Fatou Traoré / Vegetal Beauty & Mad Spirit

Fatou Traoré is a contemporary dancer and choreographer. After dancing in various  productions by renowned  choreographers (such as Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Nadine Ganase) she began in the mid-nineties to work on her own choreographies. In those, live improvised music was always a fundamental ingredient. For Rose et Marguerite (which premiered at the Ljubljana Dance Theatre) she collaborated with (Vegetal Beauty and Aka Moon-member) Antoine Prawerman. For On the Wave (1996-97) with the jazz-trio Aka Moon, and she choreographed Passages (1998) in collaboration with composer/pianist Kris Defoort. In 1999 she made Petites pieces pour voix et gestes and last year, Falling Through Gravity.
Mad Spirit is a collective of dancers, musicians, rappers, and taggers. They’ve been doin’ their thing for the past three years. The members perform regularly at break-dance festivals in Europe and participated in various music and dance productions and companies (among others with Music LOD productions, Hush Hush Hush, Putra Madre, Bud Blumenthal, DJ Grasshoppa). They also give workshops and host radio programs.
At the confluence of jazz, pop, funk and contemporary music Vegetal Beauty is music designed for dance (although it sure does also exist independently). Vegetal Beauty is working with written composition. They are predicting and proposing rhythmic and harmonic developments, to support the dance. The form of their music —which was crystallised during the rehearsals—is constantly at the mercy of the improvisations and interventions of both the dancers, as well as of the musicians. At all times the musicians stay alert and available to the imagination of both. A basic language of signs allows the interaction between musicians and dancers.