It's been 28 years since I moved away from my native land.
28 years that I live in new lands.
28 years that I root myself elsewhere.
28 years that I haven't forgotten umuko, that tree that illuminates my childhood. That tree that resonates only in the native language. That bright red tree, earth red, which links me to what begins, to what is lost and found again, when I return, to what continues...

- Dorothée Munyaneza

At the heart of the Rwandan choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza’s new creation stands umuko, an ancestral tree with vivid red flowers, traditionally seen as a healer and a guardian of stories.

Together with five young Rwandan artists — dancers, musicians, and poets — Munyaneza celebrates the creativity, audacity, and freedom of a new generation. This generation, born after the genocide against the Tutsis in Rwanda, that tore the African country apart in 1994, carries the memory of a shared heritage while dreaming of the future and resisting the precariousness of everyday life.

umuko is a work of joy, love, and solidarity.