Thursday, October 16, and Friday, October 17, at 7:30 p.m.

ADMISSION: 
Admission is free. 

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DESCRIPTION: 
Join us for an informal peek into the creative process of Leïla Ka and Bintou Dembélé, two award-winning French choreographers working at the intersection of street and contemporary dance styles. Ka and Dembélé will introduce their work, which will be performed by undergraduate dancers from USC Kaufman and students from the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (Paris Conservatory) in a true transatlantic exchange. The performance will be followed by a Q&A with Leïla Ka and Bintou Dembélé; Jackie Kopcsak, Assistant Dean of Programming & Special Events at the Kaufman School of Dance; USC professor Edwin Hill; and Ohio State University professor Lucille Toth, facilitated by Muriel Maffre, Director of Dance at the Paris Conservatory.  

The performances are presented as part of City of Angels / City of Light, a transatlantic dance exchange and event series connecting choreographers and students from the Paris Conservatory with the USC Kaufman School of Dance. The exchange will foster artistic growth through cross-cultural collaboration, celebrate the vibrancy of contemporary dance in Los Angeles and Paris, and contribute to the discourse on global practices. 

Bios: 

Bintou Dembélé is one of the leading artists from the hip hop movement in France. She began her career by joining groups including Aktuel Force, Ykanji (of which she was a co-founder), the collective Mouv’ at the Théâtre Contemporain de la Danse in Paris, and the Compagnie Käfig. As a dancer and a choreographer, she has collaborated with artists such as MC Solaar, Grand Corps Malade, Sophiatou Kossoko, Stéphane Schoukroun, the photographer Denis Darzacq, and film director Anne Cissé. In 2002, she solidified her desire to be a choreographer by creating the dance company Rualité. Reexamining street dance through the prism of repetitive music and rhythmic polyphonies, her choreographic works explore ritualistic and corporeal memory, marginal cultures, the nebulous aspects of colonial and postcolonial history, the strategies of reappropriation, and the flight from slavery. She has created six productions with her company: L’Assise, LOL, Mon appart’ en dit long, Z.H (Human Zoos), S/T/R/A/T/E/S-Quartet, and Le Syndrome de l’initié, which have been performed in France, Belgium, Burma, Chile, French Guyana, Italy, Macedonia, Mali, Senegal, Sweden, and Switzerland. Since 2020, she has been an associate artist at the Ateliers Médicis (ClichysousBois / Montfermeil), Carnegie Mellon University (Pittsburgh), and Columbia University’s Reid Hall (Paris).   

Leïla Ka began her journey as a dance artist with urban dances, which she quickly crossed with other influences. Having performed in Maguy Marin’s May B, she has a dance theatricality that she integrates into her choreographic research. She started choreographing in 2018, when she premiered her first solo, Pode Ser, which has won five international awards and been performed more than 140 times. She has also created a duet, C’est toi qu’on adore (2020), and a second solo piece, To Cut Loose (2022). Ka is now an associate artist at Centquatre-Paris, La Garance – scène nationale de Cavaillon, and Espace 1789, and is supported by the Tremplin network, which provides support for emerging choreographers. In 2022, she received the Choreographic Revelation Award from the French Critics Syndicate for To Cut Loose. Bouffées, a short piece for five dancers, won first prize at the international competition Danse Élargie of Théâtre de la Ville de Paris, before being turned into a full-length piece. Ka’s 2024 work Maldonne was nominated for the 2025 Rose Prize at Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London. 

Muriel Maffre was appointed director of choreographic studies at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris (CNSMDP) in 2023. She began her training at the Paris Opera Ballet School before continuing her studies at the CNSMDP. In 1990, after gaining valuable international experience at the Hamburg Ballet and the Ballets de Monte-Carlo, she became a principal dancer at the San Francisco Ballet, where she distinguished herself by taking on roles in the repertoire and participating in numerous creations for 17 years. Beyond her stage career, Muriel Maffre has also been involved in dance research and obtained a master’s thesis entitled “Le Musée et le corps” in 2010. Her commitment to teaching has led her to share her knowledge at Stanford University/TAPS. From 2012 to 2017, she served as director of the Museum of Performance + Design in San Francisco, working to preserve and promote choreographic, musical, and theatrical heritage. She previously served as executive director of Alonzo King LINES Ballet in San Francisco. 

Related Event: 
Choreographies of Border: Panel Discussion and Reception 
Saturday, October 18, 2025, from 10:30 a.m. to 12 p.m.  
USC Kaufman School of Dance, Large Performance Space  
For more info, click HERE. 

Presented by USC Visions and Voices and the USC Kaufman School of Dance with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels and Villa Albertine. Organized by Jackie Kopcsak (Dance), Dane Martens (Dance), and Edwin Hill (French and Italian and American Studies and Ethnicity). 

Photo (Leila Ka): Duy Laurent