Program Notes for NADIA BEUGRÉ: Quartiers Libres Revisited

Nadia Beugré
Quartiers Libres Revisited
Nov 1–2, 2024
McGuire Theater

Quartiers Libres Revisited

Choreographer
NADIA BEUGRÉ

Director
NADIA BEUGRÉ

Lighting Design
LAURENT BOURGEOIS, ERIK HOULLIER
revisited by BEATRIZ KAYSEL

Dramaturgy (initial version)
BORIS HENNION

Performers
NADIA BEUGRÉ, BEYONCÉ, KEVIN SERY

Music
NINA SIMONE (“Feeling Good”), ZAP MAMA (“Abadou”), FEVER RAY (“I’m Not Done”), DOBET GNAHORÉ (“Mouziguie”)

Production
VIRGINIE DUPRAY / LIBR’ARTS
assisted by NOURA SOUMAHORO

Tonight’s performance runs approximately 60 minutes with no intermission.

Please join us before and after the performances in the Walker’s Cityview Bar (Friday) and Fiterman Terrace (Saturday).

Production Support
Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier Languedoc-Roussillon 

Libr’Arts is supported by the DRAC Occitanie / French Ministry of Culture and Communication

Special Thanks
Montpellier Danse (accueil studio), Un pas vers l’avant Festival, French Embassy in the Ivory Coast

Accessibility Notes

Seating for this performance will be on the stage. The stage can be accessed by wheelchairs.

Content note: This performance contains partial nudity.

Sensory note: This performance contains loud sounds.

For more information about accessibility, visit our Access page.

For questions on accessibility, content and sensory notes or to request additional accommodations, call 612-253-3556 or email access@walkerart.org.

Program Note

Are there spaces where we cannot go? Places we cannot explore? And if we entered them, what would happen, what would become of us?

Quartiers libres (free rein) explores and reveals those peculiar spaces we are trapped in, those forbidden places where we choose to wander: spaces open to endless possibilities, spaces to surrender and allow for revelation. 

12 years after its premiere in France, Nadia Beugré revisits her emblematic solo with two emerging artists from the Ivory Coast. Together they examine these shifting grounds from Abidjan and Montpellier, to New York and Minneapolis… 

Versatile sounds and piles of plastic bottles mingle with bodies, burying and concealing them. Yet whatever the struggle, giving up is not an option.

Artist Bios

Born in the Ivory Coast, NADIA BEUGRÉ made her first appearance in 1995 as a member of the Dante Theatre. Two years later, she became a founding member of Béatrice Kombé’s groundbreaking, all-female dance ensemble, TchéTché, with whom she toured for years to critical acclaim across Africa, Europe and North America. Through Beatrice Kombé, an immensely free woman, Nadia Beugré understands that the stage is a ring where anything can happen…
After Kombé’s death, she follows a training at Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des sables in Senegal, and then joined in 2009 ex.e.r.ce., Mathilde Monnier’s programme for talented, up-and-coming choreographers at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier. 
For a decade, Nadia Beugre’s pieces have been developing a very singular journey around margins, exclusion, what is outside, abnormal, a journey through shifting identities, be they social, cultural or gender-based…
The body of works include the still-touring solo Quartiers libres (‘Free rein’) composed in 2012, Legacy premiered at the La Bâtie festival in Geneva in 2015, Tapis Rouge (2017) and Roukasskass Club (2019). L’Homme rare, an all-male quintet performance, was premiered at the Montpellier Dance Festival in 2020. Followed in 2023 two pieces portraying the city of Abidjan and a new Ivorian generation in fire…, the Filles-Pétroles duet and Prophétique (on est déjà né.es).
Beugré also performs in works by fellow choreographers, such as Alain Buffard, a major encounter, Seydou Boro, Dorothée Munyaneza, Bernardo Montet, Rémy Héritier, Boris Charmatz and in 2022 Robyn Orlin.
Nadia Beugré is associate artist to ICI CCN de Montpellier Occitanie (2023-2024) and  was awarded in 2023 the SACD Prize for New Choreographic Talent in France.
With Virginie Dupray, Nadia Beugré has founded in 2020 her own dance company in Montpellier, Libr’Arts, a platform for production, touring but also training, developing actions and programmes between France and Ivory Coast.

A dancer, performer and braider, BEYONCÉ grew up in Abidjan. In 2009 and 2010, she took part in the TV programme Wozo Vacances, then in 2021 in the youth TV programme Variestocope with the group Wabononou Système. In the meantime, she has been training in choreographic workshops with Merlin Bleriot Nyakam (2018), Jenny Mezile (2019) and Nadia Beugré (2022), while performing occasionally with artists from the Ivorian music scene such as Vitale and choreographers such as Krimbo Delagringe (2013), Yves Thomas Ble (2015) and Georges Momboye (2020).
Beyoncé is performing in Beugré’s Prophétique (on est déja né.es) that has been extensively touring since 2023 in Europe, Brazil and Canada.

Born in 1996 in Côte d’Ivoire, KEVIN SERY started dancing at the age of 9 at school and in his neighborhood. With a passion for dance, he took part in 2005 in Wozo Vacances, a very popular dance reality show for children and teenagers, and again in 2013, under the direction of choreographer Henri Joel. He then joined the Moaye Ivoire company directed by Amany Stéphane Kouassi. As part of the company, he took part in the Ouagadougou International Festival, the 8th Jeux de la Francophonie, and various concerts at the Palais de la Culture and Hôtel Ivoire. Elysée Goli wrote for him the solo En-Ze-Li.
In 2021, he met Nadia Beugré who invited him to perform in Prophétique (on est déja né.es) that has been extensively touring since 2023  in Europe, Brazil and Canada.

More about the artists at: https://www.nadiabeugre.com/en

Living Land Acknowledgment

The McGuire Theater and Walker Art Center are located on the contemporary, traditional, and ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. Situated near Bde Maka Ska and Wíta Tópa Bde, or Lake of the Isles, on what was once an expanse of marshland and meadow, this site holds meaning for Dakota, Ojibwe, and Indigenous people from other Native nations, who still live in the community today. 

We acknowledge the discrimination and violence inflicted on Indigenous peoples in Minnesota and the Americas, including forced removal from ancestral lands, the deliberate destruction of communities and culture, deceptive treaties, war, and genocide. We recognize that, as a museum in the United States, we have a colonial history and are beneficiaries of this land and its resources. We acknowledge the history of Native displacement that allowed for the founding of the Walker. By remembering this dark past, we recognize its continuing harm in the present and resolve to work toward reconciliation, systemic change, and healing in support of Dakota people and the land itself. 

We honor Native people and their relatives, past, present, and future. As a cultural organization, the Walker works toward building relationships with Native communities through artistic and educational programs, curatorial and community partnerships, and the presentation of new work. 

Acknowledgments

Producers’ Council

About the Walker Art Center

Media Partner

To learn more about upcoming performances, visit 2024/25 Walker Performing Arts Season.