«PERSPECTIVES»
Anna Chiedza Spörri

The play is about racism.

It's about small things, that hurt people with a different skin colour.

Looks or words can hurt.

Some people defend themselves.

Some people don't fight back.

The artist Anna Chiedza Spörri shows different experiences with dance, music and language.

She wants the audience to think about the topics.

Team

For this production, Anna Chiedza Spörri is working with a majority BIPoC (Black and Indigenous People of Colour) team. For Anna, the artistic collaboration with people affected by racism is essential for this production, as ‘PERSPECTIVES’ tells of racist experiences. In this way, she creates a safe space for the people who tell their personal stories in this production and bring them to the stage.

Anna Chiedza Spörri lives in Bern and works as a dancer, choreographer and activist. With her diverse dance experience and academic training in social anthropology, she focusses on activist art. She fuses her dance styles and works with text and spoken word. She often deals with identity issues, delves into very personal topics and creates an intimacy with her pieces that encourages people to question their own norms. Anna reflects her realities in her art and wants to create access for POC artists as well as promote empowerment. Her current project PERSPECTIVES is a collaboration with café révolution and a co-production with Schlachthaus Theater Bern and has already been shown as a work in progress as part of the OH BODY Festival 2021 as well as PREMIO 2022 at Zeughaus Kultur Brig.

Eshidoreen Paradiso is a dance artist, activist and choreographer from Oslo, Norway. She trained in dance in Paris at the ‘Juste debout’ school, where she learnt about street dance culture. Since then she has participated in battles, theatre plays theatre and performing arts. She is an active co-founder or performative dance artist in various artistic contexts. She participates in artistic projects for stages presented both nationally and internationally. She is a member of the ‘Sister Sister Crew’ and the dance collective ‘bseksten’ with 22 black women.

Sophie Chioma Gerber began her training at the Higher Technical College for Contemporary and Urban Stage Dance immediately after completing her studies at the Sports High School, specialising in dance. During this time, she danced intensively and trained in various styles. Her diversity as a dancer makes her unique; she can offer everything from hip hop and jazz contemporary to fusion and modern. She started dancing at the New Dance Academy in Bern at the age of five. She now gives various lessons and substitutions in the Bern region. She has been actively travelling as a professional dancer throughout Switzerland for two years and has already performed in various productions.

Gifti Tekako is a dancer in Bern who discovered a passion for hip hop as a child, be it in music or dance. It is very important to her to dance for a piece that she can identify with. Gifti has danced in several pieces by Anna Chiedza Spörri, as well as in ‘A seat at the table’ in the Rosengarten, by Anna Chiedza Spörri and Rena Brandenberger. In 2022, she took part in a dance programme at the ‘Ecole des Sables’ in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal, and learned a lot about Germaine Acogny's Acogny technique, taught by Alesandra Seutin, and about Sabar, the traditional dance of Senegal. Gifti is constantly continuing her education and will soon be interning in the Alleyne Dance company's production ‘Far from Home’.

Stadt Bern, SWISSLOS/Kultur Kanton Bern, Burgergemeinde Bern

Co-produced with: Schlachthaus Theatre Bern & café révolution