Giulia Cristofoli
Dancing Telling the Story of a People – Review of Back to Kidal, Serge Aimé Coulibaly
Strong dancers, beautiful music, and an interesting concept, but Back to Kidal by Serge Aimé Coulibaly still falls short of its promise to tell the stories of a people through dance
Back to Kidal premiered in the Netherlands during Julidans at ITA and I went to watch on its second night in the country (6/07/2026). And even though it received a standing ovation from the audience, I am still not convinced that the performance delivered on its promise.
The performance proposes to tell the story of the tragedies of the Sahel region. It traces histories of slavery, colonialism, war, and the tensions of a region rich in natural resources. It looks back at history, tackling themes of memory and resistance through live music, poetic text, and choreography. The piece maintains a highly energetic pace and does not give either the audience or the dancers from Faso Danse Théâtre a single moment to relax. The text paints a gory, violent picture of the past, and the dancers’ bodies reflect the pain of past traumas and their struggle for freedom.
The stage is inhabited by the live musicians, the singer Niaka Sacko, the dancers, the spoken-word artist Odile Sankara, and two audience bleachers. In the first part, a significant portion of the stage is occupied by an unevenly shaped mountain covered with white fabric. Archival images are projected onto this mountain. This huge object in the middle of the stage is such a distracting presence that I could barely see the choreography. The stage feels overcrowded and does not direct attention but instead scatters it. Moreover, the dancers moving around the mountain also seem constrained by it. Their movements appear small and self-contained, and the choreography is outshone by the underwhelming presence of the mountain. It is only after this central piece is dismantled that I see the dancers fully occupying and owning the space.
This shift in the use of space happens during a visually striking moment, when the dancers begin to climb the mountain and gradually dissolve into it. The white fabric creates compelling images, such as the moment when it is stretched across almost the entire stage. At the centre, one performer carries another: just two bodies in a sea of white fabric. The image leaves a strong impression, although more as an aesthetic spectacle than as a deeper addition to the work’s themes.
The performance’s greatest strength lies in its musical environment. Musical passages are interwoven with songs in different West African languages and spoken text in French with English subtitles. The text is aggressive, abrasive, and violent, and Odile Sankara’s delivery is powerful and moving. Her voice echoes through the theatre and pierces the audience.
However, these elements are undermined by the scenography. After the mountain is dismantled, we discover that beneath the fabric lie gigantic body parts—three feet, one head, two arms, and one belly. They remain scattered across the stage while the dancers move around them. The body parts become little more than background scenery. It is almost comic to see the discrepancy: toy-like body parts serving as a backdrop to a text about bloody, dismembered, suffering bodies.
Audience participation is also poorly managed. The performers attempt to engage the audience by inviting them to clap along But this was while the choreography was in a pretty intense moment. So the clapping could not follow the tension on stage. Instead of contributing to the agitation and inviting the public to join in a frenzy, the clapping slows down the crescendo of tension and it undermines the intensity of the moment.
The physical presence of audience members on stage, seated on the bleachers, also adds little conceptually to the work. Perhaps it offers those spectators a closer view of the dancers. Even so, there are no moments when I feel they are afforded an experience that I am not. Nor are they placed in the positions of witness – witnessing bodies suffering. They become merely another backdrop—a visually cluttered one that once again takes space away from the choreography and makes the dancing feel even smaller.
Ultimately, my disappointment with the piece lies in this contradiction. It proposes that bodies can tell a story—the history of a people. There is even a moment when the performance reinforces this promise: a dancer approaches the microphone and, instead of speaking, breathes into it before beginning to dance. It is a clear statement: the movements are the text. However, the use of props and audience participation diminishes the space given to the choreography and conveys the opposite message. For me, the performance seems to insist that movement alone is not enough and that bodies cannot tell a story.