Tiran Willemse

“Black male melancholy” as an alternative to a culture of stereotyped imagery.

blackmilk, a solo by and with Tiran Willemse, merges the choreographed movements of trompoppies — Afrikaaner drum majorettes in uniform — with the melodramatic gestures of white femme starlets and the physical expressiveness of Black masculine rap icons. Drawing from this repertoire of mainstream bodily forms — at times rigid, exuberant, or sensual — blackmilk challenges representations of Black masculinities, confronting stereotypes and proposing ambiguous zones of identity.

Set to an intense soundscape of rap and pop, Willemse delves into the grey areas of identity — where bodies escape visible categories — and gives shape to a sensibility he terms “Black male melancholy”: a state of multiplicity and possibility, where strength and vulnerability, discipline and excess coexist.

blackmilk is the first part of a choreographic and political investigation into affect, discipline, performativity, and identity.

Tiran Willemse's note

Over the past five years, my artistic journey has been shaped by a continuous exploration of hybridity, identity, and embodied memory. Coming from a classical ballet background and rooted in my African heritage, I’ve been creating work that navigates the tensions and dialogues between these worlds. My practice lives in the friction between form and formlessness, between historical weight and personal intuition.

Blackmilk emerged from an urgent need to question the inherited structures that shape how bodies are seen, disciplined, and remembered in performance. This work is a physical and sonic excavation, a ritualized undoing of Western aesthetic codes, while I continue to carry these same codes within me—codes that still matter in the way I create art where the body resists readability and slips into opacity. It is a work about fluidity, mourning, and transformation. Through repetition, endurance, and fragmentation, I engage with a state of becoming, refusing the closure of a fixed identity.

More than emphasizing differences, I am interested in bringing techniques, cultures, and people closer together, creating spaces where shared sensibilities, gestures, and resonances can emerge. I am less concerned with reinforcing cultural binaries and more drawn to what connects us: the way rhythm pulses through different bodies, the way a gesture carries meaning across contexts, the way presence is felt beyond language. My aim is to cultivate a sense of proximity and recognition among performers and audiences alike—an embodied understanding that crosses borders and categories.

Looking ahead, I want to continue expanding this practice by inviting other dancers into the space, not simply to execute movement, but to enter a shared process of inquiry. I am interested in creating environments where bodies can listen to one another, where presence is as important as performance, and where the studio becomes a space for research and vulnerability. My hope is to create a place where technique is not about perfection but about attentiveness, where bodies are tuned to each other, where form is alive and responsive, and where the audience can feel invited into the intimacy of the process.

Credits

Concept, artistic direction & performance Tiran Willemse Light design Fudetani Ryoya Music Manuel Riegler Costume LML studio Berlin Production Paelden Tamnyen, Rabea Grand Touring/ Production Eva Cabañas Distribution Tristan Barani Co-production Sophiensaele Berlin, Tanzquartier Wien, Gessnerallee Zürich, WP Zimmer Antwerp Residency support Tanzhaus Zurich, Buda Kortrijk, Les Urbaines Lausanne, Impulstanz Vienna, Trauma Bar and Kino Berlin

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15 nov 16H00

16 nov 16H00

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