A few words about your artistic career
With my background in urban dance from 1998 to 2005, I trained with a number of well-known choreographers, including Laurence Levasseur, Germaine Acogny, Angelin Preljocaj, Irène Tassembedo, Salia-ni-Seydou and many others. First class of professional dancer-performers after three years of intensive training at EDIT from 2009-2012.
How long have you been an artist?
I fell in love with dance 15 years ago, in 1998, but since 2005 I've been training to become a professional dancer.
Why did you apply for this scholarship? How will the scholarship support you?
It's a challenge, just as it is when I take part in a lot of auditions, and the distribution network that Africalia can offer my work.
Given the current situation with my dates in Europe, which have been cancelled, I have to stay active and keep working.
What are your concrete artistic objectives after this residency?
My aim is for the choreography I propose to be a complete creation, intended solely for this project, based on a musical style that is rarely used in contemporary choreography.
What did you achieve during this creative residency? What is the result (work created)? Who was involved in the creative process?
This residency grant is an essential tool for strengthening the artist's capacity for creativity and their prospects for dialogue with the world through their art. My aim was to create a choreographic work dedicated to CREATIVITY IS LIFE, despite the technical constraints associated with COVID-19.
This residency resulted in a complete creation intended solely for this project, based on a musical style rarely used in contemporary choreographic creations. It takes the form of a video clip lasting around 4 minutes. It shows me dancing against the light to create the idea of a Chinese shadow, with the Ouagadougou dam in the background.
I called on a video/photo team from RASCA-PROD for location scouting as well as for the aesthetic and technical aspects of the work throughout my residency and the production of the final work. I also had local professional dancers on hand to provide me with a critical artistic eye to ensure that my performance was as close to perfection as possible.
How do you think these activities help us to think about the world today, in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and/or about building for the future?
In view of the situation linked to the COVID-19 pandemic in my country and everywhere else, the arts as a whole and intercultural connections are for me the best means of inviting everyone who has lived through this pandemic period to a true awareness of who we are, what role we have to play in life and how together we can imagine rebuilding a new and better healthy life for ourselves and for future generations.
It's not through shadow puppets that I seek to touch human sensibilities. It's through gestures that are sometimes poetic, sometimes angry, that I invite people to become more aware. What's more, dance gives free rein to each person's imagination when it comes to interpreting a performance.
How did you feel during the residency? And afterwards?
I experienced this creative residency as a relief of spirit, as if through my art I were bringing a remedy to humanity against COVID-19.
When I left the residency, on the site where the final work was shot on the banks of the Tanghin dam in Ouagadougou, passers-by and local residents witnessed this achievement. The beautiful reactions on people's faces and the joy they showed at the site confirmed to me that this residency is not only a success, but also something that had to be done. I can only be optimistic and proud to have accomplished a mission like this, thanks to the Africalia CREATIVITY IS LIFE grant.
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