The colonial history of the Congo told and sung by "Congo Jazz Band"
“Congo Jazz Band”, the colonial history of Congo written by Mohamed Kacimi and directed by Hassane Kouyaté, at the French-speaking festival Les Zébrures d'Automne in Limoges.
© Christophe Péan
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
12 mins
This is the flagship show of this 37th edition of the Francophonies Festival in Limoges.
Punctuated by Congolese rumba and terrifying stories told as if to a friend, “Congo Jazz Band”, written by Mohamed Kacimi and directed by Hassane Kouyaté, brings out in two hours a century of the colonial history of the Congo.
Surprisingly simple, with a catchy rhythm, the piece exceeds all expectations.
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“
They shared the world / nothing surprises me anymore
”.
The morning after waking up, the day after the show, the song heard the day before came back, and the whole piece with ... This is perhaps the genius of
Congo Jazz Band
, to share this scary story with artistic joy and through the vibrations of stories, voices and bodies.
It is far from the first play on the terrifying colonial era of the Congo.
In 2013, as the first African artist-associate of the Avignon Festival, the Congolese author, actor and director Dieudonné Niangouna presented
Shéda
, a grandiose five-hour epic, nourished by artistic madness, but at the same time 'an acrobatic and incomprehensible accuracy.
Exhibit B
, by South African Brett Bailey, a theatrical installation in twelve tableaux vivants denouncing the horrors of the colonial system, had first been applauded before being labeled, at the end of its world tour, by some opponents as racist.
A few years later, the Congolese writer Julien Mabiala Bissila and the Congolese choreographer DeLaVallet Bidiefono made the words and the evils of colonial history dance in
Trans ...
The rhythm of Congolese rumba and colonial history
Hassane Kouyaté
admits not having seen any of this.
To create his piece
Congo Jazz Band
for the Zébrures d'Automne 2020 in Limoges, the Burkinabè griot, director and director of the festival, drew on his own cultural riches to arrive at a piece unlike any other - where men dance and the women keep their hands on the guitars and percussions: “
We tried to use music, more particularly the Congolese rumba and to combine several types of theater
: the kotéba theater, the Western classical theater, and like thread a technicality of narrator and storyteller That's it.
"
Mohamed Kacimi
wrote the text allowing to tell on stage in two hours a century of colonization in Congo.
The Algerian-born writer, translator and playwright and one of the most prolific contemporary French-speaking authors, is known for his ability to take a very lucid look at colonial history: “
The most difficult thing is was both to condense and not to make a documentary play, that is, an assemblage of documents or archives.
And that the play is neither an indictment nor a history lesson, but a play in the theatrical sense of the term.
"
The king of the Belgians Léopold II (Criss Niangouna) and Henry Stanley (Abdon Fortuné Koumbha), the explorer and official representative of Leopold II in the Congo in “Congo Jazz Band”.
© Christophe Péan
Leopold II, King of the Belgians, loves leeks and "
hates Africans
"
For the staging of this very complex colonial story, Hassane Kouyaté has chosen to tell everything practically from a single character: Leopold II, brilliantly played by the Congolese actor Criss Niangouna.
The King of the Belgians acceded to the throne in 1865 and created in 1885 the independent state of the Congo, the start of the atrocities committed during Congolese colonial history.
How to tell the story of this country, eighty times the size of Belgium, without risking being simplistic?
“
Keeping it simple is the most complicated.
We didn't want to put on a show that made you feel guilty or accused.
There has been a great deal of historical research.
We wanted a show that puts a piece of history on the public square which is, in this case, the theater.
"
After seeing the play, no one will be able to say that they did not understand the colonial history of the Congo.
Among other things, it is the story of King Leopold II, presented as a man who "
loves leeks in white wine
" and "
hates Africans
".
He never set foot in Africa, but persisted and managed to have his own colony, recognized as the Congo Free State at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85.
The madness of a king and the tragic fate of the Congo
Mohamed Macimi painted the portrait of this king-child who had the Congolese 'hands cut off when the production of ivory or rubber was deemed insufficient.
At the end of his reign, the King of the Belgians burned all documents on his private domain, the Congo.
Leopold II, named by Mark Twain
"the king with ten million dead on his conscience"
, did everything to escape his responsibility during colonization.
“
This mad king absolutely wanted a colony -
like a child would want a toy.
He used one of the biggest countries in Africa like a kid would do with a darling.
So, it was necessary to live and give substance to this character, to tell through the madness of this king the tragic fate of the Congo.
"
So that the spectators do not drop out in the face of the crimes and cruelties reported, Mohamed Kacimi even allowed himself to alternate atrocious stories with various facts, very revealing of the state of mind of King Leopold II.
“
Behind this fact of insisting on intimate life, there is always the concern to escape generalities and great history lessons.
The play had to stick as closely as possible to the tragedy, to the personality, to the flaws of the great actors in this story.
Hence the need to tell from the inside what is happening with this king who is the unhappiness of a people.
And to tell what are his misfortunes.
It may seem infinitesimal or anecdotal, but it is an essential counterpoint to the tragedy experienced by the Congolese.
This tragedy of a king is the misfortune of a people.
At the end of his life, he squandered all his fortune he had amassed in Congo, the equivalent of more than a billion dollars, for a young prostitute who was his junior by 60 years.
"
Hassane Kouyaté directed “Congo Jazz Band”, a piece written by Mohamed Kacimi at the French-speaking festival Les Zébrures d'Automne, in Limoges.
© Siegfried Forster / RFI
"
I have the impression that there is a void
"
All the facts around the king are so incredible and all the crimes brought up in the play so unimaginable that the storyteller repeatedly feels compelled to confirm the veracity of the facts exposed.
For Hassane Kouyaté, sixty years after the independence of the Congo, the colonial history of this country 80 times the size of Belgium, is still neither truly known nor assumed:
“
To embrace this story, you first have to know it.
We hardly know this story.
Those who know it globally, they know that there was a king in Belgium who colonized the Congo and that there were deaths.
We don't know the details.
If, me, I decide today to make this story on a theater set, it is because I have the impression, at my humble level, that there is a void from this point of view.
We don't listen to our stories enough.
And I think that our living together, which is more and more complicated, also comes from that.
We do not know the how or the why of things that happen to us or that we undergo today.
If we ask our story, if we look it in the eye, the familiarity, without complacency and without being a slave either, I think that our living together will be better and we could better understand the future together.
"
"
In Africa, music is enforceable
"
How do you make events from another century understandable for today's audience?
Congo Jazz Band is
hiring a “special correspondent” for a live news channel to tell us “live” - between the weather forecast and an ad page - what is happening “on the spot” during the colonial era of Congo.
She does not tell us about the Kouachi brothers, but about a Maxime machine gun, not about the Bataclan massacre, but about the severed hands of the Congolese, "guilty" of not having worked enough for the King of the Belgians.
"
It is to say
: it is not in the past.
It is still very current.
"
The decisive element for the success of the show remains the music, especially the Congolese hits (
Mario
by Franco Luambo Ndzembella,
L'Esclave
by Papa Wemba,
Les Immortels
by Franklin Boukaka, until
Independence cha cha
by Grand Kallé and l'African Jazz), performed on stage by musicians and actors.
The texts and translations of these legendary songs are even distributed to spectators.
“
It's to share things that are fundamental to us
: the music and what it says.
Music, in Africa, and Congo in particular, is enforceable.
If we didn't have it, I think we were all gonna shoot each other.
This is something very important for the life and survival of people in Africa.
We wanted to share that with the spectators.
"
The writer Mohamed Kacimi wrote the play “Congo Jazz Band”, directed by Hassane Kouyaté at the franocphone festival Les Zébrures d'Automne, in Limoges.
© Siegfried Forster / RFI
Congo, an exception or emblematic for colonial history
?
The play remains focused on the colonial history of the Congo, but also evokes
the genocide suffered by the Heroes and Namas
during the German colonial period in Namibia, the crimes perpetrated by the English in South Africa or those by
the French in Algeria
.
Should we consider the madness of the King of the Belgians in the Congo as an exception or an emblematic case of the colonial era?
“
The idea was to do a play on colonization,”
says Mohamed Kacimi.
The Congo, from the disaster caused by Leopold II and with what he still lives today, crystallizes and symbolizes all the colonial violence made by Europe against African countries and Asian countries from the nineteenth century.
I didn't want Belgium to appear like the ugly duckling that committed all the excesses and all the abuses in the Congo.
Hence the need to specify at a given point in the play that Belgium is not the only culprit of these colonial abuses.
"
"
The public is already asking for a sequel
"
Congo Jazz Band
remains in the colonial era, does not speak of claims for compensation, the restitution of African works, to rename the avenue Leopold II in Paris or the
“
deep regrets
”
expressed in June 2020 by King Philippe, a first in Belgian history, for the colonial past.
The apotheosis of the show will be musical: an a capella song by Alvie Bitemo.
The show ends with the vision and disillusionment of
Patrice Lumumba
, the first democratically elected African head of state, assassinated on January 17, 1961. Will there soon be a sequel to
Congo Jazz Band
?
“
As we progressed in this work, we felt a need to continue this story,
admits Hassane Kouyaté
.
The public is also already asking us for a sequel.
Today, we want to fully experience the adventure of this show.
Then we'll see what's possible.
"
Singer and actress Alvie Bitemo in the “Congo Jazz Band” show at the French-speaking festival Les Zébrures d'Automne, in Limoges.
© Siegfried Forster / RFI
►
To (re) listen: De Vive (s) vocals: “Congo Jazz Band” at the Zébrures d'Automne Festival in Limoges
►
The Zébrures d'Automne program, Francophonies festival, September 23 to October 3 in Limoges, France.
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"Congo Jazz Band" at the Zébrures d'Automne Festival in Limoges
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