Tran­forming Trans­mis­si­on

When the ships set sail from Baa­ken­ha­fen har­bour for East Afri­ca to deli­ver tro­ops and mate­ri­al for the colo­ni­al war, the sol­diers were given gifts of love from the Ham­burg Sena­te at the fare­well cele­bra­ti­ons, which were accom­pa­nied by pom­pous music: Post­cards, cigars, good luck charms, which were sup­po­sed to bring the depar­ting sol­diers suc­cess and a hap­py return home.

At the same time, peo­p­le at the court of King Kige­ri IV. Rwabugiri’s court in Nyan­za was sur­pri­sed by the gra­du­al arri­val of dele­ga­ti­ons from Euro­pe, who told the king’s offi­ci­als that they were sear­ching for the sources of the Nile. They tor­ped­oed the white men’s search for the source, so that they wan­de­red con­fu­sedly through the East Afri­can hills wit­hout fin­ding any­thing, whereu­pon they were given the name “Musun­gus”, the aim­less wan­de­rers.

The walk-in music theat­re pie­ce “Trans­forming Trans­mis­si­on” com­bi­nes Hamburg’s colo­ni­al past with sto­ries from the area of the East Afri­can Gre­at Lakes. The audi­ence its­elf beco­mes the orches­tra on its way through Hafen­Ci­ty. The sound­track is crea­ted for each per­for­mance as a live stream con­cert with musi­ci­ans in Ham­burg and Bujum­bu­ra.