MEDI1TV Afrique : Invitation au dialogue entre danse, chant et poésie avec Fouad Boussouf - 22/03/2025
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00:00It's with great pleasure that I meet you on Mediain TV for this new Escale Culture at the heart of Africa.
00:16In a few moments, we will talk about cinema with the Grand Prix du FESPACO 2025, the dance of scorpions.
00:25We will also talk about literature, without forgetting our little heart attack of the week with the African Kafka.
00:34But for now, let's go to our guest of the day.
00:42And today we are going to talk about choreography with Fouad Boussouf, who is with us.
00:48Hello Fouad.
00:51Hello.
00:52Thank you for being with us on Mediain TV.
00:56It's true, Fouad, you are a dancer, a choreographer, but for you, it's much more than that.
01:03It's a real poetry, poems that you propose, themes like memory, several questions about yourself, about the world around us.
01:17What I find quite intriguing in your background is that you originally came from hip-hop.
01:22So how did this transition or rather this continuity of hip-hop happen to what you do today?
01:34First of all, thank you for the invitation.
01:36I started hip-hop in an autodidact way, like many young people of my generation in the 90s.
01:41And in fact, I discovered in dance a formidable way to express oneself, to say what we had to say with our body.
01:49In any case, otherwise than by words.
01:51And then, with time, I did a full-time job, an artistic job, that of choreographer.
01:58That is to say, to write the dance in space, in a given space, on themes that are dear to me,
02:04which are often inspired by my childhood.
02:06I think of Oum Kalthoum, for example.
02:09I created a piece called Oum, you can see the excerpts, around Oum Kalthoum.
02:14And another typically Moroccan work, this one, inspired by Nas, Nas El Riouan.
02:20A piece that has been around since 2018.
02:28And that's also what makes you strong.
02:31It is this eclecticism that you propose between contemporary dance
02:38and the Arab-Moroccan tradition.
02:44So your origins, what you are, and themes as well.
02:50What fascinates me in the job of choreographer,
02:52because when you are a writer, you write.
02:55When you are a filmmaker, you make films.
02:57But here we have a body, bodies.
02:59And it's them who have to write, it's them who have to speak.
03:02And how does it work? I find it totally magical.
03:07We write with bodies, but before writing, there is a thought, a reflection on our world.
03:12And I think my studies in sociology, in social science,
03:16have helped me a lot to understand the world in a slightly different way.
03:22Choreographers write with time, space, and the raw material that is the body.
03:30But I think it's a...
03:32It gains to be a little more known.
03:34This art remains quite unknown,
03:37or at least refers to this idea that dance is entertainment.
03:42While light, music, costumes, atmosphere,
03:48it's already a work in itself.
03:50And the body is part of this work.
03:52I strongly encourage everyone to go and see a little more contemporary dance,
03:57or other contemporary dance, it doesn't matter.
03:59And besides, I don't make a difference between contemporary dance, hip-hop dance, etc.
04:03For me, it's a way of expressing oneself with a very, very broad vocabulary,
04:08like someone who could speak several languages.
04:12And what are the themes, Fouad, that speak to you the most,
04:17that inspire you?
04:19You talked about your childhood, but there is also the memory that often comes back.
04:24What are these themes that make you vibrate?
04:29I often say that it starts with little things,
04:33something really very small, an observation,
04:36which apparently has just happened,
04:38because we saw something,
04:41but in fact, thinking a little bit about the experience,
04:44these are things that have crossed us, that remain,
04:46and that at some point we want to put on stage to talk about it.
04:50Concretely, Om Kaltoum, I was struck by these children's songs,
04:54and one day I was like that, it took me,
04:59I said to myself, listening to Om Kaltoum,
05:01it was the R'bayat Al Khayyam,
05:03I said to myself, but it could be excellent on stage.
05:07Let's go, we have to go, we have to talk about it.
05:13It sounds simple like that, but at the same time, it's extremely complex.
05:17What inspired me is really this idea of telling something that belongs to me,
05:22something that I have experienced.
05:24And the fact that I was born in Morocco, that I grew up in Morocco,
05:27it gives me a certain strength,
05:29or at least a certain seat,
05:31I'm not going to say an authenticity,
05:34but what I say about Nasl Rewind, about Gnawa culture, for example,
05:38and about Om Kaltoum, about the Arab world and Arab music,
05:43it's also a way for me to say that I am both plural,
05:49I am plural, both Arab, African, French, European,
05:53and my story, it makes me special,
05:56and it is at the same time, perhaps, general.
06:00I also believe that we could tell a lot more with the body,
06:06if we allowed ourselves to use the body on stage,
06:11without shame and without prevention.
06:15It is a noble art, the choreographic art.
06:22A noble art that is a bit in the logical sequence of what we are,
06:27the body is the first to betray us,
06:29when we lie, the body never lies, the eyes never lie.
06:35You give these letters of nobility to this art, which is magnificent.
06:38Moreover, you have at this very moment a show,
06:41a new show called Up,
06:43where there is the meeting between the violin and the ball,
06:46and there are also these totally unexpected meetings,
06:48but that you manage to merge.
06:50Can you introduce us to this new show?
06:54Up is the meeting between a champion of freestyle football,
06:59which is a new discipline, which was born a few years ago,
07:02and which is top 8 in France and top 40 worldwide,
07:06and a violinist out of place, a violin prodigy,
07:10who can play sitting down, who can play standing up,
07:12who can play lying down on the side, even on the head.
07:14It is a challenge for me to bring together these two arts,
07:18which are apparently totally opposite.
07:20The ball, for the popular aspect,
07:22I, who love football,
07:24there was something very poetic about this ball,
07:27and at the same time very popular,
07:29and it took something to make it even more poetic.
07:32I found in the violin, which I also love to hear,
07:36to listen to, which is also part of my Arab culture,
07:38to love.
07:40For me, the violin, for me and for many people,
07:43it symbolizes this somewhat learned culture,
07:47or in any case, it is very, very far from the ball.
07:52Since I'm a bit of a pervert, I thought,
07:54well, I tried this meeting between these two instruments,
07:59the ball and the violin,
08:01and in fact it worked,
08:03it gave something very special.
08:05And we had our residence recently,
08:08just before Ramadan,
08:10at the end of February,
08:12at the Riyadh Sultan in Tangier.
08:14A little hello to Zubir,
08:16who welcomed us in wonderful conditions.
08:18And this piece is meant to be played
08:21both in the hall and outside
08:23to concern all audiences.
08:25And I hope to do a little tour in Morocco,
08:27a big tour in Morocco
08:29as part of the African Nations Cup.
08:33And is there, there is this project
08:35to do a tour, and before we leave,
08:37is there the idea, perhaps,
08:39of another show?
08:41Do you perhaps think of something else at the moment?
08:45So, currently,
08:47for the tours,
08:49for the tours of my shows,
08:51there is Oum, tribute to Oum Keltoum,
08:53Nas, tribute to Nas Lerouane,
08:55Feu, tribute to my mother,
08:57reference to the house and the home.
08:59It's a bit caricatural, but it's a reality.
09:01And Yes, a duo
09:03that is currently being played in Calais,
09:05which is made only of percussion
09:07and whistling.
09:09There is not a single musical note,
09:11the only musical note on the set
09:13are them, these two prodigious dancers.
09:15And the next two creations,
09:18I work a year or two in advance,
09:20are the electric birds.
09:22It's a piece
09:24taken from
09:26an illustrated story,
09:28from an illustrated novel.
09:30That's it.
09:32It's called the electric birds.
09:34I invite you to go and see
09:36what it is on the Internet.
09:38And a next great form,
09:40what is called a great form,
09:42that is, with a lot of dancers,
09:44running 26 and 27,
09:46martial arts.
09:48I can't say more
09:50than I'm writing.
09:52But it's a piece of a group
09:54with a lot of acrobatics,
09:56a lot of action,
09:58a lot of physical performance.
10:00Always so effervescent.
10:02It's true that it's a pleasure.
10:04In any case, thank you,
10:06Fouad, for being with us.
10:08It was a real pleasure to receive you.
10:10Thank you again.
10:12Thank you very much.
11:15Considered as one of the founding texts
11:17of contemporary African literature,
11:19this work, largely autobiographical,
11:21published by the Maison d'Edition Plon,
11:23won the Charve Veillon 1954 prize.
11:25We are in Paris,
11:27in 1953.
11:29L'Enfant Noir is the first novel
11:31by Kamara Lai.
11:37The book tells of Lai's childhood
11:39in the 1930s.
11:41A young boy who lives with his parents in Kourousa,
11:43Guinea.
11:45His father, the forger of the village,
11:47teaches him the techniques of his art
11:49in order to succeed him.
11:51Lai discovers peasantry
11:53with his grandmother
11:55who lives in a neighboring village.
11:57He goes to French school
11:59and after obtaining his certificate
12:01of professional aptitude in Conakry,
12:03Lai is offered the opportunity
12:05to continue his studies in France.
12:07Kamara Lai is 25 years old
12:09when he writes this autobiographical story.
12:11It quickly becomes an essential classic
12:13for those who love literature in general
12:15and this true masterpiece of African literature
12:17is even studied in schools.
12:19The book was so successful
12:21that it won the Charve Veillon 1954 prize
12:23and was adapted into cinema
12:25by director Laurent Chevalier.
12:27Thus, the film L'Enfant Noir,
12:29freely adapted from the homonymous novel,
12:31was released in France in 1995.
12:33The book was also adapted
12:35into comics by Kamara Onzumana
12:37in 2010.
12:39It must be said that the main audacity
12:41of the author in this novel
12:43is the fact that he displays
12:45his imagination.
12:47He signs a real rupture
12:49with the realistic register
12:51that characterized African literature
12:53of the 20th century.
12:55The rupture claimed by the author
12:57is so radical,
12:59especially with his own style
13:01in his first novel,
13:03L'Enfant Noir,
13:05that some have advanced
13:07in a rather allegorical and parodic way,
13:09the adventures of a European
13:11committed to the great paths
13:13of Africa in an initiatory quest.
13:15For the historian and literary critic
13:17Boniface Mangombousset,
13:19it is this choice of the European protagonist
13:21under the pen of an African author
13:23that poses a problem.
13:25For the first time, a white man is set
13:27in a very disobliging position
13:29and this is one of the reasons
13:31why this book is very disturbing.
13:33Guinea, the first African country
13:35to emancipate itself from colonial France,
13:37obtained its independence in 1958
13:39and Ahmed Sekou Touré is elected president.
13:41Kamara Lai is the first ambassador
13:43of his country to Ghana.
13:45He then occupies various posts outside Ghana
13:47before returning to Conakry,
13:49where he works for the Department of Economic Agreements
13:51then as director of the National Institute
13:53of Research and Documentation.
13:55Kamara Lai is more and more often in conflict
13:57with the policies of the regime of President
13:59Ahmed Sekou Touré and he is imprisoned
14:01before fleeing with his family in Cote d'Ivoire
14:03before settling in Senegal
14:05where he works for the Fundamental Institute of Black Africa
14:07IFAN, a research institute
14:09based in Dakar and which succeeded
14:11the French Institute of Black Africa.
14:13His book is timeless.
14:15In this same register, we find the book
14:17Amkoulel, L'Enfant Peul by Amadou Mbathéba
14:19published in 1991, which tells him
14:21about his childhood in Mali.
14:23Kamara Lai's last book,
14:25Le Maître de la Parole, published in 1978,
14:27is a transcription of the epic of Sundiata,
14:29an oral epic dedicated to Sundiata Keïta,
14:31the Mwandeng Emperor, who died in 1255.
14:35Kamara Abdoulaye died on February 4, 1980
14:37in Dakar.
14:41The director Laurent Chevalier
14:43will make a film, a cinematographic adaptation
14:45of L'Enfant Noir.
14:47The young baba in age to do his studies
14:49crosses the whole Guinea to go to Conakry.
14:51He is then caught in the spiral of urban life
14:53and receives the modern world
14:55and its violence.
14:57Another life then begins.
14:59This film is a story of exile,
15:01the one that every man lives
15:03who separates from his childhood.
15:05A cinematographic tribute to Kamara Lai.
15:07The characters are a little special
15:09in this film because they are not professional actors.
15:11They are characters that I met
15:13there, on the spot, in Guinea.
15:15And it turns out that L'Enfant Noir
15:17is the adaptation of a novel
15:19written by a Guinean writer
15:21called Kamara Lai, who has died
15:23now for a while
15:25and who wrote his childhood memories.
15:27His childhood memories take place
15:29in Kourousa, a village at the top of Guinea.
15:31And when I went to Kourousa
15:33to explain the project,
15:35the idea of adapting the book to cinema,
15:37I ended up meeting his own family
15:39because he always has
15:41six brothers who live there
15:43who are mechanics, educators, peasants,
15:45taxi drivers, very simple people.
15:47And when I explained the project
15:49they made me understand
15:51with a lot of insistence
15:53that it was their story,
15:55the story of L'Enfant Noir.
15:57Even if I didn't want to reconstruct the book
15:59because the film is not a historical reconstruction.
16:01The book is written in 1953.
16:03So it's Guinea
16:05from the 1920s or 1930s.
16:07It's been almost a century.
16:09And so I had to put everyone back
16:11in their period costumes,
16:13I remove the television antennas.
16:15It's a complicated cinema that requires a lot of means.
16:17And I proposed to them to do a much simpler adaptation
16:19and a contemporary adaptation.
16:21That is, to take the same story,
16:23which is the story of a child
16:25whose father decides to send his child to the city
16:27to study and later become
16:29the support of the family.
16:31It's a story of exile, of exile lived by a child
16:33who leaves his village and discovers
16:35the great city of Conakry.
16:41And we continue with Katanga,
16:43the dance of scorpions.
16:45Aureole de l'étalon d'or by Yenenga
16:47at the FESPACO 2025.
16:49The new film, Offrencio Burkina Faso,
16:51has been the first étalon d'or for 28 years.
16:53A fairly faithful adaptation of the tragedy
16:55of Macbeth by William Shakespeare.
16:57But we renew the reading here
16:59by the deliberate choice to treat it,
17:01to treat this film as a tale
17:03in a reasonably African setting.
17:05Of course, we radically change the outcome.
17:07We look together at the extract
17:09from the trailer.
17:21This is the story of a child
17:23whose father decides to send his child
17:25to the city of Conakry
17:27to study and later become
17:29the support of the family.
17:31It's a story of exile, of exile lived by a child
17:33who leaves his village and discovers
17:35the great city of Conakry.
17:37And we continue with Katanga,
17:39the dance of scorpions.
17:41Aureole de l'étalon d'or by Yenenga
17:43at the FESPACO 2025.
17:45The new film, Offrencio Burkina Faso,
17:47has been the first étalon d'or
17:49in the history of Conakry.
18:49I'm going to kill you.
18:51I'm going to kill you.
18:53I'm going to kill you.
18:57I'm going to kill you.
18:59I'm going to kill you.
19:01I'm going to kill you.
19:03I'm going to kill you.
19:05Katanga, the dance of scorpions.
19:07The film strikes with relevance
19:09and above all, the originality of its choices.
19:11First, by the black and white
19:13that are out of time,
19:15although they are rooted in the present
19:17and have been people in Africa
19:19and in the world.
19:21Danny Kouyaté, the director,
19:23even has fun with objects from the present.
19:25A parabolic lantern,
19:274Ls, Kalashnikovs,
19:29motorcycles or tricycles
19:31that allow today to transport
19:33everything to Burkina,
19:35while covering its characters
19:37in traditional clothes and appearance,
19:39which also adopts gestural.
19:41While he had shot in Dioula,
19:43his adaptation of a text by the Mauritanian author
19:45of the dream of the python.
19:47He also translates Shakespeare into Moray,
19:49which is not his native language,
19:51but he was able to speak in Burkina.
19:53The Moray is so rich in image
19:55that Shakespeare starts to glide.
19:57That's what people say.
19:59The designers of the subtitles
20:01must have had cold sweats.
20:03So the symbolism of the proverbs
20:05is difficult to make and summarize.
20:07That's what the director says,
20:09especially since Shakespeare
20:11liked to let the comedy
20:13flow.
20:15And on the occasion of the
20:17African Book Fair 2025,
20:19which honors this year
20:21Cameroonian literature,
20:23Max Lobé,
20:25native of Cameroon,
20:27this 30-year-old novelist
20:29from the new literary generation
20:31of this country,
20:33makes heard in his new novel
20:35a poetic voice punctuated
20:37with tranquility.
20:39And his unwavering identity
20:41of this novel,
20:43the writer likes to say
20:45that his literary vocation
20:47was born by discovering
20:49the works of his compatriot
20:51Kailishté Beyala,
20:53whom he has read and re-read
20:55the beautiful and great feminist story
20:57Les Honneurs Perdus.
20:59So he doesn't know how many times
21:01for him the click came in 2009
21:03when he won the prestigious
21:05Sorger Prize for one of his first
21:07novels, which he had sent
21:09to me.
21:11I realized that my words
21:13could touch people.
21:15This is what the novelist remembers.
21:17Since then, he has not stopped writing,
21:19gaining in maturity from book to book
21:21and becoming aware of the challenges
21:23of his literature.
21:25Seven novels later,
21:27every time he speaks to say
21:29why he writes, he is overwhelmed
21:31by a flow of emotion that strangles
21:33his voice. He says,
21:35you ask me why I write.
21:37La danse des perles,
21:39the last work of Max Lobé,
21:41is also a literary learning novel
21:43that evokes, through the pages
21:45dedicated to Mango Betti,
21:47a master of thought, but also
21:49to James Baldwin, Franz Fanon
21:51and others.
21:53Let's listen to Max Lobé.
21:55I am inspired by my gaze
21:57on the Cameroonian population
21:59in the streets, whether it is
22:01villages or cities of Cameroon.
22:03I am inspired by all this material
22:05to be able to write a novel.
22:07After a number of years
22:09abroad,
22:11I go through a period
22:13of questioning.
22:15A period of identity crisis.
22:17I ask myself,
22:19am I Cameroonian?
22:21What makes me a Cameroonian?
22:23Because I am convinced
22:25that it is not because we are
22:27born in a country that we are necessarily
22:29from this country.
22:31What makes me a Cameroonian?
22:33And I decide to go home
22:35after a good ten years
22:37abroad.
22:39And as I am
22:41looking for this identity,
22:43I say to myself,
22:45without a doubt,
22:47I should look
22:49into the history of Cameroon.
22:51And there, I realize
22:53that I shouldn't go too far.
22:55Because only a few years ago,
22:57in the 1950s, many people
22:59who will listen to us were already born.
23:01There was what we call
23:03the Great War of Independence of Cameroon.
23:05I hate the term independence
23:07because it is so complicated.
23:09There is nothing that is really independent
23:11of what happened.
23:13So in the war of liberation of Cameroon
23:15in the 1950s,
23:17I didn't know much about this war.
23:19It had been hidden.
23:21I discovered it in Europe.
23:23I read hundreds of documents
23:25about it.
23:27And I decided to start
23:29looking for
23:31what is left of Cameroon
23:33on the traces of
23:35the mentor, the leader
23:37of the war of independence of Cameroon,
23:39Ruben Umi-Obe.
23:41The dance of the fathers,
23:43Max Lobé, on the occasion of
23:45the African book
23:47that honors Cameroon this year.
23:49We are coming to the end of African culture.
23:51Thank you again
23:53for being with us.
23:55See you next week.
23:57Bye-bye.