Press

La nouvelle République February 2007

Kossoko of the red hot solo

..... With Movement-Lights, she leads the public into a unique sensory experience. The stage lights off, this normally intimate space suddenly becomes foreign. With the addition of sound, of touch and of plays of light emanating from unsual plastic objects, the bodies of the three dancers allow for a new exploration of space, of time, of the invisible and visible.

Abdou Rahmane Mbengue

Libération July 2005

Black in white

Booking the dancer Sophiatou Kossoko in the galleries of the museum of Beaux-Arts does not just invite a re-reading of the place: with her saccaded gestures, her comings and goings and her arche poses, the white-clad dancer is like a statue in the middle of the paintings of Christ on the Cross. The performance unveils a clear political propos: playing on the contrast between the color of her skin and that of her outfits, Sophiatou Kossoko awakens cultural and identity conflicts. When she swallows a half-liter of milk in one gulp as if to whiten herself on the inside, she rekindles what democratic society attempts to brush under the rug/the irremediable difference and the weight of history that still separates Europe and Africa.

Bruno Masi

The heart of the matter

Thrashing about on the stage and on the audience seats, ranting against Robin Orlyn who produced her performance, inexhaustible, theatrical, ravishing, in a word, fabulously funny and endearing, Sophiatou Kossoko reveals herself to be an extraordinary showman. She draws her audience into a completely wild aquatic adventure that only an exception personality could bring to completion for the joy of all.

R.G.

Le Monde January 2004

Sole and singular women at the Faits d’hiver (Acts of Winter) Festival

...Each square centimeter of skin is concentrated on movement when it comes to the danching of Sophiatou Kossoko, a choreographer who came from Benin, passed through classical dance, then the G. Acogny and A. Ailey Company. In a red pants suit, her animal elegance frees itself in explosive leg movements. Ready to growl without warning,she advances by instinct, questions her roots, her interpretative training through a teasing sequence on classical dance, throws herself into finding the essence of a dance without reference. For this shoot, entitled JAJKO 2, Sophiatou Kossoko wore red heels that endlessly brought to mind that she could just as easily have been barefoot. The solo is a fertile practice. One dances with and against oneself, in a slow and patient quest for one’s movement.

Rosita Boisseau

Le Monde July 2004

Humor and hip-hop pose the question of beginnings

« Turn, return, upturn the question of beginnings, it is the game of dancers coming from the grand modern mgirations, present at the Montpellier-Dance festival…Sophiatou Kossoko shows herself to be a fanciful and generous dancer.

Rosita Boisseau

... Germaine Acogny knew how to keep her promises. The American premier of « Tchouraï » is a magnificent demonstration of her talent. Choreographed by Christian Remer, this hour-long solo is a voyage through the life of Germaine Acogny, inspired by her conversations with Xavier Orville, the poet who died in 2001.....

Marie-Christine Vernay

Liberation June 2001

.....She proposes a sculptural, stylized, intimate and almost silent dance. A rare exercise here, for a public used to group choreography, who knew nevertheless how to appreciate her.