“Rona” (in Sesotho: together, we) is a collective experience, more than just a film. It is driven by the South African artists Gaby Saranouffi and Moeketsi Koena and unfolds across everyday life, dance, music and community work. A polyphonic portrait of the city of Johannesburg: raw, poetic and immediate.

The film was developed as part of the community dance project “Ballroom Bliss Soweto” in collaboration with the Wuppertal-based collective deufert+plischke, and centres on voices that often go unheard: those of women and children living in poverty and facing violence, who find their own forms of expression. Filming took place at three locations across the city. In this way, the film weaves together dance, music and spiritual practices. More than 40 people took part in the film, which explores how contemporary art can navigate the tension between keeping cultural traditions alive and the resilience of everyday life.

What happens when a body and an object become entangled? When a body distorts, when it distorts the clothing – or vice versa – and becomes bound to an object?

Clothing is our second skin, the membrane between the body and the environment. It is the link between our inner and outer worlds, and it makes a statement.

In the production by Angie Hiesl and Roland Kaiser, ten dancers and performers – people of different personalities and builds – ventured into the hustle and bustle of everyday life in Cologne in 2024. At certain points, dialogues then develop between these locations, the bodies and hundreds of items of clothing. Bizarre images emerge. At times fragile, at times vibrant, the performers take up residence in public space, intertwining with it: an entanglement of individuals, architecture and everyday life. And what happens when passers-by encounter something that falls outside the norm – that tugs at them? Who puts on what, and what attracts whom?