Fabrizio Cassol, Alain Platel et Rodriguez Vangama
Coup fatal

FABRIZIO CASSOL
Fabrizio Cassol has been the composer and saxophone player of Aka Moon for over 20 years. He has worked with choreographers Alain Platel (Coup Fatal, VSPRS, Pitié!), Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker (Rosas), Lemi Ponifasio (Mao Company), congolese Faustin Linyekula, but also with composer Philippe Boesmans and with opera & theatre director Luc Bondy (TJ Stan). His interest in music from beyond Europe arose from his visit to the Aka Pygmies (The Republic of Central Africa) in 1992 resulting in his examination of the link between orality and musical transcription.
Since 2012 he has been in residence at the Fondation de l’Abbaye Royaumont near Paris, where he continues his study of world cultures, most recently creating AlefBa with musicians from Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey. His interest in non-European music was awakened by a seminal trip to the Aka Pygmies of the Central African Republic in 1992, followed by travels to Asia (mainly India) and Africa, where he worked with Malian diva Oumou Sangare, griot Baba Sissoko and the Black Machine, Indian master percussionist U.K. Sivaraman and Senegalese musician Doudou N’Diaye Rose. On the improvised music scene, Fabrizio Cassol has worked with Marc Turner, Robin Eubanks, David Gilmore, Magic Malik, Marc Ducret and Joe Lovano.
With DJ Grazzhoppa he created the very first big band consisting of 14 DJs and together with instrument builder François Louis he invented the concept of the Aulochrome, the first chromatic polyphonic wind instrument.
He regularly gives workshops and masterclasses around the world, including at the Conservatoire National Supérieur in Paris, the Royal Academy in London and the Jerusalem Conservatoire, as well as in Algiers, Beijing, Berlin, Chennai, Tunis and Royaumont.

ALAIN PLATEL
Alain Platel is trained as a remedial educationalist, and is an autodidact director. In 1984 he set up a small group with a number of friends and relatives to work collectively. Emma (1988) signalled his concentration on directing. He was responsible for Bonjour Madame (1993), La Tristeza Complice (1995) and Iets op Bach (1998), with which les ballets C de la B (as the group was now called) rocketed to the international top. In the meantime his collaboration with Arne Sierens had a similar effect on the Ghent youth theatre company Victoria, with the three plays Moeder en Kind (1995), Bernadetje (1996) and Allemaal Indiaan (1999).
After Allemaal Indiaan he announced that he was stopping making productions. But shortly afterwards Gerard Mortier persuaded him to do Wolf (2003) based on Mozart for the Ruhrtriennale. The choir project for the opening of the new KVS marked the start of close collaboration with the composer Fabrizio Cassol. vsprs (2006) proved to be a turning point in his career. So far his work had been exuberant in both the diversity of performers and the themes, but now it became more profound and intense and revealed a world of passion and desire. And violence, as in Nine Finger (2007) with Benjamin Verdonck and Fumiyo Ikeda. After the baroque pitié! (2008), Out Of Context – for Pina (January 2010) is an almost ascetic reflection of the movement repertoire of spasms and tics. Platel consistently continues to search this language of movement for incarnations of feelings that are too vast. The yearning for something transcending the individual is becoming more and more palpable. In collaboration with director Frank Van Laecke, he created Gardenia (2010). This production was inspired by the film Yo soy así, in which the closure of a cabaret for transvestites in Barcelona is the starting point for a journey into the private lives of a memorable group of old artists. Opera director Gerard Mortier asks Alain Platel to create C(H)OEURS (2012) for the Teatro Real – Madrid, featuring the famous choral scenes from Verdi’s operas. In a second phase, he added pieces from the works of Richard Wagner. The tension between the group and the individual has been a central theme in Platel’s performances for many years. In C(H)OEURS, his largest project to date, Platel, with his dancers and the chorus of the Teatro Real – Madrid, explores how dangerous the beauty of a group can be.
In tauberbach (2014), he continues to explore and develop his movement language known as ‘danse bâtarde’. The theme of this creation is: (over)living with dignity in almost impossible conditions. But let it be clear, Platel is not just into large scale projects nowadays. In the recent past, he worked on small projects such as Nachtschade (for Victoria in 2006) and coaching work for amongst others Pieter and Jakob Ampe and their production Jake & Pete’s big reconciliation attempt for the disputes form the past (in 2011). Two projects which have had a significant influence on his way of perceiving theatre.

RODRIGUEZ VANGAMA
Rodriguez Vangama is an artist musician, born in Kinshasa. As a brilliant guitar player, he is often solicited for his talents as a musician, arranger or producer by famous stars such as Papa Wemba, Werrason, Jean Goubald and Monik Tenday. He played with the jazz band J’Affroz and has worked with artists such as Pierre Vaiana and Baloji, more specifically for the recording of his album “Kinshasa Succursale”. He has worked with Fabrizio Cassol on a number of concerts. Invited to festivals around the world, he played at the Festival d’Avignon and all over the world in Coup Fatal (2014) as co-composer, and continues his world tour with Alain Platel in Requiem pour L., for which he co-signed and conducted the music. Rodriguez has toured extensively in Africa and in Europe with Lexxus Legal. With his own band, “Les Salopards”, he infuses popular Congolese music with flavours of jazz and of rock. He founded le Guez Arena: a cultural centre in Kinshasa for educating and producing different artists under his label Arena Music.
In 2019, with Lydie Toran, he founded the Avignon-based Compagnie Artères, which produces live shows with international artists.
After that, he signed two tracks on the album Qalf with Damso and Universal France, and is involved in several projects with different artists, at the Méca in Bordeaux and the Théâtre Vidy – Lausanne, for example. He is currently taking part in an international tour with Ray Lema for the Hommage à Franco project. His concept album, Empire Kongo, will be released in 2022. This work is based on the dislocated history of the Kongo Kingdom and everything that represents the domination of man by man; and musically, it is tinged with Blue Note and the polyphony of world music.
In the meantime, he has made a number of discreet dance films, either with British director Sofie Fiennes (Because I Sing in 2001, Ramallah!Ramallah!Ramallah! in 2005 and VSPRS Show and Tell in 2007) or solo with Les ballets de ci de là (2006), an impressive dive into the life of a troupe formed twenty years ago that takes us as far afield as Vietnam and Burkina Faso. It is also, and above all, an ode to the city of Ghent, his home base.

Musical direction : Fabrizio Cassol
Artistic direction & staging direction : Alain Platel
Conductor : Rodriguez Vangama
Composition : Fabrizio Cassol , Rodriguez Vangama d’après Händel, Vivaldi, Bach, Monteverdi, Gluck
In collaboration with Coup Fatal
Scenography : Freddy Tsimba
Lighting : Carlo Bourguignon
Sound : Guillaume Desmet
Costumes : Dorine Demuynck
Photography : Chris Van der Burght
Assistant director : Romain Guion, Éléonore Bonah
With Coco Diaz (countertenor), Russell Kadima in rotation with Mjoe Zuka (vocals), Boule Mpanya (vocals), Fredy Massamba (vocals), Deb’s Bukaka (balafon), Jolie Ngemi (dancer), Cédrick Buya (percussion), Bouton Kalanda (likembe), Silva Makengo (likembe), Erick Ngoya (likembe), Brensley Manzo (guitar), Évry Madiamba (percussion and calabash) and Rodriguez Vangama (electric guitar, balafon).
Production (2024 revival) : Comédie de Genève
Distribution : OTTO productions
First production (2014) : KVS – Bruxelles et les ballets C de la B
Coproduction : Théâtre national de Chaillot – Paris, Holland Festival – Amsterdam, Festival d’Avignon, Theater im Pfalzbau, Torinodanza, Opéra de Lille, Wiener Festwochen
Support : Ville de Bruxelles, Ville de Gand, Brussels Hoofdstedelijk Gewest, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, Province de la Flandre-Orientale, Flemish authorities