Robert Ssemoijja

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Robert Ssemoijja

Preferred pronouns:

he/him
Birth year:

1994
Primarily based in or works from:

Uganda
Skills:

choreography research installation architecture critical thinking and writing directing of a performance
Topics:

colonialism environmental postcolonialism imperialism socially engaged postcolonial history
Contact information:

Currently working on:

I am currently working on the further development of the research project Alienation which comprises four chapters. The project takes the audience on a journey of self-discovery of what home is and where we belong. It consists of a dance film, an art installation, a performance and a stage play, and reflects on knowledge of the self through the lens of colonialism and decolonisation.

Quick Facts:

Robert Ssempijja is a Ugandan contemporary artist and dancer whose career encompasses both formal and informal settings. His work, influenced by post-colonialism and decolonization, includes research projects which produce dance films, installations and performances, displayed in both traditional and non-traditional spaces. Ssempijja strives for a “regenerative art practice” that helps move away from exploitative relationships. His art connects the distorted past with the digital present, expressing internal and external experiences that are bound to the physical body, mind, emotions, and soul. Ultimately, Ssempijja attempts to create a coherent interplay between these elements as a reflection of his artistic expression.

Three relevant works from the last 5 years of artistic practice:

Highest educational degree:

Diploma in contemporary dance from École des Sables, Dakar, Senegal

Work samples:

Alienation

This ongoing project has its basis in the question “What is home and what is not?” with four chapters stemming from a research project called “Alienation”. One being a dance film, an art installation, a performative presentation, and a stage performance. taking you on a journey of self-discovery of what a home is and where we belong. It reflects on knowledge about oneself through the lens of colonialism and decolonization.

You Judge

All of us go through the same process of adapting to our local community, whether we are aware of it or not. We search to find our place and role, and we strive for acceptance from others to be able to be ourselves. Everyone has a role to play, and sometimes that role aligns perfectly with who you truly are, which is wonderful.

Die Bretter, die die Welt bedeuten

In his poem “To My Friends”, Friedrich Schiller relates his small, simple world in Weimar to the greater affairs of the world. Based on his lines “Yet we see the great of every age / Pass before us on the boards that mean the world”, Christoph Winkler and Robert Ssempijja question the relationships between contemporary African and European dance. Robert Ssempijja has symbolically transported the floorboards from Kampala’s only dance studio for contemporary dance to Berlin. By relocating them to Berlin, he also brings along all the ideas developed on them, thus their recontextualization. Whose floorboards, Whose stage is it? What is being performed there, and whose world is it anyway?