Kaz Bourbon is a performance created for the European Heritage Days 2011, at the Maison Dussac. This house is inSaint-Gilles-les-Bains (Saint-Paul) and was built during the second half of the 19th century. It was apparently first built in the town of Saint-Benoît then dismantled and transported toSaint-Gilles. It is made of wood, with a stone outbuilding at the back of the house that contains the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. Several building projects have been planned for this house: a hotel complex or the Réunion Island Surfing and Tourism Centre, but none of them has come to anything. The choreographer Nadjani Bulin, with support from the Heritage Department of Saint-Paul, decided to appropriate this house by opening it to the public of Réunion Island for three days, the time it takes to put on a dance performance.  

She brought together several artists to create a multidisciplinary project combining dance, music and video. In dance, she was accompanied by Soraya Thomas and Marie Chocolat. In singing and music, Automat, Marie-Claude Lambert and Nathalie Natiembéperformed live. The direction and production company En Quête Prod made a video recording and projections. Nadjani Bulin sees this performance as a reconciliation with her ancestors by returning to the memory that is contained within this house. 

The choreographer persuaded the residents and owners of the house to leave the premises for three months so that she could set up a residency and work in the house. 

During the performance, cameras were placed inside and the recorded images were projected live onto the outside facade.

The performance will be adapted for the 2011 edition of the Total Danse Festival in the main hall of the Champ Fleuri Theatre in Saint-Denis.

Source : Lalanbik

This choreographer was born in 1967 in Le Port, Reunion Island.

Nadjani Bulin felt the richness of movement through the experience of gymnastics which set her career choice and her life choices firmly in dance. As there were no public teaching establishments in Reunion Island at the beginning of the 1980s, she set off for the CREPS school in Aix-en-Provence where she studied dance. She obtained her State Diploma at “Le Café Danse” in Aix-en-Provence.   

She began her dancing career in Switzerland and was part of a cross-disciplinary project in the Department of sociology, at the University of Geneva. Called Le ciel au-dessus de ma maison [The sky above my house], this installation and performance mingled different artists together: plastic artists, video makers, musicians, photographers and dancers. Her collaboration with the sociologist Jean Ziegler marked the beginning of an interest in choreographic performance. In 2002, she was accepted for a one-year residency in the city of Rotterdam where she notably cooperated with the choreographer Régina Magnus and the plastic artist Anna Karine Den Bosch.

On her return to Reunion Island in 2006, she founded her own company. Her choreographic process tackles postcolonial subjects: Kaz Bourbon and Kafrine are typical of this style. In her relationship with music she favours instant composition with self-taught artists such as the pianist Patt Burter or the cellist and guitarist Sébastien Jacobs, who have both accompanied her on stage. 

In 2012, she took part in the ECUMe project (Expérience Chorégraphique Ultra-Marine) organised by the Departmental Theatres of Reunion in collaboration with Yuval Pick. 

Source : Lalanbik’s website

More information : 

https://www.lalanbik.org/ 

En Quête Prod is based on Réunion Island. The plan is to develop their production of documentaries dealing with social, political, economic, cultural and civic issues in the Indian Ocean based on projects and writer-directors from Réunion Island, Mauritius, Madagascar, Mayotte, Comoros and the Seychelles. Since 2015, we have also worked on disseminating these documentary films with projections every month in a project called "D'Îles en DOC".

Frédéric Lambolez and Jean-Marie Pernelle are both writer-directors who have lived on Réunion for about twenty years. They have always been involved in the social and cultural life of the Island and decided to team up in 2007 to write and produce documentary films on issues linked with the development of the Indian Ocean area, the aim being to raise awareness of these territories which for several centuries have been linked with the fate of “old Europe”. Since 2013, their production activity has expanded to include other writers/directors from the Indian Ocean islands.

Frédéric Lambolez became fascinated very early on with popularising current events through artistic expression (installations, photo montages, video projections, exhibitions, etc.). Since 2007, he has produced documentaries to give a wider public a key to understanding the social issues that he considers important.

Jean-Marie Pernelle has been involved in audiovisual since 2004 and is well aware of the ability of images to mobilise social debate. Today he is fully committed to producing investigaive documentaries covering the Indian Ocean area.

© Lalanbik

Lalanbik was founded in 2014, in Reunion Island. It contributes to the  valorization of actors and choreographics writings of Indian Ocean  territories. Lalanbik implement online ressources tools : the first is  its website, concerning the Indian Ocean Dance news, and the other one  is its online video library, which brings contents about contemporary  and traditional dance writings. Lalanbik works in partnership to lead  its actions in favor of the widening of publics with : libraries,  theatres, dance schools, schools and higher education.

Source : Lalanbik's website

More information : www.lalanbik.org/