ABOUT

AZÚCAR is an installation and performance by the Hamburg-based artist Antonya Silva, who correlates Afro-Cuban dances and practices of the Regla de Ocha or Santerìa religion with the exiled Cuban experience. The exclamation »Azúcar!« gave the title to this autobiographically inspired exploration of Afro-Cuban culture and diaspora. »Azúcar!« was coined by the Cuban salsa singer Celia Cruz: In her songs and at Cuban parties it stands for the expression of joy. At the same time, it points to the diasporic dimension of Afro-Cuban culture, which developed through the slave trade and the cultivation of goods such as sugar. Based on interviews that Silva conducted with exiled Cubans, together with the dancer and choreographer Yorgenis Danger Garcia and two dancers, she designed an immersive ritual that explores the specifically Afro-Cuban experience in Germany between exclusion, self-empowerment and exoticization. AZÚCAR is a project created as part of the »EXIL HEUTE production residencies« by the Körber Foundation and Kampnagel and is the artist's first major work.