Palabre/s en mode marron & Rite de passage || solo 2

“In 2019, Bintou Dembélé, a hip-hop pioneer in France, became the first Black female choreographer to be hired by the Paris Opera. Her group of fierce dancers, performing a range of street and club styles like krump, electro and voguing, became a symbol of diversity at the heart of a venerable opera house.” – The New York Times

Beginning with Palabre (“A space for speech dedicated to and catered for a community, a village or an assembly. To celebrate oneself, to show off, to mourn, to act with responsibility in the name of the I and/or the We.”) Bintou Dembélé invites Francophone thinkers and artists to collectively demonstrate the power of cultures from the peripheries. Filmmaker Alice Diop (Saint Omer), Mame-Fatou Niang, Director-Founder of the Center for Black European Studies and the Atlantic at Carnegie Mellon University, Audrey Célestine, Associate Professor of History at NYU, Mawongany (Afropunk – Paris) and others come together to find common strengths with New York’s marginalized communities.

Each day culminates in Dembélé’s work Rite de passage // solo II, devised for the dancer Michel “Meech” Onomo and drawing on both artists’ background in hip-hop performance. Developed during a residency at Rome’s Villa Medici, this piece investigates ritual space as a site of body memory, and asks what form a “maroon dance” might take today.

Detailed Schedule
Friday, December 6
• 12:30pm – 7pm: Palabre/s en mode marron: Conversations, talks, and a film screening with Mawongany, Audrey Célestine, Ann-Sophie Nanki, and Bintou Dembélé plus a communal dinner and discussion with BEM books and Chef Deborah L. Jean.
• 7:30 – 8:30pm: Performance of Rite de passage || solo 2

Saturday, December 7
• 12:00pm – 6pm: Palabre/s en mode marron: Conversations, film screenings, and talks with Mame-Fatou Niang, C Riley Snorton, Stefanie Batten Bland, nora chipaumire, and Bintou Dembélé.
• 7:30 – 8:30pm: Performance of Rite de passage || solo 2
• 8:30 – 10:30pm: Dance Party: UBABU takes the floor with a mix of dance music from the diaspora.

Co-Presented with Performance Space New York.