Moses Olayinka Akintunde

Abode

Choreographic duo with Danielo Belcher

Choreographic duo

Work in progress

Actual duration: 35 minutes

Suitable to all audiences – up from 6

In this duet, Moses Olayinka Akintunde (Nigeria) and Danielo Belcher (Haiti) invite the audience to witness an encounter — not just of bodies in motion, but of two continents shaped by shared histories, ruptures, and resilience.

Rooted in their respective African lineages — one from the continent, the other from the diaspora — this piece becomes an intercultural crossroads. Through movement, they explore how rhythm, resistance, and identity carry across oceans and generations. It is a conversation of gestures and silences, of inherited memory and lived experience.

Together, they exchange values, reveal cultural distinctions, and confront the realities of migration, race, and neocolonialism.

Their bodies speak of struggle and pride, of displacement and homecoming. As the dialogue unfolds, so does a call — to recognize the invisible threads that connect our stories and to imagine new ways of standing, moving, and rising — together.

This piece is not just a duet. It is a journey toward understanding.

Upcoming performance dates

Cast & support

Choreography | Moses Olayinka Akintunde

Artistic collaboration | Danielo Belcher

Performers | Moses Olayinka Akintunde, Danielo Belcher

Production support | camin aktion

Support | Communauté de Communes du Grand Pic-Saint-Loup in the frame of the contest A Pas de Loup

Moses Olayinka Akintunde is fellow of camin aktion’s camin’cubator program.

Moses Olayinka Akintunde, born in Bariga (Lagos, Nigeria) and originally from Oyo State, is a multidisciplinary artist whose talent emerged early through exceptional skill in dance and stage performance. Between 2014 and 2023, he trained with the Footprints of David Arts Academy under Seun Awobajo, developing a distinctive identity that blends traditional Nigerian dances, theatre, and performance. He toured internationally for six years with the collaborative theatre project SORRY and has worked with prominent figures such as Wole Soyinka, Anne-Marie Porras, Qudus Onikeku, Salia Sanou, and Seun Kuti, among others.

He later trained at the Society for the Performing Arts in Nigeria (SPAN) on a scholarship, studying Western dance styles including contemporary, classical ballet, jazz, hiphop, Latin, and tap dance. After joining the SPAN Dance Company, he performed in France, notably at the Festival D’arc in 2022. In 2023, he entered the professional program at Epsedanse Montpellier, joined Compagnie NID, became fellow of the camin aktion incubator program, and won first prize at the À Pas de Loup choreographic competition. He holds a photography certificate from Canon and, since 2024, has been pursuing studies at the CNDC in Angers toward the Diplôme National Supérieur Professionnel de Danseur and a Bachelor’s in Dance Studies with the University of Angers.

Danielo Belcher, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, began dancing at the age of seven under the guidance of Jean-Aurel Maurice, later joining his dance school in Jacmel from its opening. Over eleven years, he trained in classical, contemporary, jazz, Haitian folkloric, and hiphop-based techniques, while also exploring salsa and acrobatics. In 2020, at eighteen, he moved to France to study at Epsedanse Montpellier under Anne-Marie Porras, combining technical training in contemporary, jazz, and classical dance with his high school studies at Lycée Françoise Combes. Selected among twelve finalists for ARTE’s I Dance My Story project, he participated in masterclasses and a collective creation at Kampnagel, Hamburg, directed by Storm, Philippe Almeida, Willy Stark, and Viola Luise, later featured in a documentary.

In 2022, Danielo joined the S2TMD program at Lycée Clémenceau in partnership with the Cité des Arts – Conservatoire de Montpellier, performing works by Dominique Bagouet, Cie Marchepied, and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. In 2024, he earned his S2TMD Baccalauréat and Diplôme d’Études Chorégraphiques with honors, and was admitted to the CNDC Angers, where he now studies toward the Diplôme National Supérieur Professionnel de Danseur and a Bachelor’s in Dance Studies with the University of Angers. His first carte blanche at Angers, the duo L’Envol created with Moses Olayinka Akintunde, was acclaimed for its poetic exploration of traditional Haitian kite-flying as a metaphor for the balance between attachment and independence.