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Hominideos

Merlin Nyakam (CM)
Fri 7 Oct ’22 and Sat 8 Oct ’22
Sabar music from Senegal, Bikutsi music from Cameroon and six dancers and musicians on a journey to the cradle of man.
Fri 7 Oct ’22
and
Sat 8 Oct ’22

Four dancers and two musicians, their bodies covered with white clay, go on a journey to the cradle of man, back to nature. An adventurous odyssey, sometimes painful, but in which the humour always returns. 

Hominideos unites the music of the Sabar from Senegal with Bikutsi music from Cameroon, both traditional sources of inspiration and energy. Chorographer Merlin Nyakam found his inspiration for Hominideos in the poem 'In The Cradle of Humankind' by Karen Press and the music of composer Giancito Scelsi, 'Four Pieces Each in One Tone'. Hominideos is a journey that, in the words of Merlin Nyakam, '…is carried on by a unique language, the meeting of contemporary and African dance, with which I forge my own language that makes visible the complexity of human relationships'. 

The result is a powerful connection between dance, percussion and song. Images about the chaos of our world and the contradictions between people are projected on screens. At the end of the journey the question is, what remains of our dreams of retracing the lifeline with Mother Earth? 

Duration: 75 min.

Part of

About Merlim Nyakam

Merlin Nyakam from Cameroon danced with the National Ballet of Cameroon from a young age and was the star dancer at the age of 16. In 1990 he founded his own company La Calebasse, a modern dance company based in part on the ethnic traditional dances in West Africa. In 1997 he joined the French dance company Company Montalvo-Hervieu where until 2018 he participated in many of their productions as a dancer, singer and actor.

With the dance production 'Récréation Primitive' in 2001, he developed his own choreographic language in which he combines tradition and modernity. This was followed by several major dance productions by and with Merlin Nyakam: 'Liberté d'Expression' in 2004', 'Et'am' in 2007, 'Théorème de Neuneen' in 2008, 'Ying Yang' in 2009, 'Organicus' in 2014 and 'Mother's Spirit' in 2017. In 1996 - 1997 he was choreographer and dancer on the Fifa World Tour of singer Angélique Kidjo. Since 2010, Merlin Nyakam has been a regular guest dancer at Shizuoka Performing Arts Center (SPAC) in Japan, where he created 'Le Rêve de Takase' in 2010 and 'Angel's' in 2014, among others. His choreography 'Yumemiru Chikara (Stay dreaming)' had its premiere in 2019 at the Tokyo Metropolitan Theater. In 2017 he was one of the choreographers of the 'Grand Bal sur La Messe pour le Temps Présent' at the Grand Palais in Paris. 

Merlin Nyakam teaches modern-traditional African dance at Stockholm University of the Arts and at SPAC in Japan. In Burkina Faso he teaches at the CDC la Termitière (Choreographic Development Center la Termitière) which focuses on developing modern contemporary dance in Africa and at the l'Ecole Internationale de Danse Irène Tassembédo in Ouagadougou.

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choreography Merlin Nyakam dance Merlin Nyakam, Alexane Albert, Richard Anegbele, Gérard Diby Percussie Bachir Sanogo, Daniel Seh Video Mathieu Jumelet sound Mehdi Djebbari light Vincent Tudoce production Cie La Calebasse