Match & Watch: Back to Kidal

We invite you to find your new dance partner through Match & Watch. Because we believe that watching dance is a great experience, but even more beautiful when you can share it with someone. A few days before the performance, you will receive a questionnaire from us, fill it in and, based on it, we will match you with the person we believe to be your ideal dance partner. Your dance partner does not necessarily have to be romantic; it can also be a meeting of people with a shared passion.

-|-On the evening of the performance, you will be welcomed at 19:45 in Internationaal Theater Amsterdam. Here you will meet your match and get a drink from us. Afterwards, you will enjoy the performance Back to Kidal.

The “Match & Watch” concept is based on “Dating the Unknown” by Theater Rotterdam

Back to Kidal is an intense encounter between choreographer Serge Aimé Coulibaly and singer and musician Patrick Kabré, an inspiring voice of the contemporary African music scene. With Faso Danse Théâtre, dance, live music, text and video merge into a form of physical theatre that gets under your skin.

The performance centres around the question of how the more recent past of African peoples can be told. Coulibaly explores the legacy of slavery, colonialism and cultural erasure – using the human body, music, and through shared presence.

The piece is loosely inspired by the documentary *Soundtrack to a Coup d’État* (2024), about the assassination of Patrice Lumumba and the role of jazz as a political instrument during the Cold War. That history resonates in the background, where music becomes both a tool of power and a dissenting voice.

-|-The shared language of the performance is the blues. This musical style, with roots in West Africa, travelled with the enslaved people to the Americas and grew into a universal expression of pain, dignity and resistance. Patrick Kabré has been working with this sound, the Sahel blues, for years. His voice is warm and rich, alternating effortlessly between tradition and the present.

The lyrics by Koulsy Lamko, sung by Odile Sankara, give voice to the intensity of the music and movement. The compositions by Yvan Talbot (Doogoo D) add structure. With a keen eye for detail and timing, he weaves voices, sounds and rhythms into a single, ever-evolving whole.

Seven performers translate this concept into a physical, powerful choreography. Part of the audience sits on stage, close to the performers. In this way, Back to Kidal becomes a shared experience that does not explain but invites you to empathise and reflect on freedom and the future.