Musseque, before being a piece for four dancers, is home, a meeting place, a way of being. It is the continuation of what has been lived and felt, transforming past experiences that were never forgotten into a dance of the present.
In memory, we return to a civil war marked by its two main parties, MPLA and UNITA. In body, we witness the birth of a force of resistance: kuduro. These are bodies shaped by the turbulence of war, and the effects of migration, yet saved by the power of dance ⎯ etched into their movements and growing until the emergence of another force: afrohouse. On this stage, we revisit the neighborhoods on the outskirts of Angola ⎯ the musseques ⎯ witnessing the rise of music and dance, marginalized by many but cherished by the people, who turn everyday struggles into rhythms like bela, ti nogueira, do volante, among others.
Musseque also seeks to portray the strength of women in a culture shaped by masculine expectations. Many questions demand answers, and Musseque is a search in the present for those very answers, revealing a style that emerged as a “time-limited pill to distract us from a civil war.”