The Dance Center Presents
Didę by Marcel Gbeffa & Sarah trouche
One night only! Friday, April 24, 2026 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: General Admission ($30); Non-Columbia Student Ticket ($10); Free to Columbia College Chicago students.
The Dance Center is proud to present the Midwest premiere of Didę by Marcel Gbeffa (Benin) and Sarah Trouche (France).
Inspired by the Guèlèdè traditions whose ceremonies and masks pay homage to Ìyá Nlá, the Yoruba primordial spirit of all creation, Didę is an evening-length work for five dancers and 21 mahogany masks. Didę invites us into a sincere and frank encounter with the place where the intimate and the political are entangled, where feelings are expressed and oppressions are incorporated, in whose folds lodge social conditions, confrontations between traditions, identity divisions, and emancipation—the human body.
Co-Created by Marcel Gbeffa and Sarah Trouche
Choreography by Marcel Gbeffa
Sets by Sarah Trouche
Music by Viktor Benev
Light Design by Ivan Matis
Guèlèdè Masks Designed by Sarah Trouche, realisation by Sébastien Boko and Albert Sossa
Curtain Designed by Sarah Trouche, realisation by Mazoclet
Dancers - Orphée Georgah Ahéhéhinnou, Marcel Gbeffa, Bonaventure Sossou, Yetchennou Horace, Joseph Gbeffa
Production - Cie Multicorps /Marcel Gbeffa, Cie Winter Story in the Wild Jungle
Co-production - French Institute of Benin & The Center
Partners - Ateliers de Paris /CDCN - Institut Français de Paris (Résidanses 2019), Centre Chorégraphique National de Nantes, Centre de Développement Chorégraphique de Paris, Lieu Unique.
Founder and artistic director of the Multicorps Choreographic Center in Cotonou, Benin, Marcel Gbeffa campaigns for the accessibility and circulation of contemporary dance in Africa.
The Chicago premiere of Didę is supported by FUSED, a program of Villa Albertine and Albertine Foundation, and is part of a U.S. tour in partnership with Lehigh University’s Zoellner Arts Center and The Conservatory of Dance at Purchase College, State University of New York.
Banner image courtesy of Marcel Gbeffa, photo by Maurine Tric
