The theater production is the continuation of the collaboration between the German-French director Mikaël Serre and the Senegalese dancer and founder of the renowned École des sables, Germaine Acogny. The theater and dance performance is about the planned expansion of the port of Dakar in Toubab Dialaw, a deep-sea construction project of the Senegalese government with the company Dubai Port World, just a few meters away from their school. The destruction of their village and the neighboring communities will be the inevitable consequence. Even if the local residents had initially hoped that this construction project would create jobs, they are now rather hostile to what will bring an unforeseeable upheaval to the local ecosystem.
DIALAW-Project arises from a socio-political context that is characterized by the Black Lives Matter movement and the question of the significance of colonial memory in the collective psyche. Toubab Dialaw already bears traces of colonial history in its etymology. After this area had been a trading post for the slave trade, the construction of the port is intended to turn it into a new place for the exchange of goods between Africa and Europe. DIALAW-Project examines the economic and human relationships that connect Europe and Africa, as well as the risks of modernity with all its hopes, acts of violence, contradictions and dangers of a rapid globalization that threatens our planet.
IDEE Fluid Ensemble | WITH Germaine Acogny, Hamidou Anne, Stéphane Soo Mongo, Anne-Elodie Sorlin, Pascal Beugré-Tellier | DIRECTOR Mikaël Serre | TEXT Hamidou Anne, Ian de Toffoli, Le Fluide Ensem-ble | DRAMATURGY Jens Hillje | ASSISTANT DIRECTOR Anaïs Durand Mauptit | ARTISTIC COLLABORATION Ninon Leclère | AUTHOR AND MYTHOLOGY SPECIALIST Ian de Toffoli | AUTHOR AND POLITICIAN Hamidou Anne | STAGE DESIGN John Carroll | Mikaël Serre COSTUME Jah Gal Doulsy | VIDEO Martin Mallon | MUSIC Antonin Leymarie | LIGHT Léandre Garcia Lamolla | PRODUCTION Le Fluide Ensemble | COPRODUCTION Le Monfort Théâtre – Paris, africologneFESTIVAL, Théâtre de la Ville-Paris, Festival PERSPECTIVES Saarbrücken, Les Théâtres de la ville de Luxembourg, Théâtre des 13 Vents – CDN de Montpellier, Théâtre-Cinéma de Choisy-le-Roi | ARTIST RESIDENCY IN SENEGAL Jant-Bi, L’École des Sables – Toubab Dialaw | ARTIST RESIDENCY LE CENTQUATRE-PARIS Le Monfort Théâtre – Paris | WITH THE SUPPORT OF l’Institut Français, l’AFD, Fonds Transfabrik – Fonds franco-allemand pour le spectacle vivant; La Ville de Paris. Ministry of Culture / DRAC Île-de-France; Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia; Sparkasse KölnBonn; Kunstsalon Stiftung | THANKS TO l’Opéra national de Lorraine for providing a stage element, au Théâtre de la Ville, à la Cie La Part des Anges | PRODUCTION AND TOURING Ninon Leclère, Bureau Formart.
GERMAINE ACOGNY, dancer / choreographer – Senegal
Germaine Acogny is regarded worldwide as “the mother of contemporary African dance”. Together with her husband Helmut Vogt, she founded the École des Sables in Senegal in 2004, a place of exchange and professional training for African dancers from all over the world. She has been celebrating worldwide success with her company JANT-BI since 1998. Germaine Acogny is Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite (Knight of the Order of Merit), Officier des Arts et Lettres (Officer of Arts and Letters). She is also Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Lion and Officier des Arts et Lettres de la République Sénégalaise (Officer of Arts and Letters of the Republic of Senegal). In 2007 she received the BESSIE Award in New York for the choreography Fagaala by the company JANT-BI and in 2021 the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for her entire oeuvre.
MIKAËL SERRE, director – France/Germany
The director, performer and translator was trained at the Saint-Etienne School of Fine Arts and the Jacques Lecoq International Theater School. Decidedly characterized by its cross-border development, its work is developing on an international level. His productions have been invited to the F.I.N.D. Festival Schaubühne Berlin, ImPulsTanz, Maxim Gorki Theater, Théâtre Natio-nal de Chaillot, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Grand Théâtre Luxembourg, Opéra national de Lorraine, among others. His most recent productions are: La Pucelle d’Orléans by F. Schiller at the Maxim Gorki Theater, A un endroit du début with Germaine Acogny, Le Cantique des Cantiques with Abou Lagraa, Les Contes d’Hoffmann at the Opéra de Dijon, La Bohème by Puccini Oper Trier, Les Brigands by F. Schiller, Ariane et Barbe Bleue at the Opéra National de Nancy and The Rake’s Prgrogress by Igor Stravinsky.
HAMIDOU ANNE, political essayist / actor – Senegal
As an observer and actor in the renewal of African society, Hamidou Anne has had an atypical career between Senegal and France. A graduate of ENA Dakar and in 2012 of ENA and Celsa in Paris, the young diplomat decided to return to Senegal to serve his country in various positions in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Culture before resigning. He has been involved in the cultural, political and intellectual sphere of Afro-Responsibility for five years. Hamidou Anne is the author of Politisez-Vous! in collaboration with Mohamed Mbougar Sarr and Fary Ndao, Penser l’Afrique qui vient!; Amadou Mahtar Mbow: une vie, des combats, Décentrer déconstruire décoloniser Africultures, hors-serie in collaboration with Aminata Aidara and Anne Bocandé, among others.