Huguette Tolinga

Self-taught songwriter, percussionist, multi-instrumentalist and singer, founder and artistic director of Hugembo Studio, lives in Kinshasa.
She was born in Boende and started her career as a drummer in Kinshasa in a contemporary dance group, Compagnie Jacques Banayanga, before doing a stint with the Quartier Latin group. In 2009, she formed her own group, Huguembo, with whom she has performed regularly in Congo.
Huguette regularly collaborates with theatre and dance. In 2018, she joined the team of Not Another Diva.... a musical creation of South African Hlengiwe Lushaba and Faustin Linyekula. She has performed at venues including Kaserne Basel in Switzerland, NTGent and Bozar Brussels in Belgium.

In 2018-2019 she was part of the team of Un fleuve dans le ventre - a text by Fiston Mwanza Mujila directed by Carina Riedl - with whom she reunited in 2022 for the production of the text Anthropos Tyrann by Alexander Eisenach with Teatro di Bolzano in Italy.
In 2019, she is a performer for Hercules de Lubumbashi directed by Elia Rediger and Dorine Moha, Elia whom she will reunite with in September 2022 for a new project Le Retour des Fantômes.
In 2020, with the support of the Goethe-Institut, she initiates the first edition of the Jam Boom festival in Kinshasa, a platform for the discovery and training of young Congolese artists.

In 2021, she is part of a composition and improvisation programme run by Guerilla Classics as part of the Yango Biennale in Kinshasa.
In addition to creating the music for Anthropos, directed by Carina Riedl, 2022 marks Huguette's participation in the programme Il Ritorno dei Fantasmi in Palermo (May-June), in collaboration with Studio Rizoma and Groupe50:50, of which she is a member, and in the Laboratoire Kontempo - Kinzonzi in Berlin (May).