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Dorothée Munyaneza: Unwanted, 23. 8. 2017. HAU 1, (im Rahmen von Tanz im August 2017), Berlin.

Dorothée Munyaneza is standing right in front of us, looking at us, translating the speech of another woman that we listen to: it’s her story, hers and the one of thousands of other women being raped and giving birth to unwanted children after the Genocide in Ruanda in 1994. Voices of women are overlapping, voices that could burst and voices that could burst you into pieces at the same time, creating this powerful soundscape by Munyaneza and Holland Andrews, that is as fragile as it is strong, supporting each other, translating each other, moving with each other, being increased and looped, echoed and pitched to the extreme, because it is an extreme truth they are telling.

Don’t close your ears, I want to tell the woman next to me, don’t close your eyes, unless you want to count the beats of Munyanezas wooden stick just by listening, rhythmically marking the end of the piece, that is not an end, because there is no end to memory, as the voices and stories of women, that are put on stage and into our awareness pierce through Munyanezas bending body, as if she would live their pain and memory again for them and for us. ^{What is moving and being moved by something I ask myself in between, when the two women on stage take a breath, when they care for each other and rest; I sink into my chair, who am I to judge?} We are moved by being a witness, the necessary audience of something and we are not unwanted here, we need to be there and listen, for “a movement requires us to be moved” (S. Ahmed).