Antonya Silva

AZÚCAR is a performance installation by Hamburg-based artist Antonya Silva, that relates Afro-Cuban dances and practices of the Regla de Ocha or Santerìa religion to the experience of Cubans in exile. Using autobiographical references, Silva artistically explores Afro-Cuban culture and diaspora. The piece’s title is inspired by the Cuban salsa icon Celia Cruz’s exclamation “Azúcar!”, which stands for the expression of joy in her songs and at Cuban parties. At the same time, it points to the diasporic dimension of Afro-Cuban culture that developed through the slave trade and the cultivation of colonial commodities like sugar. Based on interviews Silva conducted with Cubans in exile, she and choreographer Yorgenis Danger Garcia together with two dancers create an immersive ritual that explores the specifically Afro-Cuban experience in Germany between exclusion, self-empowerment and exoticization. AZÚCAR is a project developed within the framework of “EXIL HEUTE production residencies” of Körber Foundation and Kampnagel and is the artist’s first major work.

Together with choreographer Yorgenis Danger Garcia, Antonya Silva offers a practice-theory workshop on Afro-Cuban dances on August 13.