2025
Esquive
ZANTARA
The first solo by Zantara, a young dancer from Abobo, a tumultuous district of Abidjan, Esquive evokes a blinded body, as much trapped in what others project onto it as in what they have never seen, a body trapped in forgotten dreams and assumed roles...
It also tells of Zantara's sickly shyness, her difficulty in expressing herself, in meeting the gaze of others, and her personal journey to assert herself as a young female dancer from Abobo, and to make a place for herself in a society that has never even considered her...
In a very physical dance, flirting with the Roukasskass which she comes from, blindfolded so as not to lower her eyes, Zantara explores the space. The hands, precious, seek, graze, tap, the blind face rises, the body, at first constrained, tames, hits, rubs, tries, escapes, catches up, dances and never bends...
ARTISTIC DIRECTION AND PERFORMANCE
Zantara [+]
EXTERNAL EYE
Nadia Beugré, Virginie Dupray, Hanna Hedman, Christian Romain Kossa
MUSIC
Talk Olympics, Obongjayar, feat Little Simz
PRODUCTION
Libr’Arts, Virginie Dupray
WITH SUPPORT FROM
Institut français Paris and Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole
Institut français de Côte d’Ivoire
Special thanks to Ivoire Marionnettes
Premiere on 31 October and 1 November 2025 at Spielart / Kreativ Quartier Munich, as part the Birds on Peripheries programme






