Dorothée Munyaneza/ Compagnie Kadidi Umuko + Toi, moi, Tituba…

« Umuko » is a red-flowered tree, a keeper of stories and a healer. With five young Rwandese artists, dancers, a poet and musicians, Dorothée Munyaneza celebrates the creativity, audacity and freedom of a new generation that carries forward the memory of the past while dreaming about the future.  

Dorothée Munyaneza brings on stage five young artists from Rwanda, these “old ancients” to use the words of Kae tempest, the women and men who are dreaming about the Rwanda of tomorrow but haven’t forgotten. With them, she conjures Umuko, this bright red-flowered tree that illuminated her childhood. Gathered around Umuko – the healing tree, the ancestral tree, the keeper of stories – everyone works to build connections between what has been preserved and what is standing up against collapse and what is coming.  
 

Accompanied by musician Khyam Allami, Dorothée Munyaneza draws from a text by Else Dorlin to create a stirring solo piece where the body serves as an archive honoring past lives and experiences.  

In November 2021, curated by the ADN Dance Living Lab, Dorothée Munyaneza presented Moi, toi, nous… Tituba ou l’ontologie de la trace, a performance piece based on a text by philosopher Elsa Dorlin. Pulling a few lines from the minutes of the Salem witch trial, Maryse Condé’s genealogy/novel Moi, Tituba sorcière… brought to life Tituba, daughter of a slave, woman, black and witch at a time when none of the above was well-regarded. Conjuring the figure of Tituba, along with Isabelle’s – Elsa Dorlin’s Guinian ancestor– Dorothée Munyaneza leads us on a journey through time and space where anything that has been obliterated, silenced or harmed resurfaces. In the center is her body, a pulsing vehicle that stirs up the past to prevent oblivion and rekindle all these lives trampled on by colonial rule. The combination of composer and oudist Kyam Allami’s dense soundtrack – which includes rare spoken archives – and a sophisticated interplay of light and shadow intensify the evocative power of this textured solo filled with multiple life experiences.