© Grégoire Perrier
Decolonial (Hi)stories #Parallel Portraits
Decolonial (Hi)stories is a multi-episode choreographic series that began in 2023. Since then, it has been and will continue to be expanded and enriched over time and through various encounters. With this series, Betty Tchomanga works on the narratives and histories that connect the West and Africa. Each episode looks at colonial history and its legacy through the prism of a singular story, body, or lived experience.
Each episode is a portrait that takes the form of a performance-lesson. Their aim is to question the transmission of knowledge, including its content and the hierarchies it involves. We must ask what position we see the world from, and what perspective we take when we tell stories. How can our bodies—through dance—tell the stories that make up History?
In bringing together the first four episodes of the Decolonial (Hi)stories series into Decolonial (Hi)stories #Parallel Portraits, Betty Tchomanga takes up the political dimension of theater as a place for transmitting knowledge by setting affects in motion.
Four history lessons in which we discover a colonial history shared by several continents. From France to Benin, via Algeria to Ethiopia, this journey through time and space is made through the stories, bodies, voices and singular histories of Emma Tricard, Folly Romain Azaman, Dalila Khatir and Adélaïde Desseauve aka Mulunesh.
How is history transmitted? From what points of view? How do we talk about colonial history today? Between their stories, between our stories, commonalities or differences resonate, unexpected echoes strike us, creating other ways of connecting each other.
Credits
Directed, choreographed and written by: Betty Tchomanga
Artistic collaboration and performance: Emma Tricard, Folly Romain Azaman, Dalila Khatir, Adélaïde Desseauve aka Mulunesh
Lighting design: Eduardo Abdala
Sound design: Stéphane Monteiro
Set design and props: Eduardo Abdala et Betty Tchomanga en collaboration avec Vincent Blouch
Construction: Emilie Godreuil
Costumes: Marino Marchand en collaboration avec Betty Tchomanga ainsi que Théodore Agbotonou (costume Folly) et Mariette Niquet-Rioux (masque Mulunesh)
Stage management: Stéphane Monteiro
Lighting manager (alternating): Eduardo Abdala et Tatiana Carret
Sound engineer (alternating): Stéphane Monteiro et Maëlan Carquet
Trainee assistant director: Ariane Chapelet
Production and Distribution Director: Marion Cachan
Production Manager: Florentine Busson
Administrator: Marion Le Guerroué
Acknowledgements: Bureau Aoza, Maxine Le Tyrant, Anouk Le Cann, Rosalie Olivier et l’équipe technique du Quartz - scène nationale de Brest
Production: GANG
Co-production: Le Quartz scène nationale de Brest ; Les Rencontres chorégraphiques internationales de Seine-Saint-Denis ; Le Gymnase CDCN de Roubaix ; Le Triangle Cité de la danse de Rennes ; Danse à tous les étages CDCN itinérant en Bretagne ; La Maison danse CDCN d’Uzès Gard Occitanie ; CCAM scène nationale de Vandoeuvre ; Théâtre de la Bastille – Paris
With the support of: Le Mac Orlan – Ville de Brest ; CAC Passerelle – Brest ; Collège Saint-Pol-Roux – Brest ; CN D – Pantin ; Programme européen Choreography Connects
With the financial support of: la DRAC Bretagne (compagnie conventionnée par le Ministère de la Culture) ; Région Bretagne ; Ville de Brest
Betty Tchomanga / GANG
Born in 1989 from a Cameroonian father and a French mother, Betty Tchomanga began her artistic training in 2004 at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux and with Alain Gonotey of Cie Lullaby. She then trained at the Centre National de Danse Contemporaine d'Angers (CNDC) in 2007 under Emmanuelle Huynh.
She began her career as a performer in 2009, working with artists such as Emmanuelle Huynh, Alain Buffard, Fanny de Chaillé, Gaël Sesboüé, Herman Diephuis, Marlene Monteiro Freitas and Nina Santes. Alongside her artistic career, Betty pursued literary studies at the Université Paris, Sorbonne Nouvelle, graduating with a Master's in modern literature in 2014.
Since 2019, Betty Tchomanga has focussed on her writing and research as a choreographer. Her pieces explore the notion of transgression in the sense of going beyond, crossing a limit, whether physical or aesthetic.
Betty Tchomanga likes to produce hybrid forms in which bodies transform and metamorphose. She works with practices that involve overcoming the limits of body and mind through intense engagement of breath, body and voice. Since the creation of her solo Mascarades in 2019, she has been researching the voodoo cult and the representations associated with it. She is interested in the narratives that link the West and Africa, particularly through colonial history.
Betty Tchomanga choreographed and directed Madame (2016), Mascarades (2019) and Lessons of Darkness(2022), the choreographic series Decolonial (Hi)stories (2023-2026) and The Sea is history (2026).
She is an associated artist at Quartz, scène nationale de Brest and Théâtre de la Bastille in Paris.