The Wandering Human

The year is 1978. The Danish state has placed young Malu in foster care in a suburban house southwest of Aalborg to give her access to “a culture with future perspectives.” A track from SUME’s latest LP is blasting from the kitchen radio, and Malu simply cannot stand still. Suddenly, someone switches off the music. An anthropologist is standing in the kitchen. She says she has an appointment. Something about a research project on “young Greenlanders in Denmark.” But Malu turns around and starts to walk. Back towards Kalaallit Nunaat. Backwards through time.

The anthropologist follows, with a bag full of analytical models and rescue equipment, and together they walk through 300 years of colonization of a country, a people, and its soul. They walk and walk until the anthropologist grows tired and shouts, “Where are you going? You can’t just keep walking backwards!” But Malu replies: “I’m not walking backwards, I’m moving forward toward something that has always been.”

Theatre performance “The Wandering Human” is about Denmark’s colonial and postcolonial role in Kalaallit Nunaat. It is a critical performance about invisible power structures, historical and modern racism, the ability to survive under pressure, and above all, the right to one’s own history.

Credits:

Performers: Nina Sikkersoq Kristoffersen, Elisabeth Heilmann Blind, Rikke Liljenberg, Øyvind Kirchhoff

Script: Naja Dyrendom Graugaard, Lotte Faarup

Translation: Makka Kleist

Sounddesign: Sirí Paulsen

Lightdesign og afvikling: Mads Deibjerg Lind

Scenografi, masks, costumes: Rolf Søborg Hansen

Direction: Lotte Faarup

Producer: Charlotte Rindom

Produktion: Det Olske Orkester