Bintou Dembélé

Memory has its layers, through which ghosts sometimes pass. Working alongside three artists, Bintou Dembelé, who has a background in hip hop and is now developing her own aesthetic, delves here into her relationship with the past. After Z.H. (Zoos humains), which evoked the exhibitions of “noble savages” at world exhibitions, S/T/R/A/T/E/S Quartet – whose split title expresses the fault lines of personal memory – reflects on racial hierarchies.
On stage, circles drawn on the floor refer to choreographic cultures where each person can take turns occupying the central place and give their all. S/T/R/A/T/E/S makes it a space for debate, where body states inspired by hip hop and krump meet the repetitive music of Charles Amblard and the voice of Charlène Andjembé, in a combination of jazz, blues and African-inspired polyphony. As a choreographer as well as a performer, Bintou Dembelé elevates a story that is both social and personal.

Acknowledged to be one of the pioneers of hip-hop in France, Bintou Dembelé began dancing in 1985. A co-founder of the groups Ykanji and Ladyside, she also worked with Aktuel Force and at the Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse in Paris before founding her own structure, Rualité, in 2002. In 2019, she made her début at the Paris Opera, where she choreographed Les Indes galantes, an opera-ballet directed by Clément Cogitore and directed by Léonardo García Alarcón. She is an associate artist at the Ateliers Médicis and one of the ten international artists invited to the 10th anniversary of the Centre Pompidou-Metz. In 2021, she will inaugurate the Villa Chicago.