About
Life is an ongoing dance. Movement is in every cell. Dance happens in all encounters between humans, plants, objects and materials. We constantly dance with others, exploring the familiarity and the strangeness of otherness.
Life is a dance within culture, between cultures, as we are constantly moving from place to place, from language to language, from a dance practice to another. Dance is an invitation for encounters beyond language. It is about exploration, transformation and communion.
Since my early childhood in Cameroon, my life has been about involving new communities. Always an outsider, trying to understand emic languages (spoken or in movement). This early anthropological eye moved me towards Anthropology and the practice of ethnography: in Tanzania, in Western Contemporary Dance, in Senegal.
I am working between Anthropology, Dance Studies, Contemporary Dance and Traditional African Dances, thinking out of a phenomenological experience. Practice and theory gather in one breath, and materialize in words on paper or performance.
Collaborations with Dance Companies
Contemporary Dance
Massimo Furlan, Nicole Seiler, deRothfils
Nina Stadler, IfSenz, Cie Cadmium
Afro-Contemporary
Cie Fodac, Cie Dogo Mussole
Cie Kunda - André Dramé
Sabar
Yama Wade, Aziz Bara Kara Niang
Guinean
Aissata Kouyaté
In this video essay, I present my embodied engagement, demonstrating my way of using dance as a space for intimate ethnographic encounters. The footage display fieldwork performances in China, Tanzania, Montreal and India, as well as my past participation in dance projects in Switzerland. They are traces of my anthropological journey through space and movement.
Collaborations with Universities
Institute of Anthropology,
University of Lausanne CH 2008-2010
Institute of Anthropology University of Aberdeen UK
2016-2017
Dance Department
University Paris 8 2020-2022
Institute of Dance Studies
University of Bern
2013-2018
Faculty of Fine Arts University Concordia Montreal 2019-2020
Swiss National Research Foundation
2013-2022
