«Epique! (for Yikakou)»
Nadia Beugré

Epique is French.
It is pronounced epik.
In English, it means heroic.

Nadia Beugré presents a dance piece about her village, Yikakou.
Yikakou is located on the Ivory Coast in Africa.
The village no longer exists.
Only ghosts remain there.
The piece is about Nadia Beugré's grandmother.
She is a very clever woman.
Many clever and powerful women appear in the story.
Nadia Beugré dances alone.
Two musicians play instruments.

Born in Ivory Coast, Nadia Beugré made her first appearance in 1995 as a member of the Dante Theatre. Two years later, she became a founding member of Béatrice Kombé’s groundbreaking, all-female dance ensemble TchéTché, with whom she toured for years to critical acclaim across Africa, Europe and North America. Following a training at Germaine Acogny’s Ecole des sables in Senegal, she joined in 2009 Ex.e.r.ce., Mathilde Monnier’s programme for talented, up-and-coming choreographers at the Centre Chorégraphique National de Montpellier. She was soon staging productions of her own, including the still-touring solo Quartiers libres ('Free Reigns') in 2012. Her first group piece, Legacy premiered at the La Bâtie festival in Geneva in 2015 and has also been performed at the Festival d'Automne à Paris, among other events. After Tapis Rouge (2017) and Roukasskaas Club (2019), Beugré presented L’Homme rare (2020), an all-male quintet performance. In 2023 came the duo Filles-Pétroles and the quintet Prophétique (on est déjà né.es), two pieces that paint a portrait of Ivorian youth on fire. Beugré also performs in works by fellow choreographers, such as Seydou Boro, Alain Buffard, Dorothée Munyaneza, Bernardo Montet, Boris Charmatz and in 2022 Robyn Orlin. She is associate artist of ICI CCN de Montpellier Occitanie (2023-2024). In 2023, she was awarded the SACD prize for New Choreographic Talent. Nadia Beugré has founded her own company in Montpellier with Virginie Dupray. Libr'Arts is a platform for production, touring and training between France and Côte d'Ivoire.

Fondation BNP Paribas, Festival d’Automne à Paris, Theater Freiburg, Centre chorégraphique national de Caen en Normandie, in the framework of the 2025 Accueil Studio programme / Ministry of Culture, ICI - Centre chorégraphique national de Montpellier Occcitanie / Direction Christian Rizzo dans le cadre du dispositif artiste associé