Burning Sweetgrass Orkater/De Nieuwkomers: UMA

Theater Rotterdam Schouwburg
Theater

In this visual and physical performance, Newcomers Collective UMA battles the inevitable. Because although every person will unexpectedly have to deal with death, in the Netherlands we prefer to give our mortality as little space as possible in our lives.

Stumbling conversations in the auditorium, whispering over cake and coffee, a slideshow with photos where no one knows whether crying out loud is appropriate; people rarely behave as awkwardly as they do at a funeral. What is the richness or poverty of the rituals we have created around death? How does the modest, sometimes humorously framed Dutch down-to-earthness compare to other cultures such as Creole and Indonesian? Where are you when you die and what role do the dead play in the lives of the living? In an extremely physical performance that is musically inspired by gamelan, organ music and Japanese advertising tunes, UMA takes the audience on a journey to death.

About the makers

UMA made its debut in 2022 within the talent development program Orkater/de Nieuwkomers with Oroonoko. The musical theater collective combined very diverse musical genres; English court music, Surinamese kawina and electronic beats and let them flow organically into each other. In Burning Sweetgrass, UMA further develops this signature: the collective unites Creole and Indonesian ritual music and synthetic requiems in an exciting new musical genre.

About Orkater/De Nieuwkomers

Within the talent development program Orkater/De Nieuwkomers, young musicians and theater makers convert their ideas into musical theater productions. Based on an open call, makers are selected to present their plans to Orkater and programmers and colleagues who have joined the process as alliance partners. Burning Sweetgrass is the 28th production within Orkater/De Nieuwkomers.

Orkater has been the music theater company in the Netherlands for fifty years, where stories that are important today are told and where music has as much value as language. Orkater productions are direct, sensitive, daring and generous.