BOW'T TIO'TIA:KE : 9th version | Montreal

Choregraphic-documentary work | presented to the 2021 TransAmeriques Festival in Montréal

The recent phase of the great adventure BOW’T TRAIL. In a Montreal location charged with memory, Rhodnie Désir explores the heritage of Afrodescendant peoples in a powerful hymn to resistance.

After travelling across America, choreographer and documentary filmmaker Rhodnie Désir lands in her native Montreal to unveil the results of a stunning quest: BOW’T-Tio’Tia:Ke. A poignant territorial excavation made up of striking encounters, absorbed by her body and reinterpreted as an arresting dance of life.

The Haitian-Canadian artist presents her triptych, created with a sense of urgency, in the thick of the Black Lives Matter movement. Désir fervently reclaims the outdoor spaces laden with colonial memory, reckoning with our city’s slave-trading past and converting this ignominy into life-affirming, cathartic gestures. Surrounded by musicians, the choreographer explores African-American legacies and opens an essential dialogue with First Nations peoples. Ancestral rhythms, liberating chants, incantatory movements… a ceremony takes place, which is an ode to resistance. A fundamental duty of remembrance.

Meanwhile, in 2021, renowned director Myriam Charles is developing a short film, Chemins Croisés, inspired by the work BOW'T-Tio'tia:ke and the voices of seven women who bear witness to the role and importance of the body - particularly the racialized female body - in our society. Official selection at the Rencontres internationales du documentaire de Montréal 2022 in Montreal.

BOW’T - Tio’tia:ke

Mondial Premier

Co-produced : FTA - festival TransAmériques et de RD Créations

Creation partners: Conseil des arts et les dettres du Québec, Conseil des arts de Montréal, Place des arts

A work of RHODNIE DÉSIR / RD CRÉATIONS

Choregrapher, dancer, artistic director et vocal compositions

Rhodnie Désir

Music composed and performed by  

Cécile Doo-Kingué + Moe Clark + Engone Endong + Jahsun

Musical score in 'Protest'

Tout ce qu’il faut - paroles : Jenny Salgado alias J.Kyll - musique : Jenny Salgado et André Courcy

Production manager and technical director 

Samuel Theriault

Creation support

Isabelle Poirier

Artistic advisor

Paul Chambers

Costumes/stylist

Gérardine Jeune

Video

Alejandro de Leon

Video editing

Clark Ferguson

Photographer 

Kevin Calixte

Diffusion by Cusson Management

Valérie Cusson

Public relations

Sheila Skaiem