenous Anishinaabe community living in Canada and in the language of the indigenous Inga people of Colombia. Director Émilie Monnet comes from Canada, her fellow director Waira Nina from Colombia. Their extraordinary sound installation makes unheard voices audible: the songs of their ancestors, the sounds of their living environment as well as the painful cacophonies of the destruction caused by the overexploitation of natural resources. The sounds on the stage connect these territories, which are far apart from each other and at the same time relate to each other through similar wounds such as deforestation and the external use of water and soil, through violence that shapes landscapes and bodies alike. In these indigenous cultures, song is not something that entertains, but something that serves to remember. In the Anishinaabe territories in Canada, extractive companies continue to devastate large areas that should belong to everyone and are often the livelihood of indigenous peoples. Thousands of kilometers further south, the situation is different and yet the same: entire swathes of land are being destroyed in Colombia in order to mine copper.

This evening is more than a poetic manifesto. Monnet and Nina allow the audience to experience that water is the common basis of life for everyone.

Location: Chemnitz Opera House - on stage
Introduction: 30 minutes before the start of each performance
Duration: 1 h 40 min
Information: In Anishinaabemowin, Inga, French, English, Spanish and Portuguese with German and English surtitles

All further information at: https://www.theaterderwelt.de/programm/

A festival of the German Centre of the International Theatre Institute e.V.
Organized by Chemnitz Theatres, the Festival Academy Brussels and the European Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025 GmbH.

Price information:

Tickets at: theaterderwelt.de/nigamon-tunai | 35% discount with festival pass. More information at: theaterderwelt.de/service/tickets