dance | duration 50 min
in French with Italian subtitles

c/o ZONA K, admission allowed upon 2024 membership

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Amandine Ngindu, a renowned krump dancer from Lausanne who goes by the stage name Mamu Tshi, met her Congolese compatriot Faustin Linyekula at Vidy. Together they traveled to the Kasai region to meet her grandmother, with whom she has no common language. In this danced portrait composed together upon their return, Mamu Tshi expresses herself through words and the restrained power of krump, reaching across the borders of her history.

With Mamu Tshi (Amandine Tshijanu Ngindu) Concept and choreography Faustin Linyekula, Mamu Tshi (Amandine Tshijanu Ngindu) Assistant director Angélique Tahé Music Twin Traxamus, Groupe folklorique Atandele (Kananga, DRC) Recorded voices Kaku Musambi Papa Ngindu Papa Mako Griot Tshimina Video Faustin Linyekula Zima Tukala Thanks to Aunt Pauline Bibomba and all the family in Kanyuka, DRC, Zima Tukala (yo moko oyebi), Victor Bafuafua, Sylvie Makela and the Salon Tribus Urbaines General director Veronique Kespi Lighting director Farid Deghou Boussad Sound director Luc Grandjean Stage director Christian Wilmart Production Anouk Luthier Production Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne with support from Studios Kabako (Kisangani, DRC) Support Arts and Humanities Division, New York University Abu Dhabi

photo by Sarah Imsand

Mamu Tshi Mamu Tshi was born in Congo, which she left at birth for Lausanne, where she lives and works today. Very early attracted to urban dance, she is today part of the world krump elite: in 2020 and 2021, she received the title of “dancer of the year” in this discipline. Freestyle dancing, powerful, expressive and liberating, is part of the street dance movement and is considered, among other things, as an artistic response to the systematic oppression of certain groups and the frustration that results from it. The battles, influenced by hip-hop and full of energy, are generally contested in public spaces by different crews. Mamu Tshi frequented urban dances for a long time before performing for the first time in 2019 at the Théâtre Sévelin 36 as part of the “Quarts d’Heure” – a platform for young choreographers. The same theater then invited her to develop her soloWomb: Entrailles as an “associated artist” for a creation in spring 2023. With her playL’Héritière, Mamu Tshi also completes the international trio Portraits in Otherness commissioned by Akram Khan Company for the tour in Switzerland (Steps festival). In parallel and with the collective “Swiss Krump Movement” and the Warriorz, pioneers of krump in Switzerland, she transmits this culture by organizing training and other community events. The lack of resources led her to initiate a project to include cultures and artistic practices from urban and underground environments in the Swiss cultural landscape, CAaUSE, entre d’Arts Alternatif et Urbain Suisse Émergent. At Vidy, she is a choreography assistant and performer in Sous influence by Nina Negri in 2021, and in 2024 she performs Mamu Tshi, Portrait pour Amandine in collaboration with Faustin Linyekula.

Dancer, choreographer and director, Faustin Linyekula lives and works in Kisangani (Democratic Republic of Congo). After literary and theatrical training in Kisangani, he moved to Nairobi in 1993 and in 1997 co-founded the first contemporary dance company in Kenya, the Gàara company. Returning to Kinshasa in June 2001, he set up a structure for dance and visual theater, a place for exchange, research and creation: Studios Kabako. With his company, Linyekula is the author of more than fifteen plays which have been presented on the biggest stages and festivals in Europe, North and South America, Australia and Africa. Among his collaborations are a production for the Comédie Française (Bérénice, 2009), a creation for the Ballet de Lorraine (La Création du monde 1923-2012, 2012), a solo for a dancer from the National Ballet of Portugal. Linyekula has also imagined performances for museums: the MOMA in New York (2012), the MUCEM in Marseille (2016), the Metropolitan Museum (2017) or the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren (2018). He teaches regularly in Africa and the United States. Linyekula received the Grand Prize from the Prince Claus Foundation for Culture and Development in 2007. Since 2007, Linyekula’s work and approach have been based in the city of Kisangani, where Kabako Studios supports the training, production and dissemination of young Congolese artists in the field of performing arts, but also video and music. In 2014, Linyekula and Kabako Studios received the first prize from the American CurryStone foundation for the work developed in Kisangani and in particular in the commune of Lubunga with the different communities. In 2016, as part of the Artista Na Cidade biennial, Linyekula was an associated artist of the city of Lisbon, from which he received the medal for artistic merit. From September 2018 and for three seasons, he was associated with the Manège – Scène nationale de Reims in France. In 2019 he was an associate artist of the Holland Festival in Amsterdam. At Vidy, he presented Congo, a trio for singer, actor and dancer based on the eponymous book by Éric Vuillard in 2019. The series of films by young African artists Lettres du continent, which he designed with Virginie Dupray during the pandemic in 2020, was presented by Vidy in the fall of 2020. In 21/22, he led the Imaginaires des futurs possibles cycle with the playwright Claire de Ribaupierre, an initiative bringing together artists, scientists and spectators proposed by Vidy and the Sustainability Center of the University of Lausanne. In 2024 he presents Mamu Tshi, Portrait pour Amandine.

source https://vidy.ch/en/