Nadia Beugré

A child of Abidjan’s Abobo district, Nadia Beugré met Béatrice Kombé in 1997, and with her, a whole universe. They founded the Tché-Tché company and performed all over the world. After Béatrice Kombé’s death, Nadia Beugré trained at the École des Sables in Senegal, before joining Exerce in 2009 under the direction of Mathilde Monnier. From Quartiers Libres (2012) to L’Homme rare (2020), Filles-Pétroles (2023) and Prophétique (2023), Nadia Beugré’s works explore the margins, what escapes and deviates, the roles we give and those we take. Nadia Beugré has worked with Alain Buffard, Dorothée Munyaneza, Boris Charmatz and, in 2022, Robyn Orlin. Nadia Beugré is an associate artist of ICI CCN de Montpellier (2023-2024), winner of the Prix Nouveau Talent Chorégraphique de la SACD in 2023, and founder of Libr’Arts in Montpellier, a space for creation and transmission between France and Côte d’Ivoire. Her second solo piece will open the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in May 2025.

How to “shrift”, how to deal with the obstacle, the unforeseen, the unexpected, how to bounce back, bifurcate adapt, bypass, dodge or face up to. Shrifting, a neologism created by Nadia Beugré, is common practice on the African continent, where citizen-magicians invent the conditions for their future every day. By listening to others, to the music of bodies, to space, but also to the invisible and the absent, we'll learn to confront the unexpected, to let go and let ourselves be carried off to other places and other shores.