Habib Ben Tanfous
Habib Ben Tanfous is a Brussels-based choreographer, dancer, and actor of Tunisian descent. His artistic journey began in his teenage years with hip-hop, an art form he discovered at the age of 15 and quickly embraced. He participated in dance competitions that eventually took him to New York. He was part of the collectives IMPULSION and The Revolutionary—formative experiences that helped shape his artistic identity. For him, hip-hop dance is much more than a form of expression; it became a gateway to the stage, a culture that provided a strong sense of community while allowing him to explore the many facets of his artistry.
Although hip-hop remains a key element of his background, Habib Ben Tanfous does not confine himself to this form. He doesn’t necessarily follow traditional hip-hop codes, instead referring to his work as social dance, a practice rooted in music and interaction with the audience. He sees himself more as an artist navigating between multiple mediums—be it dance, theatre, or other artistic forms.
In 2019, Habib reached a turning point in his career. He was selected for the Tremplin Hip Hop #3 program and simultaneously enrolled in the Dance and Choreographic Practices course at Charleroi danse, a training that allowed him to formalize and structure his artistic practice. Around the same time, he began exploring documentary approaches and co-founded the company FINEK with Elisa Firouzfar. The name of the company stems from their first piece, Finek, a work for five dancers presented at the Courants d’Air Festival (2018) and Cocq’Arts (2019). Through this creation, they developed a choreographic and aesthetic language that embraces genre hybridity, offering unique and composite forms that reflect the complexity of identity and personal narratives.
In 2023, he created and performed the solo Here I Bequeath What Does Not Belong to Me, in which he explores his family heritage. Through numerous songs and visual archives—his family is passionate about photography—he studies the postures and gestures of his parents, cousins, and ancestors, tracing the elements that may (or may not) constitute his identity. This project, situated between documentary research and choreographic exploration, took on added resonance with the birth of his own child in 2021, marking a pivotal moment of transmission and reflection on identity.
Between 2019 and 2025, Habib Ben Tanfous has continued to explore social themes, especially around identity, masculinity, and colonial and patriarchal domination. He has taken part in several performance projects as a dancer or actor, including Laboratoire Poison by Adeline Rosenstein and Débandade by Olivia Grandville. He has also collaborated with artists such as Ilyas Mettioui, Manoël Dupont, Anne-Cécile Vandalem, Armel Roussel, Laura Bachman, and Pauline d’Ollone.
Alongside his artistic work, he contributes to training programs such as ELAN, a school for equal opportunities in dance, hosted by the Centre National de la Danse in Lyon.
In 2024, Habib was selected to participate in AEROWAVES Spring Forward, a European platform that showcases emerging talent in dance.
His upcoming project, Orchestre vide, longing for you, is a quintet set to premiere in April 2026 at Théâtre Varia in Brussels.
He will also be supported by the Centre National de la Danse (CN D) for the 2025/2026 season—an important milestone in his professional development.
Habib is a member of the RAVIE collective, which currently includes 18 individuals and 8 companies. RAVIE operates with a horizontal structure that values cooperation, collective management, and the artistic autonomy and freedom of each project. In 2022, after four years of collective reflection on the performing arts, working conditions, institutional frameworks, and future prospects, RAVIE took on a bold new challenge by applying to lead the Théâtre de la Vie in Brussels. Twelve members of the nonprofit organization co-signed the application, proposing what would become the first collective leadership of a theatre institution in Belgium. Their proposal was accepted, and RAVIE now oversees the general and artistic direction of the venue through December 2027.
