I’m known as a dancer, choreographer, but I call myself a storyteller.

I tell my stories through writing, theatre, dance, still or moving images. I live and work in Kisangani, Democratic Republic of Congo, former Zaire, former Belgian Congo, former Congo Free State, private property of Leopold II, King of Belgians.

In 2001, after 8 years traveling and working around the world, I returned to the ruins of my country and founded Studios Kabako in Kinshasa, first as a space for theatre and dance. When six years later we moved to Kisangani, in Eastern DRC, Studios Kabako opened up to music and film. Because freeing 

ourselves from the colonial gaze to shape our lives in our own terms is the first step towards a future our children can be proud of. And for that no creative energy shall be left out, whatever their art form. Studios Kabako has since been a refuge for young Congolese and African artists, offering long term accompaniment, from training to production and touring.

I have toured in theatres, festivals and museums across Europe, Africa, Oceania and the Americas, including the MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum in New York, the Central Africa Museum in Tervuren, the Tate Modern in London, the MUCEM in Marseille, Festival d’Avignon, the Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels, New Zealand Festival, Sharjah Biennial, Théâtre de la Ville or Festival d’Automne in Paris.

I was associate artist to the city of Lisbon in 2016, and co-associate artist for Holland Festival in 2019.

I received the 2007 Principal Award from the Prince Claus Fund for Culture and Development, the 2014 CurryStone Design Prize, the 2018 Inaugural Soros Arts Fellowship and the 2019 Tällberg / Eliasson Global Leadership Prize.

Lucia Pietroiusti
Lucia Pietroiusti (b. 1985) is a curator working at the intersection of art, ecology and systems, usually outside of the gallery space. Pietroiusti is the founder of the General Ecology project at Serpentine, London, where she is currently Strategic Advisor for Ecology. Current curatorial projects include Sun & Sea (since 2019), The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (with Filipa Ramos, since 2018). Recent projects include Persones Persons, the 8th Biennale Gherdeïna (May-September 2022, with Filipa Ramos). Recent publications include More-than-Human (with Andrés Jaque and Marina Otero Verzier, 2020); Microhabitable (with Fernando García-Dory, 2022) and PLANTSEX (2019).

Latai Taumoepeau makes live-art-work. Her faivā (body-centred practice) is from her homelands, the Island Kingdom of Tonga and her birthplace Eora Nation. She mimicked, trained and un-learned dance, in multiple institutions of learning, beginning with her village, a suburban church hall, the club and a university.
Her faivā (performing art) centres Tongan philosophies of relational vā (space) and tā (:me); cross-pollinating ancient and everyday temporal practice to make visible the impact of climate crisis in the Pacific. She conducts urgent environmental movements and actions to assist transformation in Oceania.
Latai engages in the socio-political landscape of Australia with sensibilities in race, class & the female body politic; committed to bringing the voice of unseen communities to the frangipani-less foreground. Latai has presented and exhibited across borders, countries, and coastlines. Her works are held in private and public collections including written publications.
Latai won the 2022 ANTI Festival Live Art Prize in Finland and was recently awarded a 2021 Sidney Myer Creative Fellowship, and the Australia Council of the Arts Fellowship in the Emerging and Experimental Arts category. She is also a recipient of the Prague Quadrennial - Excellence in Performance Design Award in 2019.
In the near future Latai will return to her ancestral home and continue the ultimate faivā of deep sea voyaging and celestial navigation before she becomes ancestor.