When the calabash breaks

Performance by Tiran Willemse & Melika Ngombe Kolongo (Nkisi)

When the calabash breaks is the result of ongoing artistic research between South African/Swiss dancer and choreographer Tiran Willemse and Congolese/Belgian musician and composer Melika Ngombe Kolongo (aka Nkisi). Their collaboration explores the relationship between movement and sound, interrogating the intersection between physical and sonic resonance, rhythm and spatial perception.

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Press coverage:

Movement, July 18, 2025, by Irene Panzani

"Beats that scratch, dance that atones. For their first collaboration, Congolese producer Nkisi and South African dancer Tiran Wilemse electrify the space and channel their emotions into an ultra-efficient form. The perfect way to cleanse yourself of the anxieties of the present.

Read the article: Tiran Willemse and Nkisi: ritual for a present-day crisis

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Pili Pili, Couleur 3, RTS, January 19, 2025, by Michel Ndeze
"It's very strongly linked to many cultural dances in South Africa. Especially a dance specific to a region of Angola, it's the dance of madness. Giselle goes mad, so I thought I'd link these two things because when I worked in ballet companies, when I was a student, I danced in the ballet Giselle but on the side and I always thought, in the madness scene, that the person who was Giselle danced it very well but she wasn't angry enough. You know, when someone is angry, it has to be a kind of visual experience. (...) I thought about it and said to myself that I'd really like to do a scene where I go completely mad, I wanted to sort of shake up the audience. I just linked it all to Giselle and my history with ballet. And that's kind of how the beginning of the work started."

Listen to the podcast : Pili Pili