The 8th International Live Arts Festival Africa Moment 2024 presents L’homme rare, by Nadia Beugré, at the Mercat de les Flors.

A piece that tackles the issue of gender assignment head-on. With five naked men swaying their hips on stage, it challenges our perceptions of the masculine and feminine categories. It is also a piece about our western - voyeuristic and erotic - gaze on these Black bodies. With their backs to us, five non-white men are either completely naked or draped in simple cloths, some wearing high heels, swinging their hips and swaying their pelvises in a series of movements that are not exclusively restricted to women. The voyeuristic condition is impossible to escape, the direct heir of the dominant gaze that reifies, eroticises and colonises bodies, particularly those that are Black.

Nadia Beugré was awarded the SACD 2023 Prize for new choreographic talent. Originally from the Ivory Coast, she made her first appearance as a member of the Dante Theatre in 1995. Two years later, together with Béatrice Kombé, she co-founded the groundbreaking all-female dance company, Tchétché. In 2009, following her studies at Germaine Acogny’s École des Sables in Senegal, she joined Mathilde Monnier’s ex.e.r.ce. programme for talented, up-and-coming choreographers at the Centre Chorégraphique National in Montpellier. Nadia Beugré, whose work examines issues such as the body, gender and nudity, has been an associated artist with the Briqueterie in Vitry-sur-Seine (France) since 2021, as well as with the ICI CCN in Montpellier (2023-2024).