Sisi Bo’wale INTO THE CHRONOSPHERE

The new theatre production by Sisi Bo’wale begins with an exhibition opening: the opening of Into the Chronosphere. The curator and presenterare eloquent, bandying about intellectual concepts to impress the audience. The unveiling of the central exhibit is imminent – the highlight of the exhibition. But then something shifts in space and time. The ground, at times solid, at times sandy, expands and contracts. Guided by tortoises, the ticking of clocks and the sound of their own voices, through imperial archives, anthills and quantum computers, the three protagonists set out in search of the origin of their own time.

In Into the Chronosphere, Sisi Bo’wale and his team weave together performance, music, poetry and psychedelic imagery into a tongue-in-cheek, queer, Afrofuturist collage. At the heart of the piece lie the meaning of time and the protagonists’ attempt to free it from its colonial, exploitation-driven linearity.

Into the Chronosphere is the logical continuation of Sisi Bo’wale’s own artistic project: Through poetry, collages, zines and films, he has been working for several years to deconstruct dominant notions of time and – drawing on surrealist and Afrofuturist art forms – to create his own artistic worlds of time. And yet Into the Chronosphere is a debut – Sisi Bo’wale’s directorial debut at the Ballhaus Naunynstraße. The actor, filmmaker, visual artist and author previously created his full-length solo performance Moonflavoured Mountains (2025) and, as part of the akademie der autodidakten, acted as director for the production Weaving Dreams (2026).

Text and direction: Sisi Bo’wale
Assistant director: Leidy Ramirez-Peña
Dramaturgy: Laura Tutondele Mahaniah
Video: Arel Dewi
Lighting: Shun Perrotta
Sound: Ghostpoet
Costumes: Mele Sabú
Set design: Omar Sherif
Make-up: Nuria de Lario
Production manager: Mohammad Serhan
Starring: Dena Abay, Naomi Abukha, Kelvin Kilonz