Aimé Césaire was a poet and politician of great intellectual and moral influence in the entire French-speaking world who was born in Martinique in 1913 and died in 2008. He created the concept of blackness on which a large proportion of African intellectual and political liberation movements and the European recognition of an intellectually powerful and independent original cultural and political reality have been built.
We need to reconnect closely with the poet and extract the deep meaning of his words to question our own ideas about what is real and what is absurd. In Aimé Césaire’s work, the past and the present, history and the present, mix. Right now, when we are witnessing the most recent horrors of a world torn apart by its own contradictions, we want – without disowning anything – to recognise the value of poetry and its share of gunpowder, scandal, loss of control, nonsense and ability to dazzle.
How can you make the human race, standing up and free, become settled in a lifetime? How can you build a new city without its own fort and with a fire that is productive – a forge fire rather than a bomb fire? How do you successful hold the flame to keep it alive? This show seeks to use the breath of poetry to question the breath of life, to find food for the human soul in Césaire’s work. Roving ghosts live among us, inside us. And fear brings us to our knees every day. It invades us; it makes us fragile in our inner space. What can we do to obtain the necessary energy to keep ourselves standing?
Césaire’s poetry is still alive. It has always gone hand in hand - and continues to do so - with the intellectual, literary and political education of all French-speaking generations who have enjoyed his works. Furthermore, it is a source of inspiration and a way to question things about oneself.
Odile Sankara takes Césaire’s poetry to the stage in this musical theatre show. Sankara, a writer, actress and director, discovered theatre at the University of Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and is the founder of the theatre company Kandima. In addition, she is one of the main people responsible for the Burkina Faso creation festival Récréâtrales. She is also the sister of Thomas Sankara (1949-1987), a revolutionary communist, defender of women’s rights and pan-Africanism theorist who was president of Burkina Faso from 1983 to 1987.
A joint Grec Festival de Barcelona 2021 and Teatre la Glevaproduction.
Dramaturgy and direction: Odile Sankara Performed by: Mamadou Diallo, Adeline Flaun, Safourata Kabore, Didier Roch Assistant director: Safourata Kabore Scenic space and costumes: Duna Homedes Lighting: Pau Montull Translation and adaptation: Albert de la Torre Audiovisual production: David Sardà Production: Albert de la Torre Assistant producer: Johann Kaucher
