Souleymane Badolo

Assistant Professor of Dance

Primary Academic Program: Dance

Biography: M.F.A., Bennington College. Souleymane Badolo is a Brooklyn-based dancer, choreographer, and founder of the Burkina Faso–based troupe Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dance with Western contemporary dance. A native of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, Badolo began his professional career with the African dance company DAMA. He has also performed with Salia nï Seydou and the National Ballet of Burkina Faso, and worked with French choreographers Elsa Wolliaston and Mathilde Monnier. Badolo and Kongo Ba Téria are featured in the documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa. He appeared in the 2015 BAM Next Wave Festival; has created solo projects for Danspace, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, Harlem Stage, the 92nd Street Y, and New York’s River to River Festival; and was commissioned to create a dance for Philadanco as part of James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, which was produced by the Apollo Theater and toured nationally and internationally. He was nominated for a Bessie Award in 2011 as outstanding emerging choreographer, received the Juried Bessie Award in 2012, and a 2016 Bessie for Outstanding Production for his piece Yimbégré, which “gloriously communicated the clash and reconciliation of the different traditions held within one’s life, one’s body.” The Suitcase Fund of New York Live Arts has supported Badolo’s ongoing research in Africa. He previously taught at the New School, Denison University, and Bennington College. At Bard since 2017.

 
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