One night only in Ho Chi Minh City: on October 31, the French-Nigerian-in-spirit collective Naagré brings L'Avers et le Revers (The Other Side and the Reverse) to Bến Thành Theatre — a show that throws traditional West African Mandingue dance, live saxophone and Burkinabè percussion into the same pot as electronic music and digital stagecraft.
Naagré literally means "fusion" in the Mooré language of Burkina Faso, and the name is doing a lot of work here. The collective grew out of a partnership between French saxophonist Jean-Michel Pirollet and Saïdou 'Baba' Konaté, a percussionist from Burkina Faso. For this production they're joined on stage by Patrice Foudon, Patrick Chastel, Karim Konaté and Florine Debord — five performers blending contemporary dance with jazz, programmed electronic sounds and acoustic instruments played live.
There's a literary hook too: the piece draws on Jorge Luis Borges's short story The Story of the Warrior and the Captive Maiden, using movement, sound and visual imagery to dig into questions of identity and cultural difference. In the build-up to the show, the artists worked with digital tools and programming software to generate musical material, then wove it together with saxophone, drums and percussion — so what you hear on stage is a live negotiation between the electronic and the handmade.
The performance is part of Digital November 2026, a programme run by the French Institute in Việt Nam that connects art, science and technology. It starts at 8pm at Bến Thành Theatre in Sài Gòn Ward — an easy add-on to an evening in District 1, with the market and a pile of good restaurants steps away.
If you're already in Saigon in late October, it's a rare chance to see Mandingue dance culture live in Southeast Asia. It's also worth noting that Debord and Konaté led three dance workshops in the city from October 27 to 29, covering choreography, rhythm and Mandingue culture — so if a future tour stops near you, keep an eye out for the workshop programme, not just the show.
For travellers, this is exactly the kind of evening that turns a city break into something memorable: world-class cross-cultural performance at local-theatre prices, in a city whose own arts calendar is quietly getting more ambitious every year. Check availability with the theatre or the French Institute in Việt Nam, book ahead, and plan dinner nearby afterwards — you'll want something to talk about.
