Pan-African Creative Exchange invited you to:
THE PACE CONNECTION
We connected with arts professionals from Africa, South America/Caribbean, and The Netherlands
Creating South-South & South-North links
Saturday 4 December 2021 - 15:00-17:00 SAST
(14:00-16:00 CET / 10:00-12:00 BRT / 8:00-10:00 EST)
Online: Airmeet Platform
The PACE Connection was a unique online gathering/networking event that took place in conjunction with last year’s PACE+ Dramaturgical Lab (*) and with Dr. Taiwo Afolabi’s Howlround (podcast) series on ‘Decolonizing Dramaturgy in Contemporary Performing Arts’. It offered a welcoming and informal setting that connected arts professionals who were based on the African continent, as well as global arts professionals with interest in making more cultural links, exchanges & collaborations with Africa. A short introduction to the Pan-African Creative Exchange and last year’s Dramaturgical Lab, as well as a brief panel conversation, all formed a part of this two-hour event. After exploring several different perspectives on dramaturgy and decolonizing the contemporary performing arts spaces with various African/Diaspora voices in the Lab and Howlround podcast series, the PACE Connection panel offered various opportunities to introduce arts practitioners on the continent (& the Global South) to those working in areas in the Netherlands and listening to their experiences with decolonizing the performing arts space in their practice (as well as working as, or with, diaspora artists). The PACE Connection introduced PACE to arts professionals in Africa, the Netherlands, South America/Caribbean and has also provided an opportunity to make more links regarding future international collaborative exchanges with and within Africa & its diaspora. Tentative PACE Connection Program (times in SAST): 15:00 - Arrival - Mingle & Connect in Airmeet Lounge 15:05 - Introduction PACE & PACE+ Dramaturgical Lab 2021 by Nike Jonah Erwin Maas Funmi Adewole 15:30 - Connect in the Speed Networking Orbit or at Lounge Tables 15:50 - Panel Conversation, moderated by Dr. Taiwo Afolabi - is an applied theatre practitioner from Nigeria with a decade of experience working internationally across a variety of creative and community contexts. In conjunction with PACE’s Dramaturgical Lab, he curated the Howlround series ‘Decolonizing Dramaturgy’. Panellists Simone Zeefuik - is an Afro-Dutch, Amsterdam-Bijlmer based writer, cultural programmer and organizer whose work centres around representation, everydayness, inclusivity and social justice. She’s a programmer for Amsterdam’s Bijlmer Parktheater, a teacher at Zawdie Sandvliet’s Afro-Dutch Studies and a ginger tea critic.
Djuwa Mroivili - is a pianist, teacher and activist. In her musical practice, pianist Djuwa Mroivili searches for ways to dismantle systems that maintain an exclusive classical music tradition. Khadija Massaoudi - is a writer, theatre maker, journalist and performer. She creates multimedia and multidisciplinary projects in which theatre, music and journalism come together. Working with and connecting people from different work and cultural backgrounds is her strength and passion. Maarten van Hinte - is one of the founders and creative director of RIGHTABOUTNOW INC. An interdisciplinary production house that produces performances and events and offers a platform for makers and performers for whom the big city is their arena and hip-hop is an essential source.
16:30 - Mingle & Connect at Lounge Tables (and in the Speed Networking Orbit) 17:00 - Closing words Besides linking to many different arts professionals & platforms from Africa, South America/Caribbean and the Netherlands (such as Culture Funding Watch, Brasil Cena Aberta, South-South Collective and Wizara), the PACE Connection offered the opportunity to meet our PACE+ Dramaturgical Lab participants and to connect with many of our guest facilitators such as: Saartjie Botha, Jenny Mijnhijmer, Gregory Maqoma, Taiwo Afolabi, Merel Heering, Rajae El Mouhandiz, Lenerson Polonini and Adham Hafez. The PACE Connection has been in the informal setting of the online Airmeet platform that allows people to meet different people at different tables and also join the speed networking orbit to link with those you might otherwise not have had the chance connect with.
The PACE Connection & The PACE+ Dramaturgical Lab 2021 are in partnership with the international Vrystaat Arts Festival in Bloemfontein and are supported by the Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria, South Africa. * The PACE+ Dramaturgical Lab is an interdisciplinary and collaborative space. The lab does not focus on any one art form. It rather provides an opportunity for artists to interrogate their way of working, find new artistic processes for creating, and consider new ways of positioning their work in society. The aim is to give artists the space to find ways of continuing and developing careers as artists and cultural practitioners. The artists left with goals and ideas of how they will implement what they discovered as well as with new international connections. Last year’s lab had 11 participants from Africa and its diaspora that were based in Ethiopia, Nigeria, Lesotho, China, Uganda, Senegal, Brazil, Canada, Barbados, Kenya & South Africa.
