We who do not belong

We Who Do Not Belong is a choreographed solo-performance that fuses Zimbabwean traditional movement with contemporary dance, inspired by L’Après-midi d’un Faune. 

Through an evolving musical composition—blending Zimbabwean rhythms, electronic soundscapes, spoken word, and archival recordings—the piece follows the migrant journey from Africa to Europe.

The performance focuses on personal experiences of migration: emotional states, memories and expectations that shape the life of a migrant. The work invites the audience to enter the subjective world of migrants – a space that often remains invisible in everyday social life. 

The focus is on experiences of uncertainty, waiting, hope and exhaustion; experiences that accompany many people in the course of emigration. For many, migration means not only a change of location, but also a profound biographical turning point. Psychological research describes it as one of the most drastic experiences in human life.

We Who Do Not Belong does not open up a space for discourse in the political sense, nor does it formulate demands. Rather, the work creates a space for experience: a moment of being, of accompanying and of listening inwardly.

The structure of the piece reflects the individual phases: departure, the dangerous crossing, the hope of arrival, rejection and resilience in the face of ongoing exclusion. The dance movements are accompanied by projections of migrants' experiences on the Mediterranean, allowing the audience to empathise with the instability, restrictions and resilience of the refugees.  

We Who Do Not Belong is a powerful statement of resistance, a demand for justice and a call to confront the past and present. It questions boundaries – both material and ideological – and reclaims space in a world that seeks to deny it.