Great Apes Of the West Coast

Princess Isatu Hassan Bangura’s international debut is linked to her encounter with Milo Rau. From that moment on, Princess felt ready to share her personal story, from Sierra Leone to the Netherlands, in an attempt to render her journey into a tool for reflecting on the future. Her first creation, Great Apes of the West Coast, seems to move between past memory and the future and could be described as a love letter to her homeland, as well as a pilgrimage of rediscovering her West African roots. Apparently distant, African and European art forms collide and merge on stage, creating a unique aesthetic combination and drawing a story of new beginnings, discoveries and memories, that moves towards a new awareness acquired within the sacred space of the stage- but also towards the history of a people and a place narrated by the voice of a woman who has abandoned them.