Theatre Senegal

[Michelle Benitone]

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My new friends were in the process of making a hip-hop arts movement tailored to their specific national context, a movement that could address their particular social, cultural and political aspirations.

The theatre of hip-hop in Dakar is not played only on proscenium stages with linear playscripts. It is performed on street corners, in living rooms, in community centers and under the auspices of arts organizations. AuthorJoseph G. Schloss argues that the hip-hop movement is by definition theatre: The grassroots feel and interdisciplinary strategies of hip-hop arts practice are reminiscent of revolutionary theatre practices inspired by jazz during the Harlem Renaissance and the Black Arts Movement in the United States. These movements are sampled in hip-hop arts and inspire similar arts activism around the world. Current debates over the political and ideological role of hip-hop-inspired art echo similar debates about the use of art as propaganda during the Harlem Renaissance and the Cold War.

My African colleague, theatre scholar Omofolabo Ajayi-Soyinka, sent me her observations about hip-hop-inspired arts within the larger history of liberationist theatre and arts practices on both sides of the Atlantic.

Support American Theatre: a just and thriving theatre ecology begins with information for all. Please join us in this mission by joining TCG, which entitles you to copies of our quarterly print magazine and helps support a long legacy of quality nonprofit arts journalism.

We headed for a small hotel called Sobo Bade in Toubab Dialaw

about 55km south of the capital, Dakar. Sobo Bade is a sort of

community started in the Seventies by a man named Gerard Chenet.

People visit to take part in courses on traditional African music,

dancing, experimental theatre, sculpture, ceramics and

painting.

My son roams free all day, having long conversations with

souvenir sellers about everything from sacred baobab trees to the

end of the ivory trade. We walk along the beach, picking up plastic

waste as we go. He plays with local children, riding the waves on a

makeshift floating device made out of bottles.

Also staying at Sobo Bade was Abiodun Oyewole, one of the

founding members of The Last Poets. The band was one of the early

founders of hip-hop that rose out of the civil rights movements of

the late Sixties in Harlem. Oyewole is now a professor at Colombia

University.

The paediatric theatre based at Hpital General Idrissa Pouye (HOGIP)has been kitted out with the latest equipment and brightly coloured wall aesthetics which provide comfort to children within the hospital environment.

Research shows that half of Africa's population (1.3B) are children. It is also estimated that 85% of children in Africa will require some kind of surgical care by the age of 15. Given the anticipated population growth of Africa, there will be a significant need for paediatric surgical interventions.

Over 1.7billion children lack access to safe surgery. Every year, more children die from not getting the surgery they need than from Malaria, HIV and TB combined. By end of 2021, KidsOR will have installed 51operating rooms and provided over 43,000 life-changing surgeries.

Celebrate the year of Senegal with music, song, and dance! The College of the Arts and Global Education present Khaware (Xaware), directed by Dasha Chapman and Theresa Howard of the Department of Dance. This celebration of West African dance and music features djembe and sabar drum traditions, as well as enchanting kora music, contemporary compositions, and diverse movement techniques. The evening will highlight a rich array of approaches to Senegalese performance by both master artists and students: dance works choreographed and performed by Awa Pikine and Pape Moussa Sonko, and music by Adama Tall (drums) and Morikeba Kouyate (kora), will shine alongside choreography by Kaolack (Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye). The KSU Percussion Ensemble, directed by John Lawless of the Bailey School of Music, will accompany student dancers with traditional Senegalese rhythms, using authentic instruments for this performance. Immerse yourself in an evening of total theatre with Khaware (Xaware)!

Dakar - Management in Senegal project is holding today (31/10) its closing ceremony in Dakar, Senegal. The ceremony brings together representatives from the European Union, Senegalese authorities and international cooperation partners, such as the French, Spanish and Italian Embassies.

Based on the national strategy on border management developed in 2013, the Senegalese Government and the European Union agreed on strengthening border security and management, enhancing cooperation and developing border control and surveillance. The main objectives of the project were the facilitation of the lawful movement of people and goods, while tackling trans-border crimes along the Senegalese border with Mauritania and Mali.

Along the borders that Senegal shares with Mauritania and Mali, eight joint border crossing points (BCPs) for police and customs were built, and one joint border crossing point was renovated. These BCPs were equipped with furniture, solar panels and technical equipment. During the project, more than 250 border security officials were trained on border control and surveillance, including the detection of forged documents.

The Senegalese security forces tasked with surveillance and control received new mobility and technical equipment: 13 4x4 pick-up vehicles; 12 motorcycles; 6 speedboats; 30 digital night-vision goggles; 30 docu-boxes; endoscopes; magnifying lenses and UV lamps. At the same time, sensitizing campaigns addressed to border communities were offered by theatre groups, through sketches in local languages.

More than 1,350 people were sensitized during the activities at BCPs. Moreover, several hundred people across the villages along the border were reached by the sensitization campaigns through itinerant caravans, TV spots and radio messages.

This pilot project, funded by the EU and implemented by IOM Senegal, started in September 2014 and targeted the border with Mauritania and a portion of the border with Mali. The main objective has been to enhance integrated border management, to facilitate the free movement of people and goods, and to enforce national security.

The sub-Saharan countries referred to as francophone Black Africa actually divide into four groups: the countries of the former French West Africa; the countries of the former French Equatorial Africa; the former French colonies of the Indian Ocean; and the former Belgian territories. A few remarks on each of these four groupings follow.

Also included in French West Africa was the former German colony of Togo, which later became a territory under French mandate. With the exception of the Arabo-Berbers (Moors) of Mauritania and the Touaregs of Niger-Sudan, all the peoples of this area are essentially black and belong to the Mandingo ethnic group (comprising Bombara, Malink, Susu, Diola, Songhai, Mossi and Senufo); the Sudano-Guinean group (Fan, Ashanti, Baule and Hausa) or smaller groups, such as Wolof, Dogon and Peul (Fulani).

The countries of the former French Equatorial Africa, known in French as Afrique Equatoriale Franaise (AEF), included four territories, with Brazzaville as its capital: Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon, Ubangi-Shari (now called the Central African Republic) and Chad. There is great ethnic diversity in this region, the principal group being Bantu.

The Indian Ocean Colonies included the island of Madagascar; a single colony which comprised the Comoros Islands, Runion Island, the French coast of the Somalis and the island of Mauritius; and the Seychelles Islands.

By the eve of the First World War, French and Belgian influence was clearly felt throughout all the francophone regions, and its cultural destiny became clearly linked to French colonial policies. In the domain of theatre, colonization created a double cultural life: a literary theatre written in French and performed in accordance with European models (what is referred to here as francophone Black African theatre) and a theatre drawn from traditional forms.

Francophone Black African theatre, therefore, is actually a late phenomenon, emerging along with French colonial expansion on the continent between the two world wars. Seeking to establish reproductions of their own culture, their own ways and even their own religion in Africa, French colonial policy was aimed at cultural assimilation, at making Africans into proper French citizens, reshaping the culture of the African world along French lines. Such a policy included an emphasis on education and evangelization. These two cornerstones also introduced European theatre into Africa and were the principal forces in the birth of francophone Black African theatre.

Christian missionary education was certainly a key factor in this development. Making extensive use of dramatic representation in the teaching of the Bible, European-style playlets began to be seen in all regions where Christianity was implanted. On the occasions of Christmas and Easter, for example, the Plormels Brothers, who ran the Secondary School of Saint Louis (founded in 1841), organized a series of theatre performances as had their predecessors, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Cluny and Abb Boilat. Catholic school students throughout the colonies, especially in Gabon and Dahomey, were encouraged to put on their own French-language sketches on themes taken from the Bible. These productions, inspired by religious themes, were conceived exclusively on a European dramatic aesthetic and became the first examples of francophone African theatre. It was only with the development of secular schools in the 1930s that these evolved into more modern theatrical forms.

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