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Pearse Olufemi in collaboration with Rasheed Ibrahim will be hosted in Yaoundé, Cameroon at the 16th Edition of Corps é Gestes, where they will be performing their award-winning contemporary dance piece titled: FEMME at the National Museum Cameroon.
The International Encounter Festival will be held from Wednesday 20th to Saturday 23rd November 2024, which aims to gather the best dancers, choreographers of Africa in diverse platforms to showcase performances featuring artists from Cameroon, Chad, France, Nigeria and Tunisia.
Pearse Olufemi, recipient of GOETHE INSTITUT Support and Connect – Arts and Cultural Travel Grant 2024/2025, would be attending and facilitating a masterclass dance workshop as part of the festival occasion, thereafter, showcasing FEMME a performance and conversation dance piece with Rasheed Ibrahim. The director of Festival Corps é Gestes, Dr. Annie Tchawack, a researcher at independent worker, Anthropologist, cultural artist, trainer and facilitator has continuously brought together best dancers and choreographer in Africa on this platform to showcase the richness of its continents diverse and unique cultures and at the same time taking the opportunity to redress issues and challenges faced in her immediate community in order to reduce the decadence within the society’s and world at large. The festival utilises Arts and Cultural performances with exhibition at the encounter, as medium to proffer solutions to solve recurrent challenges faced in the day-to-day activities, just as the theme for this year’s festival: WOMAN AND TRAUMA HEALING.
Healing from trauma can be a different journey for everyone, but there are many avenues, resources and strategies that can help to aid process which Dr. Annie Tchawack will be exploring using different forms of arts by selecting specific dance performance works around Africa and in Diaspora such as “FEMME” that resonates with the thematic focus of the international encounter. The dance piece “FEMME” which loosely translates in French as “woman-man” a research-based and collaborative artistic dish is a highly intense dance expression that evaluates human perception, beliefs about gender misrepresentation and to invigorates deeper knowledge of gender equity.
It would be recalled that Pearse Olufemi with Rasheed Ibrahim, Lagos based dancers and choreographers will be showcasing FEMME, at the 16th Edition of International Encounter Festival Corps é Gestes, to be held in Yaoundé, Cameroon and received support through the Support and Connect Initiative 2024/2025 from GOETHE INSTITUT Nigeria.
