“In this one-hour tour-de-force, we were taken to the world of contemporary Papua where inhabitants lived as a tribe, mimicking the wilderness through synchronized-yet-frenetic and powerful movements…We loved how an element of comedy was added to the composition and came out at unsuspected moments.”
– The Jakarta Post

“Hip-hop was born in Papua, you don’t have to believe me, but my great grandmother told me.” says Jecko Siompo. The inventive Indonesian dancemaker creates a new work which plays with the idea that hip hop did not originate in America but came from Papua instead. Taking off from this intriguing possibility, We Came From the East questions conventional concepts of origin and lineage.

Jecko’s own roots in West Papua have led him to develop his signature dance style, dubbed “Animal Pop”, a fascinating combination of tribal, animalistic, popular and contemporary dance movements.

He is widely celebrated for his fresh and witty choreography, which embraces his aboriginal heritage and love of hip hop. In this piece, featuring eight dancers from Indonesia and two from Germany, movements rapidly transfer and transform from one body to another as well as from one context to another. It is a wild yet revelatory dance collage that blurs the line between folklore and pop culture.


Explorations: Find out more about this work and join us for a post-performance talk with the artists.

Biography

• Jecko Siompo*

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