Olivier Tarpaga (USA/Burkina Faso) is a Lester Horton Award-winning choreographer/director of the African Music Ensembles of Princeton University. Tarpaga has performed and taught music and dance regularly in more than 50 countries throughout Africa, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Oceania.
Since 1998, Tarpaga has composed and performed contemporary and traditional music and conceived dynamic dance theater works, touring internationally and the US with an impressive roster of collaborators and commissioning partners: including The Hollywood Bowl, the Ford Amphitheater (Los Angeles), The New Delhi Sacred Music Festival (India), The World Cultures Festival (Hong Kong), The Bali Spirit Festival (Indonesia), Festival de Jazz d’Amiens (France), Kelly Strayhorn Theater (Pittsburgh), Harlem Stage, The Joyce Theater, REDCAT, Crossing the Line Festival, Jacob’s Pillow, Action Danse Festival (Morocco), Charleroi Dance Biennale (Belgium), Natanda Dance Festival (Sri Lanka), The Drama Center (Singapore), and Session House (Tokyo).
Tarpaga’s music and dance works have been described as “unforgettable” by Los Angeles Times and “extraordinary” by the New York Times. His major works include Once the dust settles, flowers bloom (2023), When Birds Refused to Fly (2019), Declassified Memory Fragment (2015), Not Because You’re African (2010), Disorder Inside Order (2008), Sira Kan (2007), and Tin Suka (2001). His commissioned works include Only One Will Rise (2022) for the Limon Company, Wind of Nomads (2017) for Malaysia’s internationally renowned HANDS Percussion, Resist-Resurge: Traces of Hope for Maya Dance Theater of Singapore, and The way of sands (2012) for the Temple of Fine Arts in Perth, Australia.
