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"Taxi Darko" in Hamburg: When the taxi ride turns into a theatrical performance
At the heart of the performance was Zandile Drako’s father, Bernard Yaw Darko. He has been driving a taxi in Hamburg for thirty years. Born in Ghana, raised between Accra and, later, Nigeria, he has lived in northern Germany since the 1980s. His biography tells of detours and ruptures, of flight, new beginnings, and everyday work. But it also tells of a family life that has shaped Hamburg for decades—one that has yet to find a stage in the city’s cultural institutions.
Taxi ride, sound collage and art project
"It's about listening," says Zandile Darko. While in the theater the eloquent voices of the educated often dominate, with this project she wanted to make audible the voice of someone who is rarely asked. Her father speaks Twi, English, and German; the languages often flow into one another. This multilingualism formed the sonic tapestry of "Taxi Darko." That summer, a sound collage emerged from around 15 hours of recorded material, condensed into an hour-long car ride. (here is the NDR film feature on "Taxi Drako")
The route did not lead across the stage, but through Hamburg’s streets. The start and end point was the Kampnagel cultural center, but the performance took place on the soft seats of a large-capacity taxi. As the Alster, Altona, or the industrial areas passed by outside, the audience heard Darko’s voice, with Fela Kuti on the soundtrack, broken up by radio announcements or snatches of news. Time and again, live sounds from outside blended in: the roar of a motorcycle, a ringing bicycle bell, the traffic jam on Sievekingsallee.
Taxi as Living Space
For Bernard Darko, the taxi is still both workplace and living space. It was his means of supporting the family; it took his daughters to school; it offered room for conversations with strangers—or for quiet silence. Today he senses that there is less talking in taxis. “You have mouth but you cannot talk,” he says.
His daughter sees a political moment in this: communication as a searching movement that opens up a space between languages and experiences in which belonging is renegotiated. Inspired by the theory of “autohistoria,” which the feminist theorist, author, and activist Gloria Anzaldúa describes as follows: “This form [of autohistoria] goes beyond the traditional self-portrait or autobiography; in telling the personal story of the authors/artists, it also includes the cultural history of the artists—so it is a way for us to produce history, to invent our history out of our experience and perspective and through our art itself, rather than simply accepting the dominant society’s version.”
Migration History at the Wheel
In “Taxi Darko,” personal memories intertwined with societal questions: migration, education, postcolonial history. In the end, what remained was the experience of a shared ride that one would not soon forget. The passengers sat side by side, listened, saw the city anew. Perhaps, though, for the first time they truly paid attention to the driver. (Source: Zeit, NDR, Kulturzentrum Kampnagel)
Content automatically translated.
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