Koffi Kôkô is a key figure in African dance for several reasons. Originally from Benin, for over twenty years he has been crafting a language that is as immediate as it is sophisticated, blending the ritualistic roots of African dance with the respect and vigor that animates it, and the contemporary dance of Western origin. This journey illuminates and empowers the initiatory dimension of African dance, reinventing it in a complete, captivating, and profound performative form. Koffi Kôkô is also a performer of undeniable charisma: he has been seen multiple times in collaborative productions such as "Le Serve" by Jean Genet, danced with Ismael Ivo under the direction of Yoshi Oida. As an artist, Koffi Kôkô is also dedicated to the dissemination and promotion of African dance: in 2002/2003, he curated and organized the Pan-African Festival Atout African in Benin.
"Les feuilles qui résistent au vent" is a 2003 commission from the Transit Festival in Berlin. Koffi Kôkô, the creator and performer of the show, started with the image of the title to create a metaphor for vital force. Indeed, the work of this artist is animated by a desiring tension, a poetic fantasy in which the stage transforms into a place "where the spirits of the past and the present meet through dance." He quotes Hölderin to express the imaginative principle of this work: "follow a star, nothing else," a sort of eternal circle from birth to death, a reincarnation that is metamorphosis. Among tall bamboo poles on which he balances to seek contact with the gods, and the reddish earth underfoot that reminds us of our human dimension.
