Announcing the 2025 FUSED Grantees

Artistic Direction and Choreography by Souhail Marchiche and Mehdi Meghari, with Mounir Amhiln, Charly Bouges, Yohann Daher, Nicolas Grosclaude, Hava Hudry, Beatrice Mognol, Davide Salvadori, and Alice Sundara

In this singular production, a choreographic fever seizes ten dancers, rendering them isolated and immobile. Gradually, they pulse back to life with intense energy, mirroring society’s recovery from the standstill of the pandemic. Dance and music come together in a choreography that urges the body to rebel—as if dancing were the only path to freedom.
Based in Saint-Étienne, France, Compagnie Dyptik, was founded in 2012 by choreographers Souhail Marchiche and Mehdi Meghari. Renowned for its dynamic and powerful hip-hop dance performances, the company often explores themes related to social issues, individual struggles, and collective identity.

Learn more about Compagnie Dyptik here.

© Romain Tissot

October 9-10, 2025 | Duke Arts, Durham, NC

Choreography and Performance by Wanjiru Kamuyu with Sherwood Chen and Elodie Paul

Following her theatrical dance solo An Immigrant’s Story, Wanjiru Kamuyu explores the body’s ability to question the stories and emotions it holds. How do we break free from the memories stored in our cells, our muscles, our tissues, our organs, and our blood? How do we reclaim our life stories? In this piece, three performers come together to investigate the body’s capacity to liberate itself from the entanglement of inherited, lived, and repressed stories.
Wanjiru Kamuyu is a Kenyan-American-French choreographer and dancer, whose work delves into the intricacies of identity, memory, and the African diaspora. With a background in both New York and Paris, she has collaborated with notable figures like Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Bill T. Jones. Her choreographic style blends contemporary expression with deep explorations of personal and collective narratives, aiming to highlight marginalized stories.

Learn more about the artist and her work here.

© metlili.net

Artistic concept and direction by (LA) HORDE – Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel, with dancers from the Ballet National de Marseille

(LA)HORDE, the trio that has directed the Ballet National de Marseille since 2019, has transformed the historic southern French port into a hub for contemporary dance. Age of Content is a prime example of the collective’s post-internet dance: poetic, post-punk, and politically engaged, it is packed with influences from fashion and video games to club culture.
Formed by Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer, and Arthur Harel, (LA)HORDE is a French collective that blends dance, performance, and visual arts. Its work explores contemporary social and political issues, often incorporating internet culture and digital aesthetics. Known for their innovative and boundary-pushing creations, (LA)HORDE has gained international recognition for their bold and thought-provoking productions.

Learn more about the collective and their works here.

© Pierre Gondard

By Kaori Ito & Yoshi Oida, performed by Kaori Ito & Paul Lazar

Inspired by the Noh play Aya no Tsuzumi and its adaptation by renowned Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima, The Silk Drum is an hour-long duet originally performed and developed by France-based Japanese artists Kaori Ito and Yoshi Oida. With text by French novelist and screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, the performance tells the story of an aging stagehand, who falls in love with a young dancer rehearsing her part. In this latest production, Kaori Ito will reprise her role as the young dancer with American artist Paul Lazar interpreting the role of the elderly stagehand. Paul Lazar will create his own choreographic adaptation of the role in collaboration with Ito with Oida serving as an advisor and consultant.

Based in Paris since 2003, Kaori Ito is a celebrated Japanese dancer and choreographer. In 2015, she founded her company, Himé. In the same year, she was awarded the Prix Nouveau Talent Chorégraphie by the SACD and made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2023, Ito was appointed as Director of the TJP, Centre Dramatique National de Strasbourg – Grand Est.

Yoshi Oida is a Japanese actor, director, and writer, based in France since 1968. Known for his work with Peter Brook, he also appeared in films by Peter Greenaway and Martin Scorsese and is the author of three books on acting.

Paul Lazar is a founding member of Big Dance Theater, whose work includes commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company, and Japan Society. He has appeared with The Wooster Group in productions of North Atlantic, Brace Up!, Emperor Jones, and The Hairy Ape. Lazar has acted in over 40 feature films, including Snowpiercer, The Host, Silence of the Lambs and Philadelphia.

Learn more about the piece here.

© Courtesy of the Maison de la Culture d’Amien

June 19 – 21, 2025 | Festival de Marseille, France

November 12 – 15, 2025 | Festival d’Automne, CENTQUATRE-PARIS, France

Created by Faye Driscoll, with James Barrett, Kara Brody, Amy Gernux, Shayla-Vie Jenkins, Maya LaLiberté, Jennifer Nugent, Cory Seals, Carlo Antonio Villanueva, and Jo Warren

Choreographer Faye Driscoll’s latest work, Weathering, is a multi-sensory performance art sculpture bringing together a medley of bodies, sounds, scents, liquids, and objects. Ten dancers, singers, and crew members enact a glacially morphing tableau vivant on a mobile raft-like stage surging through the Anthropocene. After premiering in New York in 2023, this American masterpiece will make its French debut this year.

Faye Driscoll is a performance maker and artist based in New York and Los Angeles. She has been hailed as a “startlingly original talent” by The New York Times. She creates work from an alchemy of bodies, voices, objects, and live sounds to conjure worlds that are, like us, alive and forever changeable. She won an Obie Award for her recent performance art sculpture, Weathering.

Learn more about Faye Driscoll and her works here.

© João Octávio

October 8-11, 2025 | Festival des Arts de Bordeaux, TNBA, France

Concept, Text, & Direction by Samar Haddad King, Created by Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre 

Gathering is a full-length work that tells the fictional story of a village under siege and one woman’s struggle to reconcile her fragmented memories. The piece is part staged work, part interactive experience in collaboration with local artists and audiences. With the goal of breaking traditional performance boundaries and uniting diverse groups through creative encounters, Gathering invites audiences to join as participants or witnesses in the collective action.

Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre (YSDT) is a dance company founded in 2005 by Artistic Director Samar Haddad King. Based in New York City and working transnationally in Palestine, YSDT creates and presents original dance works that explore themes of identity, displacement, and cultural exchange.

Learn more about Yaa Samar! Dance Theatre here.

© Sarah Dhobhan