For Faustin Linyekula theatre is a question of body and presence. This is what he learned during his initial training in the drama workshops at the Centre Culturel Français in Kisangani, his home city in the north-east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. His studies were disrupted by the war in his country so he went to Kenya, and developed his work with Opiyo Okach, mime artist and dancer, turning more towards dance and choreography.
In 1997, together with Opiyo Okach and dancer Afrah Tenambergen, he formed the Gàara Company, the first ever contemporary dance project in Nairobi. From 1998 until today, Faustin Linyekula launched many projects and diversifed his research, working as a dancer, choreographer and trainer in Europe, South Africa and Reunion Island. In 2001, he decided to return to DRC where he set up a dance and visual theatre production, the Studios Kabako. Since then, he has created his own pieces such as Spectacularly Empty (2001), Triptyque sans Titre (Triptych without Title) (2002) whether for the stage or other performance locations which become installations, evolving performances, such as Radio Okapi (2003 to 2006) or all-night gatherings, like Le Festival des Mensonges (The Festival of Lies). Today he lives in Kisangani.
At the Avignon Festival, Faustin Linyekula was scheduled with Sylvain Prunenec to present Si C'est un Nègre/ Autoportrait (If it's a Negro/Self-Portrait) in the Vif du Sujet in 2003.
What becomes of dreams? What has become of the dreams of Faustin Linyekula's friends, Kabako, Vumi, Aimé, Jean-Paul, Akim, with whom, as a teenager, he imagined changing African literature and theatre? What happened to those who did not travel as he has done and who stayed in his country of birth, the former Zaire, the current Democratic Republic of Congo? How do the inhabitants of his native town, Kisangani, live, what do they think? The choreographer tells us their stories which are both his own and that of a people who are caught, to cite the writer Georges Perec, in the movement of “L'Histoire avec sa grande hache” (History with its big “H”/Axe). Mozart's Requiem in fragments, song, dance, images on film are all threads of an idea which are scattered throughout like the memory of wanderings. The character played by Faustin Linyekula is the narrator of this poetical tale which, in a dialogue with young Congolese artists, dancers, actors and a self-taught counter-tenor opera singer, invites us to walk with them in this landscape of ruins where you have to erect a tombstone to your friends before being able to believe again in dreams and in the future.
There's fiction and there's reality, images and objects made with survival techniques, thrown together, out of next to nothing, and Faustin Linyekula with them, plants his concerns as an artist and creates another form of language. It is a way of approaching reality, through body and voice, which steers clear of tragedy or comedy, and which opens up other spaces to thoughts and to sharing.
Distribution
direction artistique: Faustin Linyekula
avec: Sammy Baloji, Dinozord, Papy Ebotani, Serge Kakudji, Djodjo Kazadi, Faustin Linyekula, Papy Mbwiti
textes: Richard Kabako, Antoine Vumilia Muhindo
vidéo, photo: Sammy Baloji, Antoine Vumilia Muhindo, Faustin Linyekula
en vidéo: Papa Rovinsky, griot multidimensionnel
musique: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (Requiem, fragments) par la Chorale Charles Lwanga de Kisangani, Joachim Montessuis (Nirica), Arvo Pärt (Pari Intervallo, Redeuntes in mi, Trivium, Annum per Annum), Jimi Hendricks (Voodoo Child)
administration: Virginie Dupray
assistée de: Jean-Louis Mwandika
Production
production: Studios Kabako, New Crowned Hope (Vienne)
en coproduction avec: Tanzquartier Wien, KVS Theater (Bruxelles)
avec le soutien de: la Halle de la Gombe - Centre culturel français de Kinshasa, de l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, de la drac Île-de-France - ministère de la Culture et de la Communication et de CulturesFrance dans le cadre du programme Afrique en créations