DeLaVallet Bidiefono
Every day, DeLaVallet Bidiefono runs along the Congo River, accompanied by the young dancers of his company Baninga, which he founded in Brazzaville in 2005. A company that is equally a school, without walls or any real structure, which brings together 23 dancers and a team of technicians dubbed “the Courageous”, a company that is now working on the creation of a permanent venue for dance in Brazzaville. A major figure and driving force of contemporary dance in his country, DeLaVallet Bidiefono began his career upon arriving in the Congolese capital in 2001, at the end of the war, after leaving Pointe-Noire, the city where he was born in the 1980s. Extremely physical, his choreographic research is as strongly nourished by traditional cultures as it is by contemporary influences. This adventurer of movement also cultivates the crossbreeding of disciplines, as is shown by his collaboration with theatre artists like David Bobee and David Lescot. It is alongside the latter that he took part in the Festival d'Avignon for the first time in 2011 with Long-Playing premiered in the framework of Sujets à Vif. He has had many fruitful conversations with Dieudonné Niangouna on a daily basis in Brazzaville, but also for their respective artistic projects. This is behind DeLaVallet Bidiefono choreographing the fights in Shéda this year, while the associate artist of the 2013 Festival wrote a text for him for Beyond.
RB, April 2013.