Hendrickx Ntela & Joëlle Sambi Nzeba

Joëlle Sambi Nzeba is a slam poet, novelist, author and LGBTQIA+ feminist activist. Caught at the crossroads between several merging identities, she writes and raises questions of identity, norms, and belonging. She is the author of the book Le monde est gueule de chèvre (Biliki, 2007), the poetry collection Caillasses (L'Arbre de Diane, 2021) and author of and performer in the play Congo Eza, directed by Rosa Gasquet. Her first documentary, Pinkshasa Diaspora, gives a voice to the gay Congolese diaspora. She puts on the Angles Morts slam shows with the artist Sarah Machine and Koko Slam Gang, produced by Lezarts Urbains. She is also co-president of the Euro Central Asian Lesbian Community, the leading lesbian organisation in Europe and Central Asia, as well as a member of the Belgian Network For Black Lives, the collective that organised the first major demonstration against state racism and police violence in Belgium.

Hendrickx Ntela is a dancer and choreographer. She practices several styles – Hip Hop, Krump, Dancehall, Kuduro, AfroHouse, etc. – and works as a freestyle dancer and choreographer. She is the founder of the collective Drickx Konzi, member of Gully Fusion, an international women's krump group, and One Nation, a versatile 100% female group where she gives dance lessons. A finalist of the Krump World Championship in Germany in 2014, she is also responsible for the organisation of several battles in Liège, as well as of the Krump Date event in Brussels. She also created the Beyond project with Pierre Anganda and is part of the Tremplin Danses Hip Hop. In this context, she is a co-choreographer of and performer in the piece Au Fil du Temps by The Corpeaurelles Company. She is also a trainer for the festival Les Nuits de la Danse in Dakar where she is working on the creation Blind, which will premiere in February 2022.

From their first meeting, on stage during a tribute to Semira Adamu in 2018, an immediate and clear desire to collaborate was born. Brought together today by the Fusion project, they have in common their strength, power, a hunger for justice, and a desire to pass on what they know.