Souimanga

Souimanga, she who dances is a choreographed procession built around a giant puppet. It follows the journey of a young girl living through war, where dance becomes a possible form of catharsis — an ode to childhood, and through it, an attempt to question the values we share.
A large-scale outdoor performance for all audiences, experienced first as a moving procession through the city, then as a static performance on a vast open square.

Souimanga is 10 years old. She lives in a country at war.

Souimanga dances. She dances every single day, without exception. She dances because it makes her feel alive, because it gives her freedom, because it allows her to escape a reality that is too heavy to bear. She dances so that each of her days contains at least one moment of joy.

Souimanga dances to the rhythm imposed by war — a rhythm whose every sound she knows by heart. Sometimes she does not want to dance: because she is exhausted, because life is too hard, because sadness overwhelms her. But still, she forces herself to continue. She dances for herself, but also for all the people she has loved and lost.

Souimanga shares these daily dances with us like pages from a diary — a danced diary. Through a few simple words, and above all through movement, she tells us about her war: the painful and joyful moments that shape it, and the emotions that run through her.

Souimanga is a symbol of freedom and resistance in the face of violence and injustice — a joyful provocation against death.