Dhélé-Tchekpo-José Agbetou

Dhélé Tchekpo Agbetou is a contemporary and urban dancer who studied stage dance at Dansart Tanznetworks in Bielefeld, at the Centre du Jazz Rick Odums in Paris, France, and contemporary dance at the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company (KCDC) in Israel.

Thanks to his cross-genre approach to dance, he has become part of various companies and crews, including the Armstrong Jazz Ballet in Paris, the Hype N Spice Hip-Hop Company, also in Paris, the Moritz Ostruschnjak Company in Munich and the Frederik Rydman Company from Sweden. He has also performed in his home country of Germany, notably with the Tchekpo Dance Company in Bielefeld and the Samadhyana Company in Essen, at the Bielefeld City Theatre under the direction of choreographer Simone Sandroni, choreographer Joy Alpuerto Ritter and many others.

As a solo artist, he has performed internationally, in Europe, Japan, the USA and South Africa. His style combines contemporary and urban dance and is based on various styles such as hip-hop (Hype), waving, isolations, floorwork, African dance, Afro jazz and footwork (House, Chicago footwork).

In 2011, Agbetou founded the dance company Wake up OWL Young Company in the East Westphalia-Lippe region. This was followed in 2017 by the Urban Stylez Festival, which has since become one of Germany’s most renowned street dance festivals and comprises workshops, battles, performances, jam sessions and panel discussions. This platform for international exchange, which has since taken place annually in Bielefeld under his artistic direction, successfully expanded to Berlin in 2021 and to Israel in 2022.

Owing to his career as a dancer and his commitment to the German urban dance scene, he was named the City of Bielefeld’s Culture Prize winner in 2021. As the youngest council member of the Dachverband Tanz (Umbrella Organisation for Dance), he is committed to developing sustainable and future-proof structures within the urban dance world.

From the 26/27 season onwards, he will be a member of TanzGelsenkirchen.