It feels important to acknowledge that, as a white working-class European woman, who knows very little about Congo, I approach this work with a partial lens. The histories and lived realities that “Profanations” evokes—and displays in the videos shown on stage—of colonial violence, cultural erasure, and survival are not mine, as they are not mine the dances echoed or quoted in the choreographic material. 

I may not fully grasp the weight of what is being danced, but I can connect to the screaming against a sky that does not seem to keep the promise of lifting the weight of suffering off your shoulders. Screaming into the void, and still dancing: stomping on the floor just to reconnect with the earth, moving the hips as if they were the heart of a volcano, the body following the rhythm carrying the echoes of all the women who have been screaming before (or maybe singing, like the amazingly powerful drummer and singer Huguette Tolinga). And at the same time observing that dancing to witness, to listen, to feel the limits of one’s understanding and still be moved to reckon with what is shared.

The title “Profanations” suggests desecration, but here it feels like it has a double meaning: it is the profanation of a country by a colonial past (and present), but also it is a profanation that strips away the sacred veneer imposed by others, to reclaim what was always ours. 

“Profanations” dances in the ruins and finds a space where grief can be danced, where joy can be defiant, and where survival is a shared beat.