‘Ler é Uma Festa’: a book fair and vibrant literary festival at Fundação Couto, Maputo
KINANI dance – you don’t want to miss it! Today’s schedules and venues HERE.
10:07 CAT | 25 November 2025
KINANI dance – you don’t want to miss it! Today’s schedules and venues HERE.
KINANI – International Contemporary Dance Festival presents five performances this Tuesday (25 November) by choreographers from Spain, Mozambique and Mauritius, taking place across four venues in downtown Maputo: the Botanical Garden (Jardim Tunduru), the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre (CCFM), Teatro Avenida, and the former headquarters of Correios de Moçambique.
At 4:00 pm, in Jardim Tunduro, Raquel Gualtero (Spain) will bring her creation “360°” to the KINANI stage—a choreographic journey that begins and ends at the same point but travels the world through a rotating gesture that evokes memories and traditional dances.
In this piece, Raquel Gualtero blends strength, delicacy and ancestry, drawing inspiration from her Colombian roots and the symbolic power of spinning, revealing oneself, and creating space.
"360°” is a work that takes rotation as its symbolic and structural starting point. Through references to her heritage, Raquel explores circular movement as a metaphor for identity, origin and expression.
At the intersection of childhood games, popular rituals and the energy of carnival, the choreography embodies the different dimensions of femininity—from the playful girl to the dancing woman, and the mother seeking the starting point—unifying them in a single movement.
The Auditorium of the Franco-Mozambican Cultural Centre (CCFM) will host two KINANI performances this Tuesday, starting at 6 p.m.: "In-Between" by Mai Júli Machado (Mozambique), and "Sutra", by Stephen Bongarçon (Mauritius).
Mai Júli Machado's “In-Between” explores the meanings of transformation, transition and existing between two worlds, inviting the audience to an introspective experience. An ancient ritual marks the crossing between care and vigilance. Bodies transform with each sunset, moving in slow, silent gestures that carry the weight of time. Each movement holds a secret, existing between what is imposed and what is revealed, between shadows that protect and a freedom that awakens.
Stephen Bongarçon's “Sutra” draws inspiration from Buddha’s words, “Nyo o rengé kyo” (“Be the sutra of the lotus flower”), offering a poetic journey about peace, light and transformation. Like the lotus flower that emerges from the mud and blooms in purity, Bongarçon invites the audience to awaken kindness and hope even in difficult times.
In the Kathak solo Sutra, created and performed in the SAGAM style, the artist transforms dance into a gesture of meditation and resistance: an invitation to breathe, feel and rediscover inner peace through movement.
Originally from Mauritius, Bongarçon is a dancer, choreographer and educator. Creator of SAGAM dance and founder of the SAGAM International Festival, he discovered dance early on as a refuge and a profound form of expression. Trained in Bharata Natyam, Kathak and traditional Mauritian dances, in 1995 he established his own style through his company and school SR Dance, blending contemporary dance, Kathak and the vibrant rhythms of Mauritian séga.
Still this Tuesday, at Teatro Avenida, Osvaldo Passirivo (Mozambique) will, at 8 p.m., present "WHY".
Osvaldo Passirivo's “WHY” embarks on a poetic journey of physical expression, seeking answers to life’s big questions. With intense, emotional movements, the performers traverse territories of love, loss, hope, fear and redemption.
Later on, Yuck Miranda (Mozambique) presents “Homem Novo” at 9 pm, at the Mozambique Post Office (Correios de Moçambique).
After Mozambique’s independence, re-education camps emerged as instruments of Marxist-Leninist revolutionary puritanism, aimed at shaping the so-called “new man,” the exemplary citizen of the newly decolonised society.
“Homem Novo,” created by Mozambican choreographer Yuck Miranda, reflects on colonial legacies, the romanticisation of independence and the imposition of the “ideal man” in post-independence Mozambique. Inspired by the re-education camps, the performance, with music by Nandele Maguni, denounces the forced transformation and suffering of many, including members of the LGBTQIA+ community, in the name of revolutionary puritanism.
Developed during a residency at the Centre National de la Danse (Paris, 2023), the work is both a tribute and a critique, questioning who defines what it means to be a “good citizen” in a decolonised society.
Source KINANI Moz
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