Premiering at Roskilde Festival, this new dance performance by Tiran Willemse and Melika Ngombe Kolongo offers an intense and sensory experience, where rituals, sound, and movement merge in an immersive space.
Through dance and music, the work explores how sound can act as both resistance and a channel for ancestral knowledge and energy. The performance draws from African movement traditions and moves through layers of rhythm, spirituality, and bodily presence.
Melika Ngombe Kolongo’s soundscapes mix polyrhythmic structures and experimental electronics to create an atmosphere that drives both the choreography and the audience experience. Tiran Wil-lemse’s choreography blends club culture, postmodern movement, and diasporic expressions with gestures rooted in ancestral memory.
The performance unfolds in a circle – audiences will stand around the performers and contribute to the atmosphere, though they will not take part in the choreography itself. Surrounded by festivalgo-ers, the artists will transform Platform into a vibrating space of resonance, spirituality, and embod-ied power.
Tiran Willemse is a South African dancer and choreographer based in Zürich, whose work focuses on space, imagination, gesture, and sound. He won the 2023 Swiss Performance Art Award.
Nkisi, the pseudonym of Melika Ngombe Kolongo, is a Congolese producer, DJ, and curator based in London, whose work explores invisible forces through sound. She co-founded the label NON WORLDWIDE and developed her unique DJ style at London’s Endless parties.
The performance is co-commissioned by Roskilde Festival and Arsenic – Centre d’arts scénique contemporain.