Jolie Ngemi, Jeremy Nedd

Students on the Bachelor’s degree programme in contemporary dance at the Manufacture de Lausanne are presenting their final performance.

The artistic director of this programme is Jolie Ngemi, a dancer, choreographer and musician who now lives between Lausanne and Kinshasa and develops a dialogue between contemporary aesthetics and her Congolese roots, building bridges between cultures and imaginations. She is joined by Jeremy Nedd, a choreographer originally from Brooklyn, New York, who now lives in Basel, Switzerland. In his choreographies, he explores decoloniality and racism by incorporating street dance styles such as hip-hop and pantsula.

Jolie Ngemi
Make The Curtain Burn
A group of singular creatures gathers in a club for one last dance. Their frenzy unfolds like an organized chaos, so powerful it floods the dancefloor and spills onto anyone standing in its way. These burning, trembling souls move among one another. Through heat, smoke, and broken breath, they celebrate because from the very beginning, we felt it, we knew it: what feeds our togetherness is our uniqueness. All are gathered one last time in the blaze of our beating hearts, crackling and roaring with joy. Once again, the creatures come together to celebrate. Fire, substances, and sweat will carry us through the night. But whatever the night has in store for us, we will keep dancing — and therefore keep living. We will keep burning down this curtain made of judgments, calamities, and endless prohibitions.
Together, we dance, letting go of what we no longer need.
We are not here just to pass through — we are here to stay.
Through the endless night, we remain awake until you are exhausted.
A celebration of our passions, one final dance, to raise once more the torch of our fervor. Do not fall asleep. Keep one eye open, or you will be devoured.

Jeremy Nedd
Faded future / future faded: A loop of social folk dance rituals
Faded Future is a choreographic exploration of the concept of the loop – musically, physically and socially. Inspired by hip-hop, electronic music and William Basinski’s legendary “Disintegration Loops”, the piece creates a hypnotic flow of movement drawn from social, folk and newly developed dance forms. The performers act like an organic organism: synchronised, drifting apart, chaotic and then harmonious again. Between repetition, improvisation and collective dynamics, a physically intense piece unfolds about decay, transformation and new beginnings – euphoric, cathartic and hypnotic all at once.