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IMPASSE

Mufutau Yusuf

Impasse is a powerful, driving, and charged duet that seeks to understand the politics of the Black body in a contemporary western society. Through striking imagery, raw physicality and emotional intensity the performance challenges the historical racial projections of blackness – its crudeness, threat, sexuality, rage and immorality – unveiling its power, grace, sensuality, tenderness, intelligence and love.

Impasse premiered in May 2024 for Dublin Dance Dance Festival to critical and audience acclaim and went on to be presented at Dancebase for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival August 2024. Since then Impasse has toured nationally and internationally including to: Maison de la Danse, Lyon; Impulstanz, Vienna; PRISMA Festival of Contemporary Dance, Panama; Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Cork and Tipperary Dance Festival; Afropolis, Lagos, Nigeria; and in the UK at The Mac for Belfast International Arts Festival, Sadler’s Wells, London; and The Quays at The Lowry, Salford.

  • Mufutau is a Nigeria-born Irish choreographer, performer, teacher, and curator based between Ireland and Brussels. A graduate of Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance, Mufutau is a dancer with Wim Vandekeybus/Ultima Vez in Belgium and in Ireland with Liz Roche Company and John Scott’s Irish Modern Dance Theatre.

    As a performer, he has worked with Emma Martin/United Fall, Catherine Young Dance, Pan Pan Theatre, Anton Lackhy, Ricardo Ambrozio, Ian Kaler, to name a few. Mufutau debuted his first full evening work in 2022, titled ‘Òwe’, which premiered in New York and subsequently at Dublin Fringe Festival and various other venues and festivals across Ireland and Europe.

    His most recent work ‘Impasse’ premiered at the Dublin Dance Festival 2024. Mufutau is a resident choreographer with Luail, Ireland’s national dance company, an associate artist with Solstice Arts Centre and Liz Roche Company, and a recipient of the Irish Arts Council Dance Bursary award 2020 and Project Award 2022 and 2023. His passion for improvisation and sharing has bought him to share his teaching practice to various platforms, festivals, and institutions such as Tipperary international Dance Festival, University of Limerick, the American University in Washington, among others. Mufutau is also a co-cutor of ‘TW1’ (Train With One), a bi-monthly workshop platform which aims to bridge the gap between the Irish contemporary dance scene with that of continental Europe.

  • Mufutau Yusuf – Choreographer / Performer / Set Designer

    Lucas Katangila – Performer

    Tom Lane and Mick Donohoe – Composition and Sound

    Matt Burke – Light Designer

    Alison Brown – Costume Design

    Maryam Yusuf – Prop design

    Ikenna Anyabuike – Text / Spoken Word

    Rehearsal Assistant – Rima Baransi

    Lisa Mahony – Production Manager

    Lisa Krugel – Set Consultant

  • 2024

    24th & 25th May: Premiere, Dublin Dance Festival at Project Arts Centre, Dublin, Ireland

    13th to 25th August 2024: Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Scotland

    11th & 12th October: Maison De La Danse, Lyon, France

    17th of October: Solstice Arts Centre, Navan, Ireland

    25th & 26th October: Dance Cork Firkin Crane, Cork, Ireland

    31st October: Afropolis Festival, Lagos, Nigeria

    5th November: Belfast International Arts Festival at Mac, Belfast, UK

    14th & 15th November: Lilian Baylis Studio at Sadler's Well's, London, UK

  • For more information, check availability, please contact Eckhard Thiemann at eckhard@eckhardthiemann.com.

  • If it’s always refreshing to see a different version of an old favourite, there’s nothing quite as exciting as seeing a terrific new work for the first time. At the end of the Edinburgh festival I was knocked out by Impasse, an exciting and thoughtful duet by choreographer Mufutau Yusuf for himself and (in this performance) Kennedy Junior Muntanga. The Observer ★★★★★

    The emerging choreographer and dancer Mufutau Yusuf, in Impasse, his compelling, impressive premiere, was looking at the representation of the black body, as slave, as migrant, as subject of discrimination. The opening image was of two Beckett-like figures lost in a blank landscape, pulling a large bag. It may have been full of material possessions, but it was also the baggage of trauma, loss, shame and anger, all locked up and weighing them down. Yusuf and Lucas Katangila used their bodies so expressively and eloquently as they tensed with recollection. The Irish Times ★★★★

    A well-executed narrative, precise movements and tight footwork make up this provocative rendering from Mufutau Yusuf and Lucas Katangila. The Scottish Field ★★★★

    Impasse has a theatricality that leaps off the stage. The Scotsman ★★★★

    The movement is sharp, detailed, full of grace, building to a propulsive climax where they run in endless unison. Original and impressive, it marks Yusuf as a choreographer to watch. The Guardian ★★★★★

    By seeking to question his black identity in a white world, he also questions the almost conventional expectations of the public, diverting them in this sculptural duo of indescribable beauty, which questions and challenges in a beautiful way. Amazing! L’Oeil d’Olivier