Du désir d’horizons

How do we cope with change and difficult situations? How do we face problems without losing ourselves? “Du désir d’horizons” (“Horizon Desire”) is neither a performance on refugees nor a documentary staging on the work Burkina Faso-born choreographer Salia Sanou did in refugee camps. It is rather the attempt to bring about an understanding for the endangered situation of these people by way of choreographic language: Moments of solitude and alienation, of individuality and collectivism, of uprooting, ostracism and moments of making boundaries palpable. The dimension of interior exile, in which, nevertheless, a spark of power, struggle and desire exists, becomes visible in this staging for eight dancers.

When Salia Sanou and his team received the commission to work with refugees and to work against violence with dance, he did not initially want to develop a stage play. Yet the reality he was confronted with in the camps, on the fringes of possibility, marked by emotions of loss, grief and boredom, gripped him and did not let go. It soon became clear that music and dance would be helpful on the way back to a society full of generosity, attention and humanity. Thus, dance found its place, one step at a time, within the camp, and “Du désir d’horizons” emerged as a performance between despair and the longing for a new horizon.

Salia Sanou is among the most preeminent people in Africa’s contemporary dance scene. He directed the 2016 Rencontres chorégraphiques de l’Afrique et de l’Océan Indien and is currently co-director as well as co-founder of the CDC – La Termitière in Ouagadougou, one of Africa’s first choreographic development centres.

Duration: 65 min.

Please note: Fri 10:00 – 12:00 Film screening »Don’t Look at the Finger« by Hetain Patel