Sing-Gré (meaning Root) will be based on Souleymane “Solo” Badolo’s current work, Yimbégré, made for Brooklyn Academy of Music. He will further explore an aspect of this major piece with students and make a new work with them.
In the Mooré language, yimbégré means “beginning.” For the powerful dancer and choreographer Badolo, born in Burkina Faso and currently based in Brooklyn, to begin again is to exercise personal freedom – yet often at the expense of familial roots. In this deeply personal work, Badolo pits ancestry against aspiration to explore the delicate balance between maintaining ties and seeking new homes free from creative and political intolerance.