SIGUIFIN

A new generation of West-african artists, choreographers and dancers meet in a new, artistic landscape to build bridges across the neighboring countries. 

Siguifin means magical monster in the Bambara language. Nine dancers from the three neighboring countries Senegal, Mali and Burkina Faso meet on stage to create a magical, multifaceted being.   

The work is inspired by the TV game Exquisite Cadaver and initiated by the Senegalese choreographer Amala Dianor, whom decided to use his European success as a springboard to introduce more choreographers from West Africa. 

- The idea of ??a meeting is central in this piece, the choreographer explains. He has teamed up with choreographers Naomi Fall from Mali and Ladji Koné from Burkina Faso to explore the three countries' different cultures and movement patterns.

 The dancers have been selected in each country by the three choreographers. What does the present look like, and what future will they build together? 

 - The dancers show an incredible strength and overwhelming drive to express themselves. We believe and hope that the audience will feel the vibrations of their fierce energy, Dianor says. 

With this project, a new generation of dancers and choreographers is offered an opportunity to work with dance art in West Africa. "Siguifin” has toured over large parts of France, and is increasingly gaining notoriety in Europe and the rest of the world in general. 

- Traveling to dance, crossing physical boundaries, experiencing different stages in a creative process and getting the opportunity to meet different audiences are important milestones in the young dancers' artistic careers, Dianor concludes. 

CREDITS:

Direction and Choreography Amala Dianor  

Choreography Alioune Diagne, Naomi Fall, Ladji (Jain Souleymane Koné)  

Performers (Burkina Faso) Abdoul Kader Simporé aka Dainss, Daniel Koala aka Tchapratt, Rama Koné (Sénégal) Roger Sarr, Alicia Sebia Gomis, Jules Djihounouck (Mali) Adiara Traoré, Salif Zongo, Adama Mariko

Music Awir Léon  

Lights & Stage manager Nicolas Tallec  

Executive Manager Mélanie Roger  

Tour manager Lucie Jeannenot  

Production Cie Amala Dianor / Kaplan, sustained by French State - DRAC Pays de la Loire, Pays de la Loire Region, Town of Angers. Since 2020, it is receiving the support of BNP Paribas Fondation. Amala Dianor is associated artist to Maison de la danse de Lyon – european Pole of creation (2019-2021) and member of « le Grand Ensemble » of Quinconces Espale, scène nationale du Mans (2020-2024).  

Partners Association Diagn'art - Alioune Diagne, Festival Fari Foni Waati - Naomi Fall,  

Collectif JUMP - Ladji Koné   

Coproduction Théâtre de Suresnes-Jean Vilar ; Atelier de Paris / CDCN ; POLE-SUD, CDCN Strasbourg ; Institut français de Dakar, Sénégal ; Centre chorégraphique national de Rennes et de Bretagne ; Centre de la danse Pierre Doussaint Grand Paris Seine et Oise  

Commission Europe Creative Siguifin is a Big Pulse Dance Alliance Commission, coproduced by Dublin Dance Festival (lreland), ONE Dance Week (Bulgaria), Julidans (Netherlands), Tanz im August/HAU Hebbel am Ufer (Germany), Dance Umbrella (UK), CODA Oslo International Dance Festival (Norway) and presented by Zodiak - Side Step Festival (Finland), New Baltic Dance (Lithuania), International Dance Festival TANEC PRAHA (Czech Republic), Torinodanza Festival (ltaly)(tbc), co-funded by the Creative Europe programme of the European Union.   

With the support of l’Office International de la Francophonie l’Institut Français.

Artists biography  

Amala Dianor  

After starting out as a hip hop  

dancer, Amala Dianor entered the  

prestigious CNDC school in  

Angers (in the class of 2002). He  

then performed for 10 years as a  

dancer with a number of  

choreographers in very different  

worlds, including hip hop, neo  

classical, contemporary and afro-contemporary. In 2012, he founded his own company, and his dance style and vocabulary were immediately identifiable: sliding from one technique to another with ease and virtuosity, with a hybrid approach to shape, and a poetic approach to the issue of ‘otherness’. Since he created his first soloMan Rec in 2014, he has worked in close collaboration with the elctro-soul composer Awir Léon, who has written the original music for his pieces. He also often collaborates with other choreographic artists, composers, writers and plasticians ... In 2019, he created his first major work for nine dancers to whom he taught his special blend of styles and techniques; the work was called The Falling Stardust and is currently touring. In 2020, he prepared at Maison de la Danse in Lyon, the trio Point Zéro, which he will perform with his dancer/ choreographer friends Johanna Faye and Mathias Rassin. During the period of theater closing, he co-writes dance short-movies with the visual artist Grégoire Korganow. He has also committed to training pre-professional dancers in France and then in Western Africa with his project Siguifin, a collective creation for nine dancers and three countries, with the choreographers Ladji Koné, Alioune Diagne and Naomi Fall, and the work will premiere at Suresnes Cités Danse in 2022.

Naomi Fall  

A dancer and choreographer, Naomi Fall  

is a movement “explorer” and is also  

interested in exploring relationships to  

audiences in contemporary creation. Of  

multiple origins and having traveled  

extensively, Naomi Fall is interested in  

societal questions and the individuals who  

are a part of our society, building it,  

sometimes enduring it, examining the  

stereotypes which characterize our human relationships. She studied many forms of traditional African dance in Sénégal, Ghana and Mali, and also obtained a bachelor’s degree in New York in 2009; she then settled in Bamako. Her fully immersive work in Mali has brought her to confront the complex realities of creative work outside the normal channels of international artistic cooperation. She developed many dance projects including European, African and American artists. She founded the Compagnie GnagamiX, which she co-directs with Mohamed Coulibaly, from 2011 to 2015. She then founded the Compagnie De Ceux Qui (the Company of Those Who ..) in 2016, bringing their projects to both Africa and Europe, among them the Fari Foni Waati creation laboratory and a dance festival in Bamako which she founded in  

2016, and which she continues to direct today.  

Alioune Diagne  

Alioune Diagne is a choreographer and  

dancer, from Saint-Louis, Sénégal. He was  

first self-taught, and his trio Banlieue was  

an impressive success in 2012. This piece  

evoked everyday life in the suburbs of  

Sénégal, and it has toured to more than 20  

countries in Africa and Europe. His most  

recent work, Siki, is a solo, inspired by the  

life of the first Black world boxing champion,  

Battling Siki. For three years now Alioune has been giving danced lectures in Morocco, Paris and Geneva, with Professor Jean François Bayart. Alioune  

Diagne is the Artistic Director of the Cultural Center Le Château and of the Association Diagn'Art, which organizes the international Duo Solo Dance Festival in Saint-Louis. Alioune is convinced that art and culture are the driving forces in personal development, expression, discussion and education.  

Ladji (Jain Souleymane Koné)  

Ladji was a self-taught dancer in his  

neighborhood of Ouagadougou in Burkina  

Faso. In 2003, the discovery of hip hop  

culture channeled his overflowing energy,  

and break dancing became his own  

personal movement research lab. After  

studying both theatre and musicality, he  

began working in contemporary dance.  

Ladji worked at a number of venues, such as the CDCN l’Echangeur Hauts de-France, the Ecole des Sables, the CDC la Termitière and the Pavillon Noir-Ballet Preljocaj … Currently he continues his artistic research, mixing and exploring several different movement vocabularies: traditional dances, contemporary dance, hip hop and theatre. In the company Ciel K, he decided to merge his universe with that of the visual artist Michaela Solnická Volná. The creations of the company are based in dance and design, but involve a number of artistic disciplines. This open approach, channeling full complicity, can be characterized by a certain dynamism and a continuous questioning,  

without prejudice – it has brought Ladji to work with artists such as Amala Dianor, Mie Coquempot, Roger Nydegger and Erwann Bouvier … These collaborations go way beyond borders and stylistic limits.