Keti Koti 2025

In 1595, two teenage boys were taken from Madagascar by Dutch traders on their first expedition to Asia. Their original names were erased. The traders renamed them Lourens and Madagascar. These boys became the first known enslaved individuals trafficked by what would later become the Dutch East India Company (VOC).

Journalist Leendert van der Valk unearthed their story in the archives and wrote about it in De Groene Amsterdammer. I was invited to illustrate the article. Instinctively, I portrayed Lourens and Madagascar as brothers, connected, despite their captivity. This was three years ago, yet their story stayed with me.

This year, for Keti Koti, the annual commemoration of slavery and celebration of Black liberation, we brought their story to the stage. Writer Clarice Gargard transformed Leendert’s findings into a powerful new theatre text, which was being read by Ntianu Stuger, Maria Kraakman, Nadia Amin, and Gijs Scholten van Aschat of the ITA Ensemble. The evening opened with a ceremonial blessing by Dr. Glenn Helberg and unfolded through sound and stillness, guided by the trumpet of Peter Somuah and the voice of Ashley Staplefeldt, creating a space for collective memory and imagination.

We closed with Tung, a performance by Ciro Goudsmit, who centered the body as a vessel of memory. Together with three dancers, he quite literally shook us awake.

With such a significant historical case in hand, it becomes ever more urgent to explore how we can develop new public rituals—rituals that not only confront the past, but also make space for beauty and speculative repair.

Gratitude to all the makers, performers, and my wonderful ITA colleagues who made this evening possible.