Na Ruinas (in de Ruïnes)
A son looks back on his father’s life – from famine in Cape Verde to an existence in Rotterdam, from young soldier to man between two worlds. Through traditional Cape Verdean music and hip-hop, Gery Mendes explores what words cannot express: love, loss, and the baggage that generations carry.
In Na Ruinas (In the Ruins), a son tries to understand what shaped his father and how that carries over into his home life. From a dilapidated dream house, he sees how his father experienced war, how silence lingers afterward, and how love is present but does not always reveal itself. With two musicians by his side, Gery Mendes delves into various facets of his father – from young and hopeful to wounded and scarred.
This is a poignant, personal, and cinematically theatrical concert about identity, family, and a past that continues to resonate. It is an ode to fathers and sons and to the traces that history leaves through a family, long after the violence has stopped.
About Gery Mendes & AllthingsAfrica
Gery Mendes is a Rotterdam-based multidisciplinary maker, MC, poet, and singer-songwriter. With the project AllthingsAfrica, he brings stories of Africa and its diaspora to life on stage in a distinctive way. His work explores what it means to come from two worlds and how personal and collective memories are processed through art.
