Kraal: a storymaker’s journey of shame & identity through ancestral dreams & remembering
Dream-translation as a powerful method in the work with performative material.
5.10.25
5.10.25
14:00 - 16:00
Thoravej 29, 2400 Copenhagen NW
Participation in the event is FREE, but please reserve a ticket as space is limited. You can book your ticket here:
The artistic research
How can intentional engagement with dreams potentially facilitate reconnections with ancestral memories lost to us?
How can we foster dream translation as an indigenous practice for healing from the shame of loss? Loss of ancestral memory, loss of sacred indigenous healing practices, loss of systems of knowledge taken and forgotten in the wake of colonial expansion.
This artistic research is facilitated by and derived from Jason Jacobs's practice exploring connections between ancestral dreams/dreaming. He offers approaches and indigenous storymaking practices for translating dreams as creative and restorative calls to action that envision new futures through performance.
Jason Jacobs's artistic interest is informed by his practice as an amagqirha-in-training and a Nama-Khoi-indigenous descendant living and practising in Kharkams. He understands dreams as lived/living spaces for healing and the embodiment of ancestral knowledge, which informs his reading of dreams (and translating them) as an indigenous healing practice and methodology.
Working with dreams as spaces for healing, roots questions in the shame of loss as defining markers of his indigenous identity formation. Jacobs intentionally engage with this inherited and lived shame, acknowledging it as an ongoing path to healing (an act in progress and a call to action).
Jacobs rely on the transformative potential of indigenous storytelling in his one-person play titled Kraal, to confront this shame of loss by writing and performing his own story-healing about a tragic hero character who is imagining new futures for his community.
The artists
This residency provides the framework for a shared laboratory where five artists meet for the first time to create, explore, and share processes. Together, they will explore the connections between heritage, memory, and dreams.
The artistic research is guided by Jason Jacob and the primary approaches derive from his existing practice, but are challenged, expanded, and re-examined in collaboration with artists Faheel Saud, Mmabatho thobejane, Mette Møller Overgaard and Yeong Ran Suh.
Jason Jacobs
Jason Jacobs (he/them) is a storyteller and traditional healer-in-training who tells stories that awaken the spirit of home, community and connection to source. He has a deep passion for creating sacred spaces where others can remember and step into their wholeness. Jacobs’ oneperson performance KRAAL will be presented in Copenhagen in week 42 as part of the Black to Normal festival 2025.
Faheel Saud
Faheel is an actor and certified voice teacher with experience across Pakistan, Norway, and the UK. His work bridges classical and experimental theatre, drawing on embodied methods such as Fitzmaurice Voicework, Tadashi Suzuki, and Michael Chekhov. Whether acting for the screen or devising performances, he deeply explores each role with presence and precision to create detailed characters. His artistic inquiry centers on energetic connections with the audience and space. For Faheel, acting is not just a craft but a way of living and perceiving the world.
Mmabatho Thobejane
Mmabatho Thobejane (she/they) is a South African cultural worker, freelance curator and sangoma based in Stockholm, Sweden. At the moment she spends most of her time as a producer at MDT - Moderna Dansteatern. Through pono ya moya, an African Traditional Health practice, provides ancestral-led guidance and creates spaces for engaging in other ways of knowing that are earth-based and informed by southern African spiritualities.
Mette Møller Overgaard
Mette Møller Overgaard is a choreographer and artistic director behind Tiny Dancer. With a background in dance and participation and a deep-rooted fascination with dreams, Mette creates sensorial and interactive performances that invite children and their adults into poetic, co-creative spaces.
Yeong Ran Suh
Yeong Ran Suh is a choreographer and artist-researcher in Copenhagen and Seoul. She has created multidisciplinary dance performances based on her ethnography of Korean shamanism, traditional dance, and mythology to decolonize our current understandings and frames. She is a member of <Becoming Species>, a climate activism performance group, and <Nubim>, an artist collective for sustainability. Ran currently works and writes on traditional ecological knowledge, communities, and collective future-making.
The residency
IN PROCESS is HAUT's 1-2 week long residency format that makes space for physical brainstorms supporting the investigation and the development of new ideas for the stage.
In collaboration with Marie-Lydie Nokouda from BLACK TO NORMAL we have invited Jason Jacobs for a 1 week IN PROCESS residency. Through initial conversations about needs and wishes, the idea to give the residency more character of a residency-workshop guided by Jason Jacob's arose.
Hereafter the 4 other artists were then invited to participate in the residency through the open call RESIDENCY-WORKSHOP – ANCESTRAL DREAMS AND REMEMBERING, curated by Jason Jacobs in collaboration with HAUT's former artistic leader Betina Rex.