Danseuse, pas pute !

Dancer, not hooker is Denise Ishola’s protest cry to demand respectability for the profession of professional dancer in her country, Benin, where dancers are easily assimilated to prostitutes. The play bears witness to the struggle she had to wage with determination and courage to win the respect of those around her for her professional choice: the firm disapproval of her parents and brothers, who feared she would become a delinquent; her family’s doubts about her activity when she came home late at night after a performance; her husband’s injunction to stop her career once she was married and a mother; and finally, the inappropriate behavior of men who associated the dancer with a girl of easy virtue or offered their financial support in exchange for sexual favors. 

« I’m a dancer, not hooker! My body is my work tool. Admire its potential and stop the prejudices, stop the unhealthy and perverse interpretations. Accompany me for my career, not for my body ». 

Begun in 2021, the performance was granted of the Institut Français du Bénin’s « Danser au Féminin » 2022 program. Performances in February 2023 at the Walo Dance Center, Abomey-Calavi, and in April 2023 at the Institut Français du Bénin, Cotonou. The performance benefited from a working residency in December 2023 during Festival Connexion#3 at the Centre chorégraphique Multicorps – Marcel Gbeffa de Cotonou.

Recorded on December 15, 2023, Institut Français du Bénin.

Source: Interview with Denise Ishola, by Anne Décoret-Ahiha, January 16, 2023, Cotonou (Benin)

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.