Mugoba is a temporarily temple in which you can honour the unborn within you.
Mugoba was presented and performed at Graceland festival 2023 and a two week performance program at WIHH gallery.
In the installation where performative ritual encounters with the audience, exploring various questions. How do you cope with the loss of a dream? How do you navigate the vulnerable process of transformation, when everything feels new on your skin? How do you nurture that which might still be too intimate to speak about?
Mugoba is a temple! A place where contradictions coexist simply. It’s a soft, womb-like space filled with everything and nothing at once. Here, you can engage with the unborn, embark on exploration, potentially bid farewell to dreams, or cherish them with the breath of life.
This art project was developed by Roosien Verlaan. Mugoba is an experiment at the crossroads of art, care, and spirituality. Roosien works with textiles and performance and is also inspired by shamanism. The project originated in response to her still born child.
Performance & ritual schedule when Mugoba was hosted at WIHH
Allowing Contradictions
Performance on September 22nd at 19:00, 20:00, September 23rd at 15:00, 16:00, 19:00, 20:00
Which voices speak within you when faced with potential loss? Loss of a dream, a plan? In this performance, the deer mother takes you through the different voices you might hear. A script awaits you in this performance, will you step in?
Preperation for dying
Two-day Workshop on September 26th & 27th from 10:00 to 18:00
Many spiritual and religious practices from around the world center on the beginning and end of life as moments of transformation. Today, we undergo one of these rituals. El Lore, Tantric Witch, explores and experiences with the visitor a shamanic ritual focused on the act of becoming buried.
Dead Animal, Sacred Animal
Workshop on September 30th from 13:00 to 17:00
By working with deceased animals, we connect with the sanctity of life and the cycle of birth and death. Each participant creates a talisman from a piece of a deceased animal.
Everything Could Exist
Performance on September 28th at 13:00, 14:00, September 30th at 19:00, 20:00, 21:00
Shedding your old skin. Protecting your new, soft, almost porous skin. The in-between time. The fluid moment in which one moves from one to the other. How do we inhabit and embody this undefined space?
Release Our Old Selves?
Performance on October 3rd at 11:00
Only on invitation
We have been providing death care for many deceased humans to support them releasing their bodies. And now we perform this sacred ritual to let go layers of our selves that we want to release. A ritual performance by Florine Schaap and Susanne Duijvestein.
Womb Consciousness
Workshop on October 4th from 16:00 to 18:30
The voice and clear consciousness of your womb is the beating heart of life and your feminine field. Rosalie Stange invites you to connect with the voice of your belly in a ritualistic manner.
Wildest Dreams
Performance on October 3rd at 20:00 and 21:00, October 5th at 20:00 and 21:00
Are you allowed to fearlessly, clumsily, naively, and massively grasp a dream? How do you grasp it? How do you cherish a dream? How do you care for it?
To the Voice of Life
Performance on October 7th 19:30
Like a river, life is a constant flow of change. What if our voices could be a bridge to hear this undercurrent of life in flow and change? What if our voices could sing life – and empower it to move with full surrender to the movement of change, growth, and expansion?
Credits
Initiator: Roosien Verlaan Image: Jara van den Bosch Dramaturgy: Anne Gehring, Leela May Stokholm Performance: Nina Hartskamp, Roosien Verlaan Bushcraft: Rosalie Smit Releasing the old: Susanne Duivestein, Florine Schaap Tantric Witch: El_Lore Sound Healing: Leela May Stokholm Documentary: Menke Visser Film: Mahmoud Al Sayed
Supported by: Iona Stichting, Amsterdams Fonds voor de Kunst, Rebel’s uitvaartonderneming