At the Francophonies, Odile Sankara advocates the reign of women and beauty
Burkinabè director Odile Sankara presented the premiere of her play "And my reign is coming" at the Zébrures d'automne des Francophonies in Limoges.
© Christophe Pean
Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow
7 mins
“
The strength of women is rooted in values.
"At the Les Zébrures d'automne des Francophonies festival in Limoges, Burkinabè director Odile Sankara offers us a powerful and joyful interpretation of the literary manifesto for women in Africa," And that my reign is coming ", by the great Cameroonian writer Léonora Miano.
A creation wonderfully inhabited on the set of the CCM Jean Gagnant by three powerful actresses and an ingenious man.
Maintenance.
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RFI
:
And let my reign arrive
stages the reign of the feminine.
For you, what is at stake today is the reign of women
?
Odile Sankara
:
Yes, that's what is at stake.
It's not so much that women occupy the place.
It is not a question of the female sex, but of the female energy, everything that women wear: education, transmission… They occupy the strong links of a long chain.
For this, it is necessary to restore the feminine energy to the societal and political place for the organization of things.
The play often speaks of feminine strength. What force is it
?
It is a force anchored in very deep societal and cultural values which do not date from today.
As mentioned in the play, in the history of humanity, we have had strong women, especially in Africa, warrior women, Amazons, priestesses, everyday women who have carried our societies.
For this, the text tells us: "
let us educate our daughters
!"
», Because it is the woman who carries the plinth.
It is in the center.
In the show, there is a bar called “
Le choc du futur
”, run by a young man, a charmer as dynamic as he is troubled by the new balance of power that is emerging between men and women.
What is the role of man in all of this change
?
I call him the man in the service of women [laughs].
Just kidding.
We are not in a conflict between the male and female sexes.
The text says it: “
we made the wrong fight
”.
In the question of the emancipation of women, there were also decoys.
Let's not get the wrong fight!
The essential thing is to be able to summon the place of women to the place of our societies so that women help with political and societal organization.
It is important.
For me, these are simply questions of education and transmission.
"And let my reign come", a production by Odile Sankara from a text by Cameroonian Leonora Miano, creation at the Francophonies 2021 in Limoges.
© Christophe Pean
Why are you warning us not to confuse this fight with a “
planetary sorority
”
?
In the planetary sorority, the debate is not the same.
In Africa, the struggle of women is not the same.
Even if, everywhere, the glance which one poses on the woman - emancipated or not, of developed or advanced countries, rich or poor - is always the same: it is the sex considered as "weak" and there are words. to qualify it.
In this case, we, in Africa, the woman - whatever her level of education, her social rank, her status - she knows that she is already bringing society to the family place.
It is she who brings the family, the man, the children in the question of education, of organization.
For a society and for humanity, it is important to be able to entrust the reins of life to women.
The text for your show was written by Léonora Miano. What do you like the most about the way he writes
?
I appreciate the elegance of the language.
She can say the most painful things.
She can be against the revolt - and she is permanently vis-à-vis a certain number of questions which undermine us today -, but she says it with elegance and with pride.
She chooses words that she can make heard so that the other can hear them, even if it is conflictual.
His words are like Aimé Césaire.
Cesaire was the most rebellious of all his generation, but he carried his struggle into poetry.
With Léonora, it's the same.
She carries her fight in the tongue so that everyone can hear her and be at the place of the fight.
In your staging, elegance, intelligence, poetry and rage prevent neither seduction nor humor. You even happily use music and dance to bring Léonora Miano's text to life.
For me, this is important. They are theatrical arts and the theater is the place where you can summon all the other arts at the same time on the set. I also wanted there to be powerful women, beautiful powerful actresses like Safourata Kaboré and Florisse Adjanohoun. And I wanted to show the beauty. With the conflict and the revolt, with the pain that we carry within us, we must not forget the beauty. Today, contemporary tragedy has obstructed beauty. On a daily basis, we no longer see beauty, although it is everywhere, it surrounds us. In our environment, on each of us, there is beauty, there is light, but there are issues that extinguish that light. Me, I wanted there to be beauty and poetry on the set.
Burkinabè director Odile Sankara (surrounded by her team) after the premiere of her play “And that my kingdom is coming” at the Zébrures d'automne des Francophonies in Limoges.
© Siegfried Forster / RFI
The text and the staging are also a tribute to women in Africa. You have been in this fight for women in theater for a long time, as a founding member of the Talents de femmes association or as co-organizer of the festival La Voix des Femmes. Has the situation of women in theater improved in Burkina Faso and in the other countries of the African continent
?
Often we move forward while retreating. There are a lot of things that undermine us, women artists. We carry a family and if we are married, we carry the husband at arm's length. We will take care of the children, etc. But, today, there is a social transformation that women have won politically. We won struggles. More women come into art, more confirmed women. Before, they came, but it evaporated very quickly in nature. Today, there are women who remain, over time, and assert themselves in art. Léonora Miano, like other women, is a model who aroused vocations. Me, I have a lot of hope. I see it in Burkina. We were lucky with Thomas Sankara [
the former Burkinabè Prime Minister and icon of the left in Africa, of which Odile Sankara is the younger sister, editor's note
], this galvanized us, because he had really brought women to a fairly noble level.
Today we have that heritage.
In any case, in French-speaking Africa, things are moving a lot.
You are president of Récréâtrales, the largest theater festival in Burkina Faso. Present the premiere of your play
And may my reign arrive
at the Zébrures d'Automne des Francophonies in Limoges, France, what does that mean to you?
For me, it's a showcase.
I know the Francophonies well.
I have already played there as an actress.
There, I come as a director.
It is not the same posture.
I speak differently, from start to finish.
It's important to be able to feed your thoughts and to confront them with others, to meet an audience that is receptive.
This allows us to move forward and to question ourselves.
► To read also:
Les Francophonies 2021: “What place for francophone creation in France?”
►
And let my reign come
, text by Léonora Miano, directed by Odile Sankara.
Premiered at the Les Zébrures d'automne 2021 festival at the Francophonies in Limousin, France.
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