Program Notes for Radouan Mriziga: Akal
Concept and choreography
Radouan Mriziga
Made with and performed by
Dorothée Munyaneza
Choreographic assistants
Maïté Minh Tâm Jeannolin and Sondos Belhassen
Dramaturgical support
Esther Severi
Research support
Hajar Ibnouthen
Scenographic concept
Tewa Barnosa and Radouan Mriziga
Visual artwork
Tewa Barnosa
Light design
Estelle Gautier
Costume design
Lila John
Technical director
Estelle Gautier
Sound technician and U.S. tour technical director
Milan Van Doren
Assistance
Rania Barhoumi
Production
A7LA5 vzw
Distribution and tour management
Something Great
Coproduction
Festival de Marseille, PACT Zollverein, deSingel, Kaaitheater, Tanzquartier Vienna, Cultuurcentrum C-Mine, Walker Art Center, Wexner Center for the Arts, and Contemporary Arts Center Cincinnati
Residencies
Kaaitheater, deSingel, Festival de Marseille & Kunstenwerkplaats Pianofabriek
Special thanks to Sharjah Art Foundation
With the support of the Flemish government
About Akal
Can choreography close the gaps in our historical memory? Akal (Tamazight for “Earth”) is the third piece of a trilogy by Radouan Mriziga, in which he draws inspiration from the epistemologies of the Imazighen, the indigenous people of North Africa. Their oral culture was ignored for centuries, but for Mriziga it contains the seed of a new future. Each piece of the trilogy is focused on mythological female figures who embody and protect the Amazigh culture. In Akal the muse is the ancient Egyptian goddess Neith, associated with birth and death, who guides the souls of the dead to the underworld. In this solo, Mriziga celebrates Neith’s strength in collaboration with the Rwandan choreographer, dancer and singer Dorothée Munyaneza. Rituals, traditional dances, architecture, storytelling, song, poetry, rap: in Akal, everything comes together in an intimate choreographic space in which a fresh look at a suppressed past makes us dream of a more inclusive future.
About the goddess Neith
The goddess Neith was also known by the names Net, Neit, or Nit. Neith is one of the oldest deities of ancient Egypt and was worshipped in the Pre-Dynastic Period (c. 6000 – 3150 BCE). She is a unique and mysterious goddess who came to be in the beginning and caused everything to come. She was the divine mother of Ra. She was a war goddess, goddess of creation, the mother goddess who invented birth and a funerary goddess who cared for and helped dress the dead’s souls. She was called “mother of the gods”, “the grandmother of the gods”, and “great goddess”. She was always extremely wise, represented as in the story of The Contendings of Horus and Seth, where she had to decide who will rule Egypt and, by extension, the world. According to scholar Geraldine Pinch: Neith, Net, Neit, Nit may mean “the terrifying one” because of her immense power and broad reach. In some stories, Neith was present at the creation of the world. Other stories tell that she was the creator.
About the artists
Radouan Mriziga is an artist from Marrakech based in Brussels. Fairly quickly, he began to focus on his work as a maker, creating his first solo 55 (2014), followed by 3600 (2016), 7 (2017), and 0 (2019) — performances in which he addresses dance through the prism of architecture. In his works, he explores the relation between space, architecture, the body, and its connection to mind and intellect, and, more recently, the use of performance as a tool to produce and share knowledge about forgotten and repressed narratives. Mriziga’s works have been touring across the world. Since 2019, Radouan has been developing a new trilogy of works inspired by the culture and history of the Amazigh, the original inhabitants of North Africa. From 2017 – 2021 he was an artist-in-residence at the Kaaitheater in Brussels. From 2021 until 2025 he is an artist-in-residence at deSingel in Antwerp.
Dorothée Munyaneza is a singer, author, and choreographer. Originally from Rwanda, she now lives in Marseille, France. After studying music at the Jonas Foundation UK in London and Canterbury University, she sang, among other things, parts of the original soundtrack to the film Hotel Rwanda. In 2010 she released her first solo album. Since 2013, Dorothée Munyaneza has been developing work of her own in the contemporary performance scene. Together with her company, Kadidi, she created Samedi Détente in 2014 at the Théâtre de Nîmes, which has been shown almost 100 times in France, Europe, the USA and Rwanda.
