samedi 29 novembre 2025, 16h

Culturescapes Performance Day | Kettly Noël (and Kojack): This body remembers

Entrée gratuite, sans réservation
Culturescapes Performance Day: Languages and Movements

The Sahara is all about rhythms. The circadian rhythms of the desert dwellers sync with the rhythms of day breaks and sunsets. The rhythms of the winds set people in to motion. The Sahara is all about languages. The many languages in and around the Sahara move with the people, some of who are nomadic, while others are migrants traversing the desert from south to north in search of better lives. The verbal and non-verbal languages of movement convergein the Saharan space to share stories, reveal secrets, express pain, voice inequalities and injustices, fight for freedom, dance, laugh, and sing. Embracing the diversity of languages and voices spoken in and around the Sahara requires sensitivity and openness.
The Performance Day that closes Culturescapes 2025 Sahara opens a space to meet the Saharan languages and movements through performative walks, guitar music, dance, chants, and meditation by artists from different parts of the African continent. 

Kettly Noël (and Kojack): This body remembers (35')

This performance is a reflection on African colonial memory, mixed identities, and those metamorphic bodies that resist, adapt, and endlessly reinvent gesture, speech, and presence. What does a language become when it turns into movement? What does a language become when it’s no longer the colonizer’s? In her new performance, commissioned by Culturescapes, choreographer and dancer Kettly Noël follows the colonial languages as they enter the Sahara and encounter the multiplicity of local ones. Arabic, Tamasheq, French, Fulani, and more speak to one another through the body memories and gestures. Languages drift, dissolve, and return. With them comes breathing, silence, and movement. The body becomes memory. It dances what can not be spoken. The music becomes a trace. Because a language is more than words. It’s a body that remembers. 

A multidisciplinary artist, Kettly Noël is best known for her work as a choreographer. Born in Haiti, she has dedicated her life to exploring and enriching the performing arts. For over 25 years, she has been actively involved in the development of contemporary dance in Africa, Haiti, and the Caribbean. She is the founder of the Donko Seko choreographic center in Mali (2000–2022) and is behind structures such as PAPLAB in Haiti and the KN Dance Project, as well as international festivals including Dense Bamako Danse and the Caribbean Dance Platform. Her work combines training, creation, and social engagement. It offers young artists from fragile backgrounds access to major international stages, while defending a free and contemporary approach to dance. She is Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres, French Republic.

 

Bildcredits: Kettly Noël – Sans Souci © Michel Meyer