Adjusted Movements by: Laura Sheilla Inangoma

Movement, Grief, and the Post-Pandemic Human Narrative

In the first Deconfining Writers’ Residency, four talented authors—Laura Sheilla Inangoma, Teodora Grigaitė, Greta Ambrazaitė-Norkūnė, Kibsa Anthony Ouedraogo—embarked on a collaborative exploration of shared themes, emotions, and narratives that transcend geographical boundaries. Through debates, workshops, and lectures, they delved deep into the universal human experiences that bind us together despite our differences. The culmination of their collective efforts resulted in a series of literary texts, each offering a unique perspective yet resonating with interconnected emotions and values.

 
Laura Sheilla Inangoma’s text is a storytelling that narrates “the contribution of movement, both physical and mental, to the creation/imagination of other forms of human interaction that would characterise the post-pandemic human, its culture or its new norms, its comfort, and then finally to speculate on how this leads it to a more enticing future.”

A grieving family is placed at the centre of the story: baffled like the world, which, without planning it, has become isolated from itself. Africa, the greater part of it, was strangely baffled because everything was the same, except for the economic dynamics. The baffled world is like a debarked tree, bleeding with sap but must and can heal only by itself.

The intention is therefore to tell a story that addresses the circumstances of the loss of a loved one (or value) in the collective denial (see the communal irony) of the cause of the loss of this crucial person (or material).

Laura Sheilla Inangoma

Laura Sheilla Inangoma is a Kirundi, Swahili, and French playwright from Burundi whose plays have been produced in theatres and festivals in various African countries. She presented her work at the Avignon Festival in 2022, and her work seeks to make connections between her ancestral cultural heritage and global contemporary processes and experiences.