Free workshops guided by festival artists. For performing arts students and professionals with an interest in the artistic practice of the artist in question.

11.05｜Workshop with Nadia Beugré: Shrifting

Nadia Beugré is a performer and choreographer with experience at various levels, from dance ensembles to production and training. In this workshop, she welcomes experienced dancers and performers into her personal practice and the world of Yikakou - linked to her performance Épique ! (pour Yikakou), which will be presented at the festival. The workshop revolves around a unique, new concept: "shrifting". This neologism was created by Nadia Beugré herself and opens a series of questions that challenge dancers: how do you react when confronted with an obstacle? How does your body respond to the unforeseen, the unexpected? Does it twist its way towards new possibilities? It has become daily fare on the African continent, where citizen-magicians have to choreograph their own survival every day. Whether out of necessity or a conscious challenge, shrifting creates countless possibilities. Listening to others, to the music of bodies, space, but also to the invisible. This is how we learn to confront what was not anticipated or expected, learn to let go and allow ourselves to be taken to other destinations. 

25.05｜Workshop with Stephen Thompson: Exercising Poetics

Stephen Thompson is a dancer and educator who is also involved as a performer and rehearsal director in Trajal Harrell's project Welcome to Asbestos Hall, premiering at Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2025. As part of the workshop series led by festival artists, Thompson invites participants into the world of Asbestos Hall and his embodied practice of Exercising Poetics. Stephen Thompson is a Canadian artist with more than 30 years of experience in dance. His work focuses on poetics, decolonisation, and how they can merge through embodiment and movement. Thompson now shares his experience through this workshop, designed for students and professionals in the performing arts. Exercising Poetics begins with a simple warm-up of isolated and coordinated movements  to activate our bodies’ mechanics. Thompson then transforms the act of ‘walking’ –and all forms of forward motion–, into bodily references, abstractions, and dance. Eventually, it all comes together in a simple composition of movement, focused on performing and engaging with poetics. Participants will showcase their choreographic discoveries to each other, in a group setting where the choreography continues to evolve and unfold. The workshop is open to people with some dance experience or movement practice.