Jolie Ngemi is a contemporary and urban dancer, choreographer, and musician, based in Switzerland and working professionally throughout Europe. A Congolese national born in Kinshasa in 1989, she has been developing her artistic practice since 2007. Ngemi began dancing at the Protestant church in Kinshasa. She was practicing urban dance when, at the age of 17, she met choreographer Jacques BanaYanga, with whom she trained in contemporary dance. Her artistic career has been marked by high-profile international collaborations. In 2008, she participated in the creation of the show *Mist* by choreographer Thomas Steyeart and toured in Africa and Europe. In 2011, she collaborated with Ula Sickle and Yann Leguay on the solo piece *Jolie*, created in South Korea (Seoul), followed by tours in France, the
Netherlands, Poland, and Austria.
In 2012, she was invited to represent women artists at the New York Live Arts Festival. In
2013, she began a two-year training program at P.A.R.T.S. in Brussels. She was then spotted
by choreographer Boris Charmatz; together, they produced two shows: Danse de nuit—about
the Charlie Hebdo attack—and 10,000 Gestures, which toured France, Brussels, London,
Germany, and Switzerland. In 2018, she created her first solo, Identity n’a ngayi, at La
Bâtie—Festival de Genève. This performance was also presented in Basel, Brussels, and
Utrecht. In 2019, she led several performances and workshops in the Brussels region and at
the Tictac Art Center. In early 2020, she was hired as a teacher at the Amsterdam Academy.
That same year, she participated in Serge Aymé Coulibaly’s new production. She then
founded AUC Production and the BOSANGANI performing arts festival, which aims to bring
together European and African dancers through master classes, performances, and roundtable
discussions to present contemporary dance performances and provide better professional
support and guidance to Congolese artists. The first three editions of the festival took place in
Kinshasa, Congo, in collaboration with the Institut Français and the Centre Wallonie-
Bruxelles in Kinshasa. The AUC company’s first production was “Nkisi,” an ambitious coproduction with Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, Kaserne Basel, STUK - Arts
Center vzw, Charleroi-Danse - Centre chorégraphique de la Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles,
and HAU - Hebbel am Ufer. In 2024, Jolie Ngemi served as artistic director for three
performances in Europe at the Théâtre Desingle, Stuk, Kaap, and Arsenic. In connection with this, she led workshops with the public and gave lectures in October and November; she also worked with students in the Master’s program at Strasbourg on their end-of-year performances. In January 2025, she will participate in a production at the Comédie de Genève of Alain Platel and Fabrizio’s play *Coup Fatal*, which will tour France, Switzerland, Romania, and Belgium, In February, she researched the production MBOK’ELENGI. In April 2025, she began creating her show MBOK’ELENGI with Congolese artists, premiering on May 1, 2, 3, and 4. In June, she performed her show Kin ya bana kin, a duet with Ambassa, at the Festival de la Cité in Lausanne. In July, she performed in Serge Aimé Coulibaly’s play in Amsterdam at the Julidans festival.