11 minute read
PROGRAM Histoire(s) du Théâtre II
© Agathe Poupeney
HISTOIRE(S) DU THÉÂTRE II
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FAUSTIN LINYEKULA
1974. Zaire. In the boxing match of the century, Muhammad Ali takes on George Foreman. Mobutu Sese Seko founds the Zaire National Ballet. After their independence, African countries look for their own identity. What could have become a formidable laboratory, is soon abused as a propaganda tool and becomes a source of fierce political rivalry on the continent.
At NTGent’s request, the world-famous Congolese choreographer and director Faustin Linyekula creates a performance in which he reflects on key moments in the history of theatre. Together with Maman Wawina, Maman Ndjoku and with Papa Ikondongo, three members of the National Ballet since 1974, and actors Papy Maurice Mbwiti and Oscar Van Rompay, he investigates what the young Congolese nation could have become.
The performance is part of a series which was kicked off by Milo Rau with the acclaimed performance 'La Reprise'. 'Histoire(s) du Théâtre' is a long-term performative investigation into the oldest art form of human kind.
A CONVERSATION WITH FAUSTIN LINYEKULA
Interview by Marc Blanchet for the 73rd edition of Festival d’Avignon.
BLANCHET: This performance is part of a series, named 'Histoire(s) du Théâtre'. With this initiative, Milo Rau wants to give artists space to think about keymoments in the history of theatre. How did you start creating this second part in the series?
LINYEKULA: I first met Milo Rau to talk about his show 'The Congo Tribunal'. We met again a few months later when he was named director of NTGent. He had made 'La Reprise' and told me he wanted to turn 'Histoire(s) du Théâtre' into a series open to other directors and choreographers, who could use it to explore their relationship to the stage.
The concept of history, and the sharing of stories, is central to my work. I’m interested in adapting stories for the stage that touch me personally. They are de facto theatre stories. As soon as Milo asked me to create the second performance in his series, my oldest memories of theatre came back to me: the National Ballet of Zaire, founded in 1974, which I never saw for real as a child but later discovered while watching Télé Zaïre, in black and white, under Mobutu’s dictatorial regime.
BLANCHET: What made the African national ballets unique?
LINYEKULA: At the time when African states were becoming independent, Sékou Touré, President of Guinea-Conakry, was the first to establish a national ballet. It was part of a specific reflection: how to give a ‘sense of a nation’ to a fledgling state? For those African States, based on colonial borders invented during the Berlin conference at the end of the 19th century, Sékou Touré had an impressive answer: he wanted to create a space in which different ethnic groups could come together as a single nation through their dances and music. What’s interesting, for a State trying to find its place in history, is the choice of the term ‘ballet’ itself a symbol of colonialism.
This model was then adapted by many young independent States in Sub-Saharan Africa. Within those countries, the ballets served as spaces of mass education. Outside of their borders, they were diplomatic tools. Whenever you had a summit of African States, each President showed up with his ballet. It was about who had the prettiest dancers. It was, in short, a way to assert their power.
BLANCHET: How did this ballet function in the Congo, formerly Zaire, undera dictatorial regime?
LINYEKULA: Mobutu formed the National Ballet in 1974, the year I was born. After establishing his power through violence, he tried to gain prestige by founding this ballet and by organising the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman, a global spectacle. When I discovered a filmed version of the ballet on television, I was still a kid. There was only one channel, and we’d wait all afternoon for those masks, drums, and dancers whose make-up and costumes terrified and fascinated us. There were so many reruns that after a while we knew all the songs and dances by heart.
With 'Histoire(s) du Théâtre II', I wanted to go back to that time, to give a name to those creatures, a face to those masks, to all those people who made me dream. Were those people I used to see on TV still alive? Are they still part of the National Ballet? In Kinshasa, I soon met three performers and invited them to appear in the show. Two of them have been part of the ballet since 1974 and appeared in 'L’Épopée de Lianja' ('The Lianja Epic'), the most overtly political creation of the Ballet. The third joined the show in 1975. Lianja is a founding myth of the peoples of Northeast Congo. Mobutu used that story to talk about the birth of all the peoples of Zaire and painted himself as Lianja, father of the nation.
BLANCHET: How do those dancers now feel about this propaganda piece? And how did you direct them?
LINYEKULA: They talk about that period with stars in their eyes. They enjoyed financial and material comfort on a level so far unheard of in the Congo. As for the direction, I tried to rely on fragments of their stories, by focusing on how each of them came to join the National Ballet. Marie-Jeanne Ndjoku played Lianja’s sister in the original creation, and was only onstage for a few minutes. It was the role of her life.
Everything is cast in a new light when you learn that the National Ballet has only originated four creations since 1974, and that the last one was in 1984. After 'L’Épopée de Lianja', the other three creations were moral stories about good, evil, tradition… Village stories. In 1984, the Democratic Republic of Congo entered a period of crisis. The government decided to ‘clean up the civil service’ and the National Ballet went from eighty artists to about thirty.
BLANCHET: You're putting their careers as dancers side by side with other stories...
LINYEKULA: The first one, which is a true story, is that of Congolese actor Papy Maurice Mbwiti. His father took a competitive exam to be part of the translation team for the President, in direct contact with Mobutu. After the fall of the regime, he found himself incapable of paying for his son’s tuition. In a monologue that’s key to the show, Papy tells the story of this fallen father: ‘I grew up in a country where I felt like I was the strongest. Until the day I understood how fragile I truly was…’
Oscar Van Rompay, a Belgian actor, explores an entirely different question, a hypothetical one: what would have happened if, upon independence, some Belgians had decided to become Congolese? Kenya gave Brits the opportunity to become Kenyans. If, in 1974, Mobutu had invited Flemish people into the National Ballet to strengthen his regime, what would it have looked like? The gap between Europe and the Congo, between Belgium and the Congo, has grown so much. Today, 25% of secondary school students in Belgium don’t know that the Congo was once a Belgian colony…
BLANCHET: Your dramatic work focuses mostlyon the meeting of bodies onstage, through dance, singing, ordramatic performance…
LINYEKULA: You have to bring bodies into a play. The stories I’m interested in aren’t stories of exile. After several years between Kenya and Europe, I decided in 2001 to come back to live in my country, first in Kinshasa, then in 2006 in Kisangani. I wanted to talk in the Congo about the Congo together with Studios Kabako, which I founded.
It’s a physical and mental territory that’s unstable and elusive. To approach it, I need to cast many nets… as if I were going fishing for the Congo. I don’t know the size of the fish, so I need nets of different sizes. Some of them have the size of dance, others the size of music, songs, or words. The idea is to connect those bodies to different tools. To try to catch this elusive animal, always trying to bring those beings together within a single body, before we can even think about narrative, to open a space.
It’s in that space that a narrator can rather appear, a storyteller, sometimes inside the story, sometimes outside of it. He can talk about it in an almost objective and factual way, then go back to being part of the story, to being a character—as is the case in many examples of oral tradition. This way of doing things can only be interesting if the performance ends with the necessity of coming back to oneself. Artists and audience have just gone through a lot of different events: it’s essential now to find one’s position on the story that’s just been told.
The stage allows you to bring people face to face on a project, then to share that gesture with the audience, to widen the circle. The stage is a space and an attempt to create a community. It’s a long-term undertaking. For this 'Histoire(s) du Théâtre II' I soon wondered how to continue on that path. To build a show is to talk about history, to go into more fragile spaces, shine a light on them to give us a little strength, to help us stay upright. It’s an act of resistance. It’s possible to dream of a different world, to build a community around you, and with small gestures keep that community together. ●
LIANJA 'SAVIOR OF THE WHOLE WORLD'
Bombe, member of the Mongo tribe and mother of Lianja and Nsongo, is pregnant but doesn't want to eat anything. All she wants to eat is Safu, a special fruit of the saffron plant but it only grows in a forest that protects the Sau Sau (the rival tribe of the Mongo). Her husband Illele goes to get that fruit for his wife but the Sau Sau kills him.
Bombe gives birth (without a man) to the twins Lianja and Nsongo. Lianja is born as the 'savior of the whole world'. He will be the one who can bring peace between all the tribes.
When Lianja hears that his father was killed by the Sau Sau, he starts a war between the Mongo and the Sau Sau. Lianja takes revenge and kills the Sau Sau. The dream that he is the savior now seems very far away... But not long after the massacre, a voice tells Lianja to bring the dead back to life. Only then will the Mongo and the Sau Sau be able to live together as brothers. No sooner said than done, the tribes migrate together to the promised land where they lived happily ever after.
CREDITS
DIRECTION & CHOREOGRAPHY Faustin Linyekula | CAST Papy Maurice Mbwiti, Ikondongo Mukoko, Wawina Lifeteke, Marie-Jeanne Ndjoku Masula, Oscar Van Rompay | ASSISTANCE DIRECTION Papy Maurice Mbwiti | COSTUME DESIGN Ignace Yenga | SET & LIGHT DESIGN Faustin Linyekula | INTERN SET DESIGN Castélie Yalombo | OUTSIDE EYE Stefan Bläske | PRODUCTION MANAGER Virginie Dupray, Greet Prové | STAGE MANAGER Frederik Vanslembrouck | TECHNICIANS Ramon Blancquaert, Geert De Rodder | TOUR MANAGER Greet Prové | PRODUCTION NTGent & Studios Kabako | IN COLLABORATION WITH le Ballet National de la Compagnie, Théâtre National Congolais (Kinshasa), Isaano Positive Production (Kigali) | WITH THE SUPPORT OF The Belgian Tax Shelter
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