Biography
Wilfried (Willy) Souly is a choreographer, performer, educator, and cultural producer originally from Burkina Faso and based in Los Angeles. His work merges West African/Mandé traditional dance, contemporary movement, and martial arts to investigate themes of identity, migration, resilience, and social justice.
Souly is the founder and artistic director of Souly Dance Arts, a transatlantic company that creates performance work rooted in African movement aesthetics and committed to cultural memory and social change. His choreography has been presented across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the United States at venues including REDCAT, the Hollywood Bowl, Dialogues de Corps Festival (Burkina Faso), and the Bali Spirit Festival (Indonesia).
Souly’s work is shaped by over two decades of artistic research and international collaboration with artists such as Lionel Popkin, Victoria Marks, Heidi Duckler, Robert Battle, Maria Gillespie, Eric Mezzino, Gerardo Delgado, Gil Schamber and Salia Sanou., and his pieces—such as Unsung, Saana/The Foreigner, and Wreck—draw from lived experiences to examine neocolonialism, systemic injustice, and displacement.
As an educator, Souly centers embodied knowledge, cultural context, and interdisciplinary inquiry. He has taught West African/Mandé dance at UCLA’s World Arts & Cultures/Dance department since 2009. His pedagogy integrates traditional African movement, Black improvisational forms, and contemporary dance theater.
He is the founding curator of Djanjoba/The Gathering, a West African arts festival in Los Angeles, and curriculum co-designer of Benkadi.Live, a community-centered African dance and drumming program.
Souly holds an M.F.A. in Choreographic Inquiry from UCLA and is a recipient of awards from the City of Los Angeles (COLA), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.
Souly is the founder and artistic director of Souly Dance Arts, a transatlantic company that creates performance work rooted in African movement aesthetics and committed to cultural memory and social change. His choreography has been presented across Africa, Europe, Asia, and the United States at venues including REDCAT, the Hollywood Bowl, Dialogues de Corps Festival (Burkina Faso), and the Bali Spirit Festival (Indonesia).
Souly’s work is shaped by over two decades of artistic research and international collaboration with artists such as Lionel Popkin, Victoria Marks, Heidi Duckler, Robert Battle, Maria Gillespie, Eric Mezzino, Gerardo Delgado, Gil Schamber and Salia Sanou., and his pieces—such as Unsung, Saana/The Foreigner, and Wreck—draw from lived experiences to examine neocolonialism, systemic injustice, and displacement.
As an educator, Souly centers embodied knowledge, cultural context, and interdisciplinary inquiry. He has taught West African/Mandé dance at UCLA’s World Arts & Cultures/Dance department since 2009. His pedagogy integrates traditional African movement, Black improvisational forms, and contemporary dance theater.
He is the founding curator of Djanjoba/The Gathering, a West African arts festival in Los Angeles, and curriculum co-designer of Benkadi.Live, a community-centered African dance and drumming program.
Souly holds an M.F.A. in Choreographic Inquiry from UCLA and is a recipient of awards from the City of Los Angeles (COLA), the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and the Alliance for California Traditional Arts.
