A monologue combining dance and text, Kri-Monologie denounces the sexual harassment that Christal Dossougouin, like other young women around her, has suffered. Having never spoken about it before, fearing disapproval, the dancer takes to the stage to express both her revolt against sexual assault and her right not to be reduced to the image of a victim. While her krump dance expresses all her anger - that long-buried cry - she also centers her movements on the hands, those intrusive, voracious hands that touch, grope and give harassed women the furious urge to scrape their skin as if to wash away the defilement and feel worthy in front of the mirror. Do women have to cover their body, hide their legs behind pants, give up revealing clothes to hope to be respected? 

Reconded December 14, 2023, presentation during Festival Connexion#3, Centre Chorégraphique Multicorps de Cotonou.

Source: Interview with Christal Dossougouin, by Anne Décoret-Ahiha, December 15, 2023, Cotonou (Benin).

Originally from Ouidah, but born in Bohicon in 1994, Chrystal Dossougoin began dancing in 2011, joining afro and urban dance groups (breaking, krump), and taking part in competitions. She appears in a video clip by Beninese star Sessimé. In 2018, she discovered contemporary dance during a workshop given by American choreographer Wendy Jehlen at the Centre Chorégraphique Multicorps in Cotonou. She continues her training with Carmelita Siwa, Marcel Gbeffa, Lise and Vincent Fasier (CCN Nantes). In 2022, she was selected for the "Engagement féminin" training course, a program dedicated to women's entrepreneurship in the choreographic arts run by Auguste Bienvenu, in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso). In 2023, she trained at the Ecole des Sables (Toubab Dialaw, Senegal), and took part as an intern in the Festival Un pas vers l'avant (Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire), and in Lomé (Togo) in the D.T.C.A. program and the FA'Arts choreographic encounters. 

After creating her first solo, Dénominateur commun, in 2022, she launched a new creation project, Kri-Monologie, during the Connexion#3 festival, at the Centre Multicorps in Cotonou. 

Source: Interview with Christal Dossougouin, by Anne Décoret-Ahiha, December 15, 2023, Cotonou, Benin.

Emmanuel Tognidaho is a Beninese photographer, video artist and cultural journalist. In 2007, he created the communication agency Dekart, which has a web platform covering cultural news from Benin and the sub-region.

This video was registered thanks to the support of the Institut Français, the Metropole de Lyon and the City of Lyon as part of the 2023 - 2024 project "Development of a digital resource on African choreographic creation and a tool for artistic training, art criticism and cultural mediation in Benin and Togo" led by Dr Anne Décoret-Ahiha.