Doris Bokongo Nkumu & Amadou Lamine Sow

“While immigration is often seen as a geographical movement, we want to approach it in a broader sense. Every stage of life is a form of migration: being born, growing up, loving, parting ways, rebuilding oneself. We are constantly crossing visible and invisible boundaries that transform our identity and leave their mark on us. Immigration is today a deeply political issue. The very act of talking about it—or dancing it—becomes an act of political engagement. For our bodies and our stories are shaped by policies of territory, belonging, rejection, or survival. This theme—universal and human above all—goes beyond statistics: it is embodied in the intimate, in the inner turmoil of uprooting, and in the resilience of those who strive to exist between two worlds.” – Doris Bokongo Nkumu and Amadou Lamine Sow

What is a border? How can we tell our stories when barriers prevent us from seeing one another, understanding each other, and truly connecting with one another?

Leugeute —which means “scars” in Wolof—is a duo that explores both the intimate and the political through a choreographic language that blends house, hip-hop, contemporary dance, and traditional African dances.

Drawing on their romantic relationship—marked by distance as well as administrative and territorial realities— Doris Bokongo Nkumu and Amadou Lamine Sow explore the many forms of migration, whether geographic, emotional, or symbolic. An exploration of what drives people to leave one place for another, to cross visible or invisible borders, and to reinvent themselves while carrying the traces of their past.

Because you can also run into invisible walls. And those leave scars, too.

Credits: Choreography: Doris Bokongo Nkumu & Amadou Lamine Sow // Dance: Doris Bokongo Nkumu & Amadou Lamine Sow // With support from Mestizo Arts Platform/WIPCOOP, Zinnema, Pianofabriek

Doris Bokongo Nkumu, also known as Doris Mybalés, is a Belgian dancer, performer, and choreographer whose work is based on a hybrid physical language that combines intensity, grace, and a connection to her roots with a contemporary style.

She has developed her dance style drawing on a variety of influences: hip-hop, house, capoeira, contemporary dance, traditional African dances, and the Acogny technique.

With her twin sister Nathalie from the duo Les Mybalés, she created her first dance piece, À Travers L’Autre, in 2017, produced by Lezarts Urbains and supported by various organizations such as KVS, where she became an associate artist.

In 2022, she joined the Corpeaurelles dance company, continuing her exploration of issues of identity, transmission, and heritage through dance. Both nationally and internationally, she has collaborated on numerous exciting projects with choreographers and artists such as Jolie Ngemi, Faradja Batumike, Ben Fury, Junior Mthombeni, Baloji, Moya Michael, Ersan Mondtag, Alesandra Seutin, Alida Dors, Roland Gunst, Ester Nadal… as well as with venues such as the KVS, NTGent, Theater Rotterdam, and BOZAR.

Amadou Lamine Sow, also known as Pi Wos, is a Senegalese dancer, choreographer, and artist. A graduate of the Alvin Ailey Academy (2017) in Senegal, he immersed himself in a hybrid practice blending African dance, house, capoeira, Afropop, and contemporary dance, and founded his own company, Piamaart Danse: which focuses on exploring the symbolism of African dances and how they are being rediscovered in contemporary dance forms.

He has toured internationally with the National Ballet of Senegal—Daniel Sorano (2016) and during the revival of Sacré du Printemps (Pina Bausch, École des Sables & Sadler’s Wells—2020).

In 2023, he was one of the winners of the Académie des Beaux-Arts Choreography Grand Prix, selected by Germaine Acogny, who also entrusted him with performing the solo “Tchouraï” during her tribute to Saint-Louis, the historic city in Senegal.