My Body, My Archive 

Faustin Linyekula I Studios Kabako

January 8-11

Choreography and dance : Faustin Linyekula
Trumpet: Heru Shabaka-Ra
Sculptures : Gbaga
Sound design and video : Franck Moka
Costumes design : Aldina Jesus
Dramaturgy : in dialogue with Eric Vautrin
Dramaturgy assistant : Dorcas Mulamba
Lighting design : in collaboration with Christophe Glanzmann
Additional music :
Percussions by Jamos, Passero, Mobeti                                 
Nierica by Joachim Montessuis

Production : Studios Kabako / Isaac Yenga

Coproduction : Chaillot – Théâtre National de la danse, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Sharjah Art Foundation, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Taipei Performing Arts Center, La Manufacture d’Idées 

With support from : Arts and Humanities Division, New York University Abu Dhabi 

Running Time: 70 Minutes

Presented in partnership with Under the Radar

Under the Radar is New York City’s premier annual festival of experimental theater, featuring cutting-edge performances from around the world and across the U.S. The 20th edition of UTR will run from January 4-19, 2025 presenting over a dozen productions at various partner organizations across the city. UNDER THE RADAR connects with the city, the nation, and the world through the voices of innovative multidisciplinary artists. The festival champions transparency, equity, and collaboration in creating new live works. It embodies global citizenship, fosters innovation, and provides a stage for new voices.

Live Artery 2025 is made possible in part with generous support from the following contributors: Anonymous, Betsy Berne, Amy Cassello, Christine Dakin, Cathy Edwards, Rachel Mckinstry, Okwui Okpokwasili, and Kathy Westwater.

We acknowledge and pay respect to Lenape people, elders, and ancestors past, present, and coming in the future. We acknowledge Indigenous people who may be present right now. We acknowledge and offer deep gratitude to Lenapehoking where we are now – the land, and waters of the Lenape homeland.

BIOGRAPHIES

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Faustin Linyekula

I’m known as a dancer, choreographer, but I call myself a storyteller.

I tell my stories through writing, theatre, dance, still or moving images. I live and work between Abu Dhabi private property of Leopold II, King of Belgians.

In 2001, after eight years abroad (Kenya, Indian Ocean, Europe), I returned to the ruins of my native country. I wanted to be as close as possible to these stories of the Congo that haunt all my shows; but it was also a challenge against the desperation that every year pushes thousands of Congolese out of the country, never to return.

Thus, were born the Studios Kabako. Not an artistic company, but a place. A refuge for artists from the Congo and beyond, offering long-term accompaniment, from training to production and touring. A space to federate creative energies, regardless of artistic disciplines (dance, theater, music or cinema).

But being an artist in the DR Congo is more than just producing so-called artistic objects, it is first and foremost being a citizen at the heart of the community, proposing spaces of imagination, spaces of possibilities. That’s why Studios Kabako also runs a pilot water purification project, supplying clean drinking water every day to 1,000 people in a district of the city with no running water, provides computer literacy workshops for children and adults in a neighborhood without electricity and runs environmental education for adults, adolescents and children through “Dessine-moi une forêt” (Draw me a forest), a collaboration with the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Kisangani.

I have toured in theatres, festivals and museums across Europe, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Central Africa Museum in Tervuren, the Tate Modern in London, the MUCEM in Marseille, Festival d’Avignon, the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, New Zealand Festival, Sharjah Biennial, Théâtre de la Ville or Festival d’Automne in Paris.

I was the artist of the city in Lisbon in 2016, and co-associate artist for Holland Festival in 2019. I received the 2007 Principal Award from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, the 2014 CurryStone Design Prize, the 2018 Inaugural Soros Arts Fellowship and the 2019 Tällberg / Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.

In September 2024, I joined the faculty of New York University Abu Dhabi as Visiting Assistant Professor of Theater Practice. 

SPECIAL THANKS

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Special thanks to Catherine Wood and the Tate Modern, Londres.

FUNDING CREDITS

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Coproduction: Chaillot – Théâtre National de la danse, Théâtre Vidy-Lausanne, Sharjah Art Foundation, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Taipei Performing Arts Center, La Manufacture d’Idées

With support from: Arts and Humanities Division, New York University Abu Dhabi

Presented in partnership with Under the Radar 

Presented as part of a North American tour with the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA and OZ Arts Nashville.
Presented with the support from Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation. 

Gifts and commitments between January 1, 2023 – December 31, 2023

Support for New York Live Arts is provided by the Arnhold Foundation, Blanchette Hooker Rockefeller Fund, Bloomberg Philanthropies, Ed Bradley Family Foundation, The Brant Foundation, Inc., Joseph and Joan Cullman Foundation for the Arts, Dance/ NYC, Ford Foundation, Keith Haring Foundation, Howard Gilman Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Harkness Foundation for Dance, Marta Heflin Foundation, Alex Katz Foundation, Lambent Foundation, Alice Lawrence Foundation, The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Muriel Pollia Foundation, National Performance Network, New England Foundation for the Arts, One World Fund, The Poss Family Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Jerome Robbins Foundation, The Fan Fox & Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, San Francisco Foundation, The Semel Charitable Foundation, Scherman Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, Tides Foundation.

Corporate support for New York Live Arts includes Con Edison, Google, Tito’s Handmade Vodka.

Public support for New York Live Arts is from National Endowment for the Arts,
New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature.

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