Artists in residence

Hakim Bah was born in Mamou (Guinea).

He is a graduate of the Master’s degree in stage direction and dramaturgy at the University of Paris-Ouest Nanterre.

His texts are read, created and performed in various places in Africa and Europe.

His work has received numerous awards (RFI Theatre Prize, Lyon Theatre Authors’ Days Prize, Guerande City Theatre Writing Prize, Africa and Overseas Unpublished Prize, Text’Avril Festival Audience Prize, etc.) and grants (Institut français, Beaumarchais, CNL, ARTCENA, IDF region, DGCA, Occitanie Livre et Lecture, etc.).

His plays have been staged by Frédéric Fisbach, Jacques Allaire, Cédric Brossard, Pierre Vincent, Guy Theunissen, Souleymane Bah, Aristide Tarnagda, Imad Assaf, Rouguiatou Camara, collectif ildi Eldi…

His texts have been published by Lansman Éditeur, Théâtre Ouvert, Quartett and Passages. He co-directs the Compagnie Paupières Mobiles in Paris and is the artistic director of the “Univers des Mots” festival in Guinea.

Born in Morocco, then having lived in France and Canada; born of a Muslim culture, while desacralising it; child of a hetero-normed background, eventually to question the paradigms of sexual identity and gender; straight, fine points, on the edge emerges Mehdi Bahmad.

With a background in the visual arts, and incorporating dance and movement into his work, Mehdi Bahmad reappropriates elements and symbols from his North African Amazigh and Arabic culture, integrating them into a visual and musical aesthetic marked by sentiments that are both gentle and uplifting. The artist unfolds an idyllic universe where the disconcerting becomes harmonious. A multi-sensory world where genres flout boundaries, where elements clash and intertwine. Musically, the story unfolds on an art-pop canvas with tonic and sensitive electro accents. The synthetic textures of the consoles weave an environment over which strings and woodwinds are woven into an amalgam as unlikely as it is seductive.

Her debut EP ‘Khôl’, released in 2019, quickly attracted media attention (Vogue, CBC/Radio-Canada, Flaunt, MILLE, NATAAL…) and led her to perform in front of over 15,000 people at various festivals in Canada, despite a global pandemic. The series of audiovisual works that accompanies the project has won him several international awards and distinctions, including the Aesthetica Short Film Festival in York (UK) and special screenings at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Amsterdam Dance Event, as well as leading to his first public solo exhibition in collaboration with the City of Montreal in 2021. Committed to the defence of human rights, the multidisciplinary singer-songwriter is spokesperson for Amnesty International Canada in 2022.

Mehdi Bahmad is working on his latest musical project, which he has had the opportunity to develop during various residencies, including PHI Nord and currently at the Cité internationale des arts in Paris.