Photographs: Tafukt © Philip Marnef / Radouan Mriziga © Bea Borges / Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Tafukt
Artist: Radouan Mriziga
Country: Belgium / Marocco
Type: Dance / Performance
Year of creation: 2020
What do we retain of history and what are the mechanisms involved in determining what is kept or discarded? Various stories were rewritten during the 19th century while others fell into oblivion: two forms of negation that generate huge disparities in power in our present system of producing and reproducing knowledge.
Tafukt is a dance solo created by Radouan Mriziga, a dancer and choreographer born in Marrakesh and based in Brussels. It is the first part of a trilogy focusing on the semantics and mythologies of the Imazighen, a distinctive group of several nations mostly indigenous to Maghreb and some northern parts of West Africa, preexisting the Arabization of North Africa.
Each part of this new trilogy by Radouan Mriziga is devised for one dancer and centres on female figures who are guardians of the transmission of Amazigh knowledge. The goddess Athena, linking the cultures and histories on either side of the Mediterranean basin, lies at the heart of Tafukt. Lake Tritonis, located in what is now Libya, was Athena’s birthplace before she was adopted by the Greeks on the other side of the Mediterranean. While history books essentially focus on the Greeks, Egyptians and Arabs, the Imazighen are largely ignored and marginalised, despite the fundamental role they played in the region.
Can performance art become a tool of resistance to rethink the current model and imagine a more inclusive future?
Tafukt is a dance solo created by Radouan Mriziga, a dancer and choreographer born in Marrakesh and based in Brussels. It is the first part of a trilogy focusing on the semantics and mythologies of the Imazighen, a distinctive group of several nations mostly indigenous to Maghreb and some northern parts of West Africa, preexisting the Arabization of North Africa.
Each part of this new trilogy by Radouan Mriziga is devised for one dancer and centres on female figures who are guardians of the transmission of Amazigh knowledge. The goddess Athena, linking the cultures and histories on either side of the Mediterranean basin, lies at the heart of Tafukt. Lake Tritonis, located in what is now Libya, was Athena’s birthplace before she was adopted by the Greeks on the other side of the Mediterranean. While history books essentially focus on the Greeks, Egyptians and Arabs, the Imazighen are largely ignored and marginalised, despite the fundamental role they played in the region.
Can performance art become a tool of resistance to rethink the current model and imagine a more inclusive future?
CREDITS
Concept, choreography and scenography
Radouan Mriziga
Dance / performance
Maïté Jeannolin
Artistic assistant
Sondos Belhasse
Costume designer
Lila John
Text, music & sound design
Hindi Zahra
Nisrine Mbarki
Dorothée Munyaneza
Popytirz
Light design
Estelle Gautier
Dramaturgy
Esther Severi
Amazigh research support
Hajar Ibnouthen
Production
A7LA5
Management and Distribution
Something Great
Co-produced by
Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels - BE) Kaaitheater (Brussels - BE)
Moussem (Brussels - BE)
PACT Zolverein (Essen - DE)
deSingel (Antwerpen - BE)
Alkantara (Lisbon - PT)
Parallèle / L’Officina (Marseille - FR) and Kanuti Gildi SAAL/ SAAL Biennaal festival (Tallin -EE) within the frame of MORE THAN THIS —Creative Europe.
Kunstenfestivaldesarts (Brussels - BE) Kaaitheater (Brussels - BE)
Moussem (Brussels - BE)
PACT Zolverein (Essen - DE)
deSingel (Antwerpen - BE)
Alkantara (Lisbon - PT)
Parallèle / L’Officina (Marseille - FR) and Kanuti Gildi SAAL/ SAAL Biennaal festival (Tallin -EE) within the frame of MORE THAN THIS —Creative Europe.
With the support
De Vlaamse Overheid