Workshop UMAD decolonizing rituals: Friday June 11, 16.00 – 18.00 hrs
With: Fazl Shairmahomed and Rolando Vázquez
Location: Zoom: on line workshop and film screening
Admission: Free, because of the max. amount of 30 participants please register via demsm@hr.nl (deadline: June 8).

Zoom link for the workshop: https://hogeschoolrotterdam.zoom.us/j/98242836999?pwd=SmxFb1pIczRNTWI0VkdNM1B1WEhMQT09

Hereby the Master of Education in Arts cordially invites you to take part in the workshop and film screening UMAD decolonizing rituals. In this workshop, featuring the performance artist Fazle Shairmahomed and teacher and researcher Rolando Vázquez, you will be invited to engage in a conversation around the question: where do political and spiritual processes of decolonization intertwine? This question will be explored through a writing ritual, viewing the short film UMAD and spoken word. The workshop requires light reading and preparation of a simple ritual before participation.

In the film UMAD (Hindi: emotional overflow) you witness the spiritual journey of decolonization for four artists with roots in Surinam, India and the Netherlands. They negotiate with the history of forced labour migration, the erasure of cultures they belong to, cultures they have come to belong to, and the oppressive systems which continue to exist today. All of them have been touched by the Dutch and British colonial projects, but are shaped differently through their personal experiences in life through religion, gender, and sexuality, which becomes visible through their authentic visions on decolonization and healing. 

Fazle Shairmahomed is a performance artist, dancer, intersectional activist, and community builder. He creates decolonizing rituals, through which he transforms the relationship with the spectator, and challenges understandings of inter-sensoriality. His experienced reality creates an urgency that shapes his artistic choices leading to themes such as death, rebirth, ancestry, belonging, colonial histories, and healing. As a community builder he is one of the members of CLOUD danslab, an artist-run dance studio which supports research and practice of dance, movement, and performance art in the Hague; Masala Movement, an international intercultural platform for creativity; and he is involved in several Queer communities. He graduated in anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies/Arabic. www.fazleshairmahomed.com

Rolando Vázquez is a teacher and decolonial thinker. He is regularly invited to deliver keynotes on decoloniality at academic and cultural institutions. Vázquez is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at University College Roosevelt and Cluster Chair at the University College Utrecht. Since 2010, he co-directs with Walter Mignolo the annual Maria Lugones Decolonial Summer School, now hosted by the Van Abbemuseum. In 2016, under the direction of Gloria Wekker, he co-authored the report “Let’s do Diversity” of the University of Amsterdam Diversity Commission. Vázquez’s work places the question of the possibility of an ethical life at the core of decolonial thought and advocates for the decolonial transformation of cultural and educational institutions. His most recent publication is Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary (Mondriaan Fund 2020)

Credits UMAD:
Artists: Fazle Shairmahomed, Taskien Khudabux, Anima Jhagroe-Ruissen, Rubaina Bhikhie; Film and edit: Tanja Busking; Sound: Marlon Penn; Research: Zuleika Sheik; Photography: Milan Tettero

Made possible by: crowdfunding whydonate, Masala Movement, theater De Vaillant, Gemeente Den Haag, Cultuurschakel, Fonds1818, Fonds voor Cultuurpartcipatie, Prins Bernhard Cultuur Fonds, VSB Fonds