triple encounter

Avignon Festival: 3 artists, 3 disciplines, 3 origins in search of balance

Ludmilla Dabo, Franck AliMbaye Blade and Ashtar Muallem during the salute of the show "It's only a question of balance", presented at the Jardin de la Vierge of the Lycée Saint-Joseph at the Avignon Festival.

© Siegfried Forster / RFI

Text by: Siegfried Forster Follow

4 mins

In "It's only a question of balance", the versatile artists Ludmilla Dabo, Blade AliMbaye and Ashtar Muallem seek their balance: each for himself and all together.

A text and a staging by Ludmilla Dabo, presented in the form of a very inspiring performance, deliberately unbalanced and in a free style, presented as part of “Vive le sujet!

at the Avignon Festival.

A triple encounter.

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There is the actress (and singer, director, author and follower of Afro-Americanism) Ludmilla Dabo.

She is accompanied on stage by the beat boxer (and rapper, singer, actor, dancer and Franco-Senegalese poet) Blade AliMBaye.

And the tightrope walker (and actress, contortionist, aerial fabric specialist and Franco-Palestinian multidisciplinary artist) Ashtar Muallem completes this trio marked by counterpoint.

RFI

Ludmilla Dabo

We're talking about inner balances, balances that we have in the body, balances that we don't always manage to balance inside ourselves.

Scales which are confronted with other external scales, with the scales of others.

And how to confront or welcome them?

And then balances of sounds, of voices.

How three voices resonate and meet?

How do three bodies attempt together to form a whole?

How do you find uniqueness or unity in a place where you often feel pushed around?

How to try to find meaning in our bodies, our voices, together.

Ludmilla Dabo created the text, the staging and her character in "It's only a question of balances", presented at the Festival d'Avignon 2022. © Siegfried Forster / RFI

As a rapper, beat boxer, singer, comedian, dancer and poet, what balance do you evoke on stage

Blade AliMBaye

The balance of the search for bodies, of balance, of such internal questioning, of the discernment that we can have vis-à-vis ourselves and that of others.

Balances that respond to and seek each other confirm that, together, we inevitably manage to find a semblance of balance.

The particularity of the show consists for me in creating music in a spontaneous, natural way, with looper systems [to repeat a musical sequence in a loop and live, Editor's note], and essentially by voice.

This allows you to create instability with something that is not premeditated or pre-programmed, thus creating an instant that can give rise to an imbalance.  

"It's only a question of scales", the rapper, beat boxer, comedian, Franco-Senegalese poet Blade AliMBaye at the Festival d'Avignon 2022. © Siegfried Forster / RFI

In the play, you practice aerial silks and contortion, but you are also a dancer, actress and author.

What was the challenge for you in this story of scales

Ashtar Muallem

We talk about balance in our life, in our lives.

Everyone brings the balance and imbalance they feel into their life.

In this proposal, we are three.

So I talk about the imbalance I feel between my life in France and in Palestine where my parents live, where I was born and I grew up.

I talk about the imbalance that I feel or the balance that I find, traveling between these two places, these two cultures, these two languages, between solitude and being surrounded by people and playing in front of people, and then being alone a long time later.

The specificity of this show is that there was a real sharing in the creation.

I come from the world of circus and dance.

I have always worked with my body and I was able to share that with Ludmilla and Blade.

Ludmilla shared vocal and singing exercises with us, Blade shared rhythm exercises with us.

So everyone brought something out of their luggage and put it on the table.

We were really able to taste different elements and share our knowledge and put it together so that it really shows the exchange and the crossing that we made together.

"It's only a matter of balance", the Franco-Palestinian multidisciplinary artist Ashtar Muallem at the Festival d'Avignon 2022. © Siegfried Forster / RFI

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