La Cage

Originally from Goma in the DRC, Faraja Batumike has been dancing (hip hop, house, break, ndombolo) since 2007.
The winner of several local competitions and also working internationally as a trainer and choreographer, in 2017 he set up the Goma Dance Festival, an annual meeting of urban, contemporary and traditional dance. His homeland of Congo, a land of riches but also of terrible violence, is part of his solo, a first version of which he performed at the Detours Festival organised by the No Way Back company in Brussels in 2021.
La Cage tells of the journey of a young man who wants to achieve his dreams despite his difficult environment. Blending hip hop and words, the piece also shows that “we create cages for ourselves, we confine ourselves in our restrictive thoughts”. Today, Faraja confides, “Goma is no longer a cage for me”.