With Épique ! , Nadia Beugré embarks on a journey to the village of her ancestors. She grew up here, in this magical place on the Ivory Coast. But the mysterious, fantastic village no longer exists. The land was considered cursed. As in Filles-Pétroles and Prophétique in 2022 and 2023, this solo takes us back to Nadia’s homeland, to her childhood, to the village of Yikakou.
The journey is also a search for the grandmother who gave her her name: Gbahihonon, the “woman who says what she sees”. She was a woman of strong character and knowledge who protected the community from physical and mystical attacks and who could even predict the fate of newborn babies. But Épique ! also traces other powerful women who built or destroyed empires in the shadow of memories. Dô-Kamissa, for example, who, after being wronged by her brother, turned into a buffalo to ravage her country. As a female oracle, she skillfully arranged the marriage of King Naré Maghann Konaté to his daughter Sogolon Kandé, a woman scorned as ugly and hunchbacked and a doppelganger of Dô-Kamissa. This marriage gave rise to Soundiata Keita, who later became the first ruler of the Kingdom of Mali and proclaimed the Manden Charter in the 13th century as the oldest declaration of basic human rights in the world.
In this kaleidoscope of collective and intimate memories, Nadia Beugré is accompanied by Charlotte Dali and Sali Diabate: a griot narrator and bearer of forgotten stories as well as a musician.
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND PERFORMANCE Nadia Beugré | PERFORMANCE & LIVE MUSIC Sali Diabate (percussions, balafon), Charlotte Dali (vocals, percussions) | DRAMATURGY Kader Lassina Touré | SCENOGRAPHY Jean-Christophe Lanquetin I LIGHTING Paulin Ouedraogo| PRODUCTION Virginie Dupray | COPRODUCTION Montpellier Danse, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Bruxelles, Charleroi danse – Centre chorégraphique national de la fédération Wallonie Bruxelles, Festival d’Automne à Paris, CCN de Caen en Normandie dans le cadre de l’accueil studio, Theater Freiburg, ICI CCN de Montpellier Occitanie / Direction : Christian Rizzo, dans le cadre du dispositif artiste associé | WITH THE SUPPORT OF DRAC Occitanie, French Ministry of Culture THANKS TO Ivoire Marionnettes and the Institut français de Côte d’Ivoire.