4 dancers  3 musicians et 1 singer

Patrice Lumumba, Thomas Sankara, Kwamé Nkrumah, Nelson Mandela.

Four historical figures of contemporary Africa, four icons who the young people of Africa identify with. This is the fourth new work by the Faso Dance Theatre. It echos the creations that came before it and were dominated by a very dark vision of the future of Africa youth.

This time there is the will to bring hope. To show to the young people that success and development are not the result of luck or the wave of a magic wand. They are the result of hard, ongoing, obsessional work mixed with great passion. How we inspire ourselves with contemporary heroes to regain hope, to awake the fighter that is sleeping inside each of us. 

Make a jump in History in order to retain the stories of reclaimed dignity, despite cultural alienation, the story of great leaders, the story of those who dared to invent the future. Creating a piece about the contemporary heroes of Africa is also a research on those that sacrificed themselves for the people, the men and women  that believed in the strength of their people, in their inventiveness and creativity.

Utopic ambition to give back faith to certain youth through this creation, by reminding them that their people were strong yesterday, and why not today, and tomorrow as well. Babemba does not attempt to tell the story of these four historical figures. It is a research through dance, gesture, image and emotion, beginning with the part of us that resembles the exceptional people.

 

Music is at the heart of the creation of Babemba, evolving from a research into the great Mandingo musical tradition, from 1100 until today. An exploration of the collective imagination of Western Africa through the music that belonged to several generations in at least eight countries that once made up Mandingo (part of senegal, Gambia, Bissau Guinea, Guinea, as well as part of the Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso and Mali).

Choreography : Serge Aimé Coulibaly

Choreography assistant : Lacina Coulibaly

Dancers : Lacina Coulibaly, Lévy Tierema Koama , Sigué Sayouba, Serge Aimé Coulibaly

Musicians: Sana Seydou Khanzai, Domba Sanou, Benjamin Collier

Singer : Djénéba Koné

Scenography : Papa Mahamoudou Kouyaté 

Production : Faso Danse Théâtre

Coproduction : Centre de Développement Chorégraphique-La Termitière  (Ouagadougou)

La rose des vents, Scène nationale Lille Métropole (Villeneuve d’Ascq)    

Les Ballets C de la B, Grand Bleu ENPDA Lille Région Nord-Pas-de-Calais

Centre Culturel français Henri Matisse de Bobo Dioulasso

Centre Culturel français Georges Méliès de Ouagadougou

With a support of ADAMI

Help for diffusion :Arcadi