Krummelpap is a dance performance that tears off the plasters from the wounds of the mixed-race peoples in the Western and Northern Cape in South Africa. With the poetry of the poet Ronelda Kamfer, the dancers conjure up a reality that moves across your skin like sandpaper. Storyteller Esmé Marthinus is the poster girl of the South African brown communities, the ‘bruinmense’. Hair with wet look, no front teeth and with a look in her eyes that says ‘Don’t mess with me.’ This dance performance makes you cry, laugh, feel uncomfortable but it also gives messages of hope.

The dancers bring a combination of ancient dance and texts in Cape African in a compelling virtuoso dance style. They dance with their text and their language, making the social content of their story accessible and tangible. The story of the brown people, the ‘mixed race people’, descendants of slaves, Dutch slave owners and the original population of the Western and North Cape in South Africa. This performance has surtitles.