2025 - The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan
“If I couldn’t learn to speak the language, perhaps I could learn to perform myself in it?”
In The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan, Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora artist Ahilan Ratnamohan confronts his fraught connection with the Tamil language, his should-have-been mother tongue. Through a monologue performed entirely in Tamil, Ratnamohan traces the roots of this loss of language all the way through to his re-discovery of it. In doing so he charts the plight and conundrum of diaspora all around the world attempting to find the fine line between traditional and modern success in a new land and at what cost this happens.
Photos - TO ADD
2024 - Football x Fashion
A catwalk for footballers, by footballers and with footballers
Football x Fashion was a large-scale project undertaken…
Photos
Documentation
Football x Fashion II - amvb run 2 or 3 - https://youtu.be/Vf0iRFp_fyw
2024 - Football Echoes
In FOOTBALL ECHOES, Ahilan Ratnamohan continues his exploration of the cross-sections between football & dance. A group of Hamburg-based footballers attempt to deconstruct the movements, which are second nature to them on the field, on stage, in a theatre context, without the ball. Remaining true to the game and its fast-twitch steps, reactionary countermoves and the impulses of the ball which define movements, they re-construct these sequences and rituals in search of something new. If there was no competition, what would football be? If football was a dance what would it be?
Video: make a trailer or ???
Photos: https://mega.nz/folder/PzRE1Caa#i2AlQMdf7LGNtWhnhfN6og
2023 - Josse-Jnr
Ahilan Ratnamohan, together with iconic Flemish actor and writer, Josse De Pauw and his long-term footballer-performer collaborator Etuwe Bright Junior, investigates language learning and the inevitable power relations that arise from it. What can De Pauw's texts, stylistically so European and abstract, mean on another body? How can these texts and aesthetics - which by now have largely defined the Flemish canon - reach another poetry? Is Flemishness transferable?
Trailer (Repetitions): https://vimeo.com/851296732
Press
2023 - Une Traduction Infidèle
How can an artist of foreign origin find a way into the Belgian tangle? In 2019, Ahilan Ratnamohan – who grew up in Sydney, with Sri Lankan roots – realised that, despite having lived in Belgium for seven years, he didn’t have a single Walloon friend, and that everything he knew about Walloons had been told to him from a Flemish perspective. By learning French and immersing himself in the Walloon culture, Ratnamohan is now wondering if he will be able to become Belgian, truly Belgian, essentially Belgian. Having learnt the French language especially for this performance, Ratnamohan serves up, through amusing and painful anecdotes, his misadventures as a Flemish artist in the French-speaking part of Belgium. He tries to shed his Flemish identity, an identity that was almost involuntary ascribed to him by learning Dutch, coupled with the fact that his artistic practice is mainly based in Flanders. Through the practical exercise of studying the French language, Ratnamohan deconstructs the division of Belgium, an idiosyncratic adventure in line with his former artistic projects linked to language learning and one which strikingly reflects the festival’s identity. Ratnamohan also questions his own complicity: that of an English-speaking migrant, a Flemish passer-by, an artist labeled as Flemish.
FR
Comment les artistes d’origine étrangère se retrouvent-iels dans notre complexe belgitude ? En 2019, Ahilan Ratnamohan, artiste d'origine sri-lankaise ayant grandi à Sydney, s’aperçoit qu’il n’a, après sept ans en Belgique, aucun·e ami·e wallon·ne et que tout ce qu’il connaît de la Wallonie lui vient d’une perspective flamande. L’artiste se demande si, en apprenant également le français et en se plongeant dans la culture wallonne, il pourra devenir belge, un vrai Belge, foncièrement belge. Il a donc appris le français spécialement pour cette performance et nous rapporte les anecdotes, parfois douces, parfois amères, de ses aventures d’artiste flamand en Belgique francophone. Il essaie ainsi de se défaire de son identité flamande, une identité qui lui est attribuée par hasard, par le fait d’avoir appris le néerlandais et de se produire principalement en Flandre. Une traduction infidèle permet à Ahilan Ratnamohan de déconstruire la division de la Belgique, une aventure originale qui rejoint ainsi l’identité du festival et qui s’inscrit dans la continuité de sa pratique artistique liée à l’apprentissage des langues. Il interroge par la même occasion son identité, celle d’un émigré anglophone, d’un quidam flamand, d’un artiste estampillé comme flamand.
NL
Hoe vindt een kunstenaar met buitenlandse roots zijn weg in het Belgische kluwen? In 2019 realiseert Ahilan Ratnamohan – in Sydney opgegroeid en met Sri Lankaanse roots – zich dat hij, ondanks het feit dat hij reeds zeven jaar in België woont, geen enkele Waalse vriend heeft en dat alles wat hij weet over Walen hem verteld is vanuit een Vlaams perspectief. Door Frans te leren en zich onder te dompelen in de Waalse cultuur vraagt Ratnamohan zich af of hij Belg zal kunnen worden, écht Belg, wezenlijk Belg. Hij leert speciaal voor deze voorstelling de Franse taal en serveert ons via grappige en pijnlijke anekdotes zijn wedervaren als Vlaamse kunstenaar in Franstalig België. Hij probeert zijn Vlaamse identiteit van zich af te schudden, een identiteit die hem bijna ongewild is toegeschreven door het leren van het Nederlands en zijn voornamelijk in Vlaanderen gevestigde artistieke praktijk. Via deze oefening deconstrueert Ratnamohan de verdeling van België, een eigenzinnig avontuur dat aansluit bij zijn eerdere artistieke projecten rond het leren van talen en op markante wijze de identiteit van het festival weerspiegelt. Ratnamohan reflecteert daarmee ook over zijn eigen identiteit: die van een Engelstalige migrant, een Vlaamse voorbijganger, een als Vlaams bestempelde kunstenaar.
Video: Full Performance KFDA
Photo for the web © Bea Borgers
Publicity images
Press:
2023 - Should Have Been My Mother Tongue LECTURE SERIES
In his 3-part lecture, Should Have Been My Mother Tongue, Ahilan Ratnamohan uses his obsessive, yet hopeless, pursuit of the Tamil language to unpack and examine the nuanced impact of language on our socio-cultural functioning. Based on this 5-year quest, extremised through its difficulty and his cultural baggage as multilingual diaspora living and integrated in various Western countries, Ahilan extracts and then zooms in on three specific strands; community, culture and pedagogy.
Culture
Community
Pedagogy
2022 - Alle woorden die ik nog niet kende…
In Alle woorden die ik nog niet kende geeft Ahilan Ratnamohan zichzelf de opdracht om 840 hem onbekende Nederlandse woorden te verwerken in één tekst. Die oefening mondt uit in een ingetogen maar scherpe monoloog over de persoonlijke en politieke complexiteit van meertaligheid en migratie.
Ahilan is een taal-enthousiast en doorgaans bezig met het aanleren van minstens twee talen tegelijkertijd. Hoewel Nederlands hem voortdurend omringt, liet hij die taal lang aan de kant liggen. Tijdens zijn eerste jaren in België, verzamelde hij een lijst van hem nog onbekende woorden. In Alle woorden die ik nog niet kende probeert Ahilan om alle 840 woorden van zijn lijst te gebruiken in een monoloog. Wat betekent het om een nieuwe woordenschat in gebruik te nemen? Zal deze monoloog überhaupt begrijpelijk zijn voor Ahilans ‘medemigranten’?
Video: https://vimeo.com/686272523
Wachtwoord: Memrise
Photo: Brakkegrond / Shakespeare is Dead Festival
2021 - Le Maillot One Size Fits All
An exploration of the football jersey and its infinite cultural and physical significance. Departing from the simple action of shirt pulling, common in football as a method of maintaining contact with an opponent, not letting an opponent get away and typically seen as an aggressive act, they attempt to push this action to its limits, debunking its aggressive, competitive quality to arrive at something new.
In doing so the jerseys begin to take on a new significance. The histories and cultural implications of every piece of material transcend the initial association of simply being a football jersey. They are countries, they are clubs, they are cities, villages, sponsors, oil companies, memories and fashion; the players, their models and providers of haute couture. But who can provide haute couture?
video
Photos premiere
2021 - Pidgin X
Is it possible to miss a word? Is it possible to feel homesickness for a language rather than a country itself?
Pidgin X departs from this abstract question making it concrete through discussions between people who have had to learn the local language during adulthood. We ask each other which words we miss from our mother tongue. Sometimes they are extremely practical; words which are shorter, or more easily pronounceable; sometimes they are more beautiful to us than their equivalent in the local language, or they roll off the tongue more easily; sometimes they carry a certain connection or nostalgia and sometimes they are merely untranslatable.
We become the Founders. In our discussions we begin to talk about the grammar and pronunciation in the new language. We discuss what the hardest parts to learn were and what - if given the chance - we would change. We start with individual discussions but eventually we assemble to discuss such topics in a group. The dominant city-language is what binds us, and it's our common struggle with it which unites us. We take this language as our starting point and begin to make incisions. The simplification of an article or a pronoun, the changing of a particular sound, or the scrapping of irregularities. Slowly we build a new base for a language which would be easier for our future selves. The words which came up in our discussions create a basis next to the grammatical foundation we arrive at. And like that a new, contemporary Pidgin or Creole language is born. A language which attempts to reflect the true complexity of our modern-day cities, with all its diversity, mistakes and nuances. Each word carries the history and memories of one of the Founders or contributors.
photos Leeuwarden Groningen
video?
2019 - Look On The Bright Side
A seemingly absurd attempt to become a star offers a glimpse behind the scenes at the mechanisms of fame.
In this performance, Etuwe Bright Junior explores his own dream of stardom. He first came to Europe to pursue a career in football, but when that didn’t take off, not having a diploma, he went to work in a factory. He’s also a member of the performance group Star Boy Collective, with whom he’d perform for appreciative audiences across Europe before returning to his day job at the factory in Belgium.
In Look on the Bright side, Junior finds himself alone on stage, vulnerable before an audience that – in a very real way – has the power to determine his future. In a language he’s still wrestling with, he analyses the strange situation in which he finds himself. Junior’s sometimes absurd quest for stardom gives the audience a look behind the curtains of fame. Which mechanisms in our society determine who ‘makes it’? And under which circumstances?
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Een schijnbaar absurde poging om een ster te worden biedt een blik achter de schermen van de mechanismen van de roem.
In deze performance onderzoekt Etuwe Bright Junior zijn eigen droom: het sterrendom. Hij kwam ooit naar Europa om een voetbalcarrière uit te bouwen maar omdat die niet van de grond kwam is hij momenteel zonder diploma aan het werk in een fabriek. Ook maakt hij deel uit van performancegroep Star Boy Collective: dagenlang touren door Europa, overal applaus krijgen en de volgende dag weer terug naar de fabriek in België.
In Look on the Bright side bevindt Junior zich alleen op scène, kwetsbaar voor een publiek dat in zekere zin zijn toekomst bepaalt. Hij analyseert in een taal waar hij nog mee worstelt de vreemde situatie waarin hij zich bevindt. De soms absurde queeste van Junior naar het sterrendom gunt ons een blik achter de schermen van de roem. Welke mechanismen in onze maatschappij bepalen wie “het maakt”? En onder welke omstandigheden?
2018 - Klapping
A nocturnal pilgrimage to an out-of-bounds football court. Synchronised breathing, ritual dances, obscure football history, acclamations, refrains and Cruyffian* technique. Flirting with a scary boundary between fiction and reality, Klapping is a new urban movement form founded by Feras the Shield and Maestro Ahil.
They initiate the audience into this strange, but familiar, new form; Starting with its history, moving through foundations and fashion codes and arriving at the euphoria of a battle, over the course of the evening the audience is initiated, beginning their transformation towards football deity. By bathing/immersing in football paraphernalia and reveling in the energy of the court, Feras the Shield and Maestro Ahil guide the audience through this search for profound spiritual significance in the idiosyncratic codes and rituals of football.
*Cruyffian refers to concepts developed by the late, Dutch, footballer, Johan Cruyff.
All Documention of all Klapping Events (Photo + Video)
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video trailer Nuit Blanche
video Riga (Homo Novus)
2018 - Mercenary
In Mercenary a group of footballers of Asian-heritage attempt to put themselves in the bodies of the migrant workers building the stadiums for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, to explore the century-old tradition of indentured labour in the Gulf Region, and wrestle with the ghosts of their ancestors.
Beyond the traditions, abuse and the hysteria surrounding the 2022 World Cup, this troupe of Asian footballers arrive at a more fundamental starting point: the Asian body; as the body of a worker, a migrant, a thinker, but never an athlete. Through an unrelenting, football choreography the performers attempt to shred the layers of their existence as Asians in the West. Can they ever be migrant workers? Can they ever be footballers?
Mercenary is a collaboration between Ahilan Ratnamohan, a Sri Lankan-Australian footballer-artist now based in Antwerp, and a number of people with disparate skills and histories: Nipat Thollebeek, an KAA Gent academy footballer who now coaches; Rabina Miya a Nepali street-dancer convinced, during the project, to pursue acting; Imanuel Dado, an Indonesian-Australian an athlete and b-boy turned contemporary dancer and; Mahy Nambiar a member of the Tamil Eelam Football team, a national team for the unrecognised state of Tamil Eelam, who stepped into the process 10 days before the premiere.
The performance unfolds through three important layers: Ratnamohan’s distinctive football-dance movement, musician Mutamassik’s trademark first-generation, punk jaw, electronic pan-African derivatives and Anne-Catherine Kunz's costumes that add a further performative layer, and act as one more agent, against (and with) which the performers must identify themselves.
Video - trailer
Video - Full Length (London, Premiere)
2017 - Language Trilogy
The Foreigner - photos
The Perfect Migrant - photos
Bille in 24 House - photos
2017 - Reverse Colonialism
In this charged, political performance, four Africans living in Belgium attempt to solve the complex migration-integration dilemma. Their answer? A new country for African-Europeans and European-Africans, where they themselves determine the norms. The performers introduce their ideas to their utopian land to the audience, discussing and debating them before it is left to the audience to vote. Reverse Colonialism! was inspired by the real and current situations of the Star Boy Collective, who after precarious years of attempting to become 'legal' in Europe now all have their papers. They find themselves now confronted by the reality that 'blue collar' is probably the best they can be in Europe, and that if they are lucky. Rather than telling their, and their community's, stories and experiences of being confronted by the glass ceiling, Reverse Colonialism! attempts to look to the future, or at least a future.
Video 30 minutes from Africologne - gives more of an idea of new show
Video Trailer - not very good and also a bit old
2016 - SDS2
Description
Video Show LINK IS BROKEN
2015 - Drill
In Drill, three athletes meet in a late night, never-ending training session. A form of non-competitive competition unfolds before the audience. Sweaty machismo gets a poetic makeover as sprinting, jumping, turning, pivoting, falling and accelerating merge in an undefinable training sequence which revels in an exhausted euphoria.
Drill is an exploration of the choreographic potential of athletic movement and training; an attempt to transcend all human athletic capabilities, in a non-spectacular, practical fashion.
Video Full-length Show [begins at 5 mins]
2014 - Star Boy Productions
The illegal things people do in order to become `legal’
Fake marriages, passport swaps, adoption, scam contracts, sugar mammas and internet relationships. Get your asylum-seeker status, 6-month card, 5-year card or even British nationality and passport. STAR BOY PRODUCTIONS is going to help you to stay in the country and eventually get on top. Using their combined years of experience, Junior, Aloys and Lateef are going to help you to make a better future for yourself.
In Star Boy Productions, 3 African migrants invite an audience into their world of clandestine survival tactics, explaining the lengths one can and must go to in order to remain in Europe. Star Boy Productions attempts to examine the psyche of African migrants in Europe attempting to create a better future for themselves.
2013 - SDS1
SDS1 is a solo dance work exploring the game of football (soccer) as an art form. A former footballer, Ahilan Ratnamohan creates a piece derived entirely from the game’s physicality, creating dance-inspired choreography with and without the ball. Through this deep exploration of movement in football the piece ponders the psyche of vulnerable warriors striving to be loved or hated, worshipped or scorned. This physically charged piece creates layers of movement that take the audience through a surreal and visceral, yet poetic experience of a football match. This is football in a theatre, stripped back, extracted, frozen, repeated and abstracted. Beautiful and ugly at once.
2013 - Michael Essien I want to play as you…
"You might not know us. You might not see us. But we are training. All over Europe. All over the world"
Michael Essien I want to play as you… is an explosive football-dance-theatre performance exploring the line between hope and desperation for young African footballers who migrate to Europe to play professionally. Six West-African footballers invite an audience into their world of training, politics, visas and contracts.
The financial explosion of football coupled with the growing success of African players in Europe has led to many Africans believing in football as a way out of poverty. While the majority of African players displayed by the media are on million-dollar contracts, there is a growing under-class of football-aspirants living in harsh conditions in foreign lands chasing the dream of a decent football contract.
Video Full-length Show [part 1]
Video Full-length Show [part 2]