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.