‘Hophuis: A site of Dance and Solidarity’traces a series of journeys to the Steinkopf Community Centre in Namaqualand, South Africa. Once a lively venue for communal and political gathering—though church-controlled—it now stands as a stripped, open ruin of broken walls and bare concrete. Steinkopf lies in what the apartheid government declared a “coloured reserve,” and its original name, Kookfontein, was replaced by German missionaries who imposed what James Baldwin calls “theological terror,” suppressing Nama, Khoi, and other indigenous spiritual practices. Dance, song, and language survived only through a few cultural custodians. The town later became entangled in De Beers’ diamond and copper mining, which brought social and environmental destruction. In 1975, the mining company proposed a community centre but provided insufficient funds, leading residents to raise the money themselves through loans, raffles, and dance parties—and ultimately to build the structure. ‘Hophuis’ asks us to view this neglected building not only as a ruin but as a site of potential freedom and ancestral resurgence.
Steinkopf Community Screening
On 9 August 2025, we gathered at the Steinkopf Community Centre for a homecoming screening of ‘Hophuis: A Site of Dance and Solidarity’. A full-moon moment in which the film returned to the very space that inspired it, expanding ‘Hophuis’ into a living series of films, gatherings and spatial interventions that aim to reconnect community to the building.