A rich and mesmeric choreography that draws on the roots of the forest and the movements of peoples engaged in a struggle for survival.
In the darkness of a sacred forest, inhabited by and overflowing with ancestral and heritage treasures, bodies emerge. As they contort and interweave themselves, they slowly become entangled in an intense and captivating dance, like lianas seeking the canopy. After L’Opéra du villageois last season, which examined the theft of artworks during the colonial era, Zora Snake continues his exploration of relations of domination. Here, resistance takes the form of a dance in the heart of the lianas, at once one and many, in a confrontation with the deforestation that threatens the indigenous peoples of Central Africa.
A long-time associate of the Théâtre National, Zora Snake is pursuing a committed research project in which dance becomes a performative act of revolt and justice with the aim of restoring the soul of our humanity. Immersed among the Baka communities in the equatorial forest, the choreographer-performer and the performers-creators absorbed the polyphonic rhythms and polyrhythmic gestures of those whose habitat is disappearing under the onslaught of capitalism. On stage, seven dancers and musicians – a sacred number linked to solidarity and the spirit of urgency in the cosmogonies of the Koungang peoples of western Cameroon – make up an organic fresco which the silhouettes cling to, now fluidly, now convulsively. Fuelled by electro beats and shamanic pulsations, the music carries and structures this dialogue between humans and their environment. A ritual as an initiatory place of healing.
At the origins…
the all-powerful vines
Dance is body and lianas … Changing the sacred dance
Through the power of the gesture inspired by the lush vegetation that invades the space, at once torsion, contortion and poetry of bodies in search of the Sun, the choreographic syntax of Zora Snake is a journey through the invisible like the serpent of life, the rite of reincarnation and reinvention of a healthier and more peaceful society that we dream of in order to return to ourselves.
If dance takes shape here in the physicality of the lianas – void, fracture, fall and suspension, creaking, casing, multiplying, travelling, from root to canopy. Among the Nku’ ngang (Nkoungang) secret societies in western Cameroon and the Baka communities in eastern Cameroon, the liana is believed to be a root connected to the ancestors, strengthening the bonds of the visible and the invisible through the guardians of tradition, where the NKoungang dance and mask practice consolidate the solidarity between the living. Like the ‘totems’ in western Cameroon or the god of the sacred forests Edzingui, among the Baka communities in eastern Cameroon, the lianas connect the villages and the ancestors and chase away evil spirits. In ritual dances, trance is not a dance, but a concrete science where dance is neither ‘primitive’ nor ‘ethnic’ nor ‘ethnological’. It is dance reinvented from its roots towards all roots. It is human dance in harmony with nature that must be understood here, in the sense used by Philippe Descola, ‘a sum of beings and relations whose totality can never be exhausted’ – species, plants, lianas, sacred places – which remembers what is to come, now.
More specifically, dance here manifests itself through its ability to capture the most diverse movements that come its way. It is the fragmentation of dances in motion across all forms and rituals, linked to hip-hop, steppin’, break-dance, krump and traditional dances.
Zora Snake makes dance a motif of illumination, just as a simple gesture, a shadow cast on the stage, a breath or the rumble of the drums make us tip over into trance and the invisible documentary chronicle.
Hence this form of escapist dance – or putting into perspective – in a positive sense, transformed from nomadic wanderings into rituals, musical rhythms, steps, vocal resonances, smells, soil, clothes, colours. Between rebellion and relaxation, dance remembers the material and the multiplicity of life forms. And it is precisely in the multiple that its strength lies in finding something new.
The stage: in search of the umbilical cord
For Zora Snake, it is not so much a question of literally representing the lianas but rather of creating a stage space (or ‘umbilical cord’) that connects and is connected to the artists and audience – who make up communities – for deterritorialization, the transcendence of identities, the liberation of energy and the celebration of communities. This is precisely where the challenge lies. Combat des lianes is set before language, stripped of pathos, ideology and didacticism, elevating us to a pure and alert state of consciousness and a series of sensations that are both intimate and collective, specific to the liminal rites of ancestral cultures.
On closer inspection, Combat des lianes is less a dance performance than a form of collective ritual with deconstructed spatial, temporal and social dimensions, open to the long-lasting present, to breathing and to the restoration of the ruined worlds we live in. It
Première @ Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles 23 september 2025
23.09 > 04.10.2025
Touring periods
May – June – July 2026
Season 2026-2027
Photos : © Raoul Mboghing
Discover Le Carnet de création here
Zora Snake
Choreographer and et performer
Zora Snake’s real name is Tejeutsa, which in the traditional Yemba language means ‘a person who shows great empathy’. He is a choreographer, dancer and researcher in performance art. In 2013 he founded Compagnie Zora Snake in Yaoundé and in 2017 the MODAPERF International Festival (MOvements, DAnces and PERFormances). Having both won and been a finalist of many prizes, he is considered one of the most promising artists on the current hip-hop (popping) scene and on the arts scene in general in Africa and beyond. For him, curiosity is what makes sense of the need to explore dance that is not that of the One, but that of the Multiple. It rearticulates hip-hop and contemporary dance, artistic practices in urban spaces open to the public and ritual political-poetic performances, art and society. In fact, dance here is less a style than a mindset, even a challenge in relation to the world we live in.
Winner of the 2016–17 ‘Visas pour la création ‘programme of the Institut Français, he regularly works with the French cultural network around the world, as well as with the Goethe-Institut. In 2021, in the wake of MODAPERF, he created Espace-Labo, a hub of artistic cross-fertilization and sharing as well as a social and cultural incubator; it is open to artists and cultural operators wishing to (re)invent artistic languages, professionalize young artists and in doing so perpetuate art in contact with audiences in Africa.
Commitment is something that Zora Snake feels very strongly about. Firstly, because commitment is the primary material of his bold and explosive pieces: Au-delà de l’humain; Je suis; Transfrontalier; Le Départ; Les Séquelles de la Colonisation; Les masques tombent; and Shadow Survivors. Secondly, because it is a subject of constant reflection, the artist participating in symposia and seminars, leading workshops, writing.
A cross between theory, methodology and archival document, his work L’art est une boxe: De la performance, du politique, in collaboration with Julie Peghini and Dominique Malaquais, begun during a writing residency at the Camargo Foundation, offers essential keys to understanding performance as a means of creating common spaces for protest, reflection and collaboration – spaces that transcend boundaries, both physical and disciplinary.
He recently collaborated with choreographers Serge Aimé Coulibaly and Amanda Piña.
Touring
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11.10.2025
BELGIQUE - Charleroi - Ecuries de Charleroi Danse
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22.05.2026
GERMANY - Freiburg - Theater Freiburg
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29.05.2026
BULGARIA - Plovdiv - One Dance Week Festival
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05.2026 (date to be confirmed)
FRANCE - Maubeuge - Le Manège (Festival iTAK)
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07.2026 (to be confirmed)
THE NETHERLANDS - Amsterdam - Julidans festival
Cast
Création Studio Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Choreography Zora Snake
Performers Zora Snake, Joy Alpuerto Ritter, Jessica Chiye Warshal, Zadi Landry Kipre, Gandir Prudence
Composers and live musician Christiane Prince
Dramaturge Youness Anzane
Set design Jean Michel Dissake
Lighting design Emily Brassier
Costume design Lamyne M
Production Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles
Co-production Charleroi Danse, Riksteatern - Stockholm, South North Foundation, Solstice - Pôle International de Production et de Diffusion des Pays de la Loire, Julidans Amsterdam, Scène nationale de l’Essonne, One Dance Festival - Plovdiv, Theater Freiburg, Le Manège Maubeuge - scène nationale transfrontalière
With the support of Institut Français du Cameroun (IFC)