lacina coulibaly

Lacina Coulibaly was born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. His professional dance career, deeply rooted in traditional African dances, later merged with contemporary influences to create a uniquely African choreographic expression. As a teenager, he was a member of urban Dodo groups and continued to explore his tradition by joining Les Bourgeons, a traditional dance and theatre company. In 1990, he joined the traditional dance company Kongo Bâ. Three years later, Lacina began his studies of contemporary dance with the well-known choreographer Lassann Congo (who was himself trained at the acclaimed Mudras-Afrique, Senegal).   In 1995, Lacina created the Cie Kongo Bâ Teria with Souleymane Badolo and Ousseni Sako. Their creations, Frères sans stèles (1999), Vin Nem (2001) et Hydou Bye (2004) toured the world and won international awards, including the award of 3rd place at SANGA, les Rencontres Choréographiques for Vin Nem (2001) which toured more than 30 cities in Europe in 2002 and throughout the United States in 2004 on the Movement (R)Evolution tour. The documentary film Movement (R)Evolution Africa (2007), available from Documentary Educational Resources (der.org).

Since 2005 Lacina has been teaching in different institutions, Universities in USA (Brown University, Yale University, University of Florida, Cornell University, UCLA, New School, Barnard College, Sarah Lawrence College and so on) and dance school (ECA in New Haven) and EDIT (Burkina Faso), CDC the Choreographic Center of Development like Guest lecturer, Guest-teacher, artist-in-residence, teaching workshop and performer

He has danced and choreographed with other international dance companies, such as Salia ni Seydou, Faso Danse Theatre, Tché Tché and Urban Bush Woman. He has also collaborated artistically with individual artists, such as Emily Coates (USA), Catherine Young (Ireland), Amy Sullivan (USA), Pipaluk Vibeke (Denmark), and Kota Yamazaki. He has conducted major residencies in American universities, including Yale with Emily Coates in 2009, University of Florida in 2010 and 2012, Brown University in 2015, a performance project at Sarah Lawrence College in 2016, a performance project at Barnard College in 2018. He also set a piece for Memphis Ballet in collaboration with Emily Coates.

In December 2019 he created a performance for the opening ceremony of the festival Dialogue de Corps and he also presented his newest work “Sen Koro la", an evocation of the sacredness of the mask. 

His unique blend of traditional and modern influences results in dynamic intellectual and artistic processes that intrigue and inspire young artists, and audiences. Lacina’s choreography often provokes questions of the (dis)integration of the traditional and the contemporary. He also set Sigini an analytical approach that emerged from learning, practicing and studying dance in Africa and mostly in the West side of  Africa. Sigini is a pedagogical approach that establishes three principles to design, sculpture, shape the movement through the energy and breath, and where the rhythm set the technique of the dance.

He is currently on faculty at Yale University and Sarah Lawrence College.