Radical Healing: Panafrican Sisterhood
October 2nd – 10 AM – Institut del Teatre
Free admission with prior registration
⏳1h10min
🎞️ choreo-shorts
💃 ballet, contemporary, booty therapy
Guest: Maimouna Coulibaly (dancer and choreographer, Madame Booty Therapy)
Racialized bodies —especially women’s bodies— carry the heavy burden of the external look, shaped by the male gaze, Eurocentric standards, and patriarchal forms of violence. But it is time to stop straightening our hair, bleaching our skin, and hiding our cellulite. These protagonists, who are also daughters, lovers, sisters, and friends, remind us that self-acceptance is the most radical form of healing.
On a Sunday at Eleven
Duration: 0:09:00
Director: Alicia K. Harris
Country, Year: Canada, 2024
Social media: IG @aliciakharris_
Synopsis
Spanish premiere. Seven-year-old Angel performs her Sunday rituals. She goes to a make-up store teeming with products that promote Eurocentric beauty and then attends ballet class where she stands out as the only Black girl. Feeling excluded, she escapes into a dream world in which the Black women in her life dance around her as ballerinas with elaborate Black hairstyles. Angel is embraced by the elders in her church community, a place where she always feels loved and accepted. The film is an unapologetic celebration of the powerful ancestral bond embedded in Black women’s unique beauty and sorority.
Then Comes the Body
Duration: 0:02:08
Director: Jacob Krupnick
Choreography: Daniel Owoseni Ajala
Country, Year: United States, Nigeria, 2024
Social media: IG @ajala0007
IG @jacobkrupnick
Synopsis
Spanish premiere. When a video of young girls dancing in the rain goes viral, the world discovers a small ballet school on the outskirts of Lagos, Nigeria: The Leap of Dance Academy. Guided by Daniel Ajala, a self-taught dancer trained through YouTube, these girls challenge racial and social stereotypes, transforming dance into an act of dignity, identity, and liberation.
Define Beauty: Never Look At The Sun
Duration: 0:05:16
Director: Baloji
Country, Year: United Kingdom, Belgium
Social media: IG @baloji
Synopsis
Creative Baloji opens up the skin bleaching debate in this visual ode to black beauty, anchored by a fictional product its protagonist ceremoniously bathes herself in.
Madame Booty Therapy
Duration: 0:31:00
Director: Lucca Fordham, Sabrina Argoub
Choreography: Maïmouna Coulibaly
Country, Year: Germany, 2025
Social media: IG @maimouna_artist
Synopsis
Spanish premiere. French-Malian dancer Maïmouna Coulibaly turns deep wounds of sexual violence into liberation through Booty Therapy—discovering the collective power of woman’s rage.
