Daouda Keita
Born in 1984 in a fishing village in Mali, Daouda Keita joined the dance section of the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers Multi Média (CAMM) in Bamako in 2009.
Winner of several competitions organized by the CAMM, he creates in 2012 his first solo, He Allah, presented in Mali (Festival Dense Bamako Danse), then in Tunis and Gothenburg.
In 2014, Keita was awarded the Institut français’ Visa pour la création programme for his solo Moi, Daouda Keita? in collaboration with the Briqueterie / CDC du Val-de-Marne.
In 2016-2017, he creates Kuma Ka Ca with Adiara Traoré.
2017 marked the foundation in Bamako of his own dance company, Famu Danse, Understanding dance in Bambara. With the company, he has developped a series of programmes of dance research, training and creation around the exceptional capacities of the hearing impaired in movement and expression. Daouda Keita is also one of the founding members of the Malian artist cooperative, Le fil.
A performer, Daouda Keita has worked with Alexandra Pirici (Aggregate, 2019) with whom he just presented a new project in 2022 at the Venice Biennale.
Other collaborations include Getanztes Gluck with Melanie Alexander for the Tanzhaus Zurich (2019).
In 2020, he is one of the five performers of L'Homme rare by Nadia Beugré.
Keita is currently working on his next solo Ficksion, which has benefited from the 2021 Résidanses programme of the Institut français Paris.
Christian Romain Kossa
Christian Romain Kossa trained at the INSAAC in Abidjan from 2010 to 2017, while attending occasional training courses in Western Africa: the laboratory Un pas vers l'avant (Abidjan, 2015), Fari Foni Waati (Bamako, 2018), as well as capacity-building workshops at the Ecole des Sables (Toubab Dialaw Senegal, 2016 & 2017), at CDC-La Termitière and at Espace Ankata (Burkina Faso, 2017).
In 2019, he joins the master ex.e.r.ce, choreographic studies, research and representations at ICI-CCN Montpellier-Occitanie and Paul Valery 3 University.
As a performer, Kossa has worked with New Zealand choreographer Oliver Connew for the piece Being(s)(a) part, and Martinican Christiane Emmanuel in Cette terre me murmure à l'oreille (Martinique, 2021). He has also collaborated with Abdoulaye Konate (France, 2021) and with Nadia Beugré (2020-2021) whom he is currently assisting as part of the Filles-Pétroles creation process.
Since 2020, he is member of the TRIPLE A collective, developing performance projects in Abidjan’s public space.
In 2022, he is a laureate of the Visa pour la Création programme of the Institut français in Paris and is also supported by the Hermès Fondation as part of the Artistes dans la Cité programme.
Nahibly, une histoire AGAIN is his third solo creation, presented at the Rencontres chorégraphiques de Seine-Saint-Denis / Les Extensions and at the festival Mouvements sur la ville in Montpellier in June 2022, and the MASA 2024 in Abidjan among others.
Christian his working on his next solo piece, Puzzle(d), première in 2025.
Since 2023, he is the artistic director of the Fari Foni Waati festival in Bamako.