Author: testpress

Posted on

Festival Buja sans Tabou

Festival Buja sans Tabou

17.02. – 23.02.2020

Performances of Mister Time, Ta O’Reva & Point Zero in Bujumbura, Burundi

Performance of Mister Time

Performance of Ta O’Reva

Performance of Point Zero

Posted on

Festival Buja sans Tabou

Festival Buja sans Tabou

17.02. – 23.02.2020

Photo exhibition in the public space of Bujumbura, Burundi, with works by Lebohang Kganye, Sarah Waiswa and Aboubacar Traore

Aboubacar Traoré
Aboubacar Traore
Sara Waiswa
Sara Waiswa
Lebohang Kganye
Lebohang Kganye

 

Posted on

Time Multiplied – excerpts of the play TA O’REVA by Thokozani Kapiri

Time Multiplied – excerpts of the play TA O’REVA by Thokozani Kapiri 

Setting

The family witnessed the time of Johannesburg becoming apocalyptic to the point that people became more like shadows, faceless, identyless, shadow images. The sun is not clear, blurred … climate change, polluted air … its smoggy … not easy to breath … . time looks the same, day and night are the same. They have escaped to the north towards central Africa to a place called Nyasaland (where the environment has not yet become destructive). They are epidemic, violence, war and climate change refugees. In this night of the theatre as installation we get to hear and witness part of their memory in fragmented scenes.


One at a time…

Mother: “Time is confusing…”
Grandmother: “Time does not change ….People change”
Girl: “Time is what you make it….”
Grandfather: “There is no Time….Things happen, the distance in between ….Slaves of Time”
Girl: “I exist in Time”
Youngman: “Time will tell…Time is a voice”


Fragment 5

The Youngman: 2014 – Race riots spiral out of control across South Africa;
Girl: 2017- A cargo of hazardous bio-chemicals disappears from Port of Durban.
Girl: 2018- South Africans start dying from an unknown disease; Number of reported deaths: 832
Mother: 2019- The unknown disease is discovered to be an engineered airbor bio-agent;
It is named after patient-zero, Johnnie de Villiers – a white far Parts of South Africa are quarantined; Number of fatalities: 9264.
Grandmother: 2021- WHO declares the Villiers Contagion “incurable”. Military–enforced quarantine remains in force; Number of fatalities: 133,887.
Grandfather: 2023 -First case outside quarantine zones reported at OR Tambo Air WHO initiates the ‘Jié lǐ kē’ cordon to prevent global spread; Over one million SA refugees migrate to neighboring countries The remnant start a new civilization in the city sewers; Number of fatalities: Data Collection Discontinued;
The Youngman: 2024- South Africa is cordoned off indefinitely.
Girl: 2029- Growing anti-South African pressure forces hosting countries initiate ‘The Deportation’ program; Remaining South African refugees go into hiding; Human consciousness is digitized and touted the greatest achievement in Science;
Girl: 2045- The Singularity has occurred. Man and technology have become one;
Digitized human consciousness can now be uploaded into clones called Incarnates;
Man can now live forever;
Mother: 2052 – 2101 Time travel is invented and is an instrument of South African refugee-resistance army; The first time traveler is sent back to change the past; he disappears without a trace.

***************


Fragment 8

Oldman: “What are you?! What’s going on?”
Stranger: “I mean you no harm.”
Oldman: “Why do you look like me?”
Stranger: “I can help you, but I need you to calm down…I am an Incarnate. A clone synthesized off your likeness. We are currently in a virtual reality designed to help your imprint – you – merge with my operating system.”
Oldman: “Imprint?”
Stranger: “You are an imprint of your former self. Your consciousness has been uploaded in this virtual reality we are in now. For you to exist outside of this world, you must merge with my operating system so you inhabit my body.”
Oldman: “But….. I remember dying.”
Stranger: “Your body died, but your mind, your consciousness, lives forever.”
Oldman: “Why? What is it you want with me?”
Stranger: “Do you know who you are? (silence)…That’s a result of your fragmented imprint. You will remember everything eventually. But I need you to focus.”
Oldman: “On what? …Is that me?”
Stranger: “Yes.”
Oldman: “What is that chant? What does it mean?”
Stranger: “Language has deteriorated so much here we can’t decipher what it means.”
Oldman: “What are they doing?”
Stranger: “Focus. Try to remember. Concentrate. It will come to you.”
Oldman: “I remember this place. What happened here?”
Stranger: “The bodies you see are the infected who succumbed to the contagion,”
Oldman: “Infected?”
Stranger: “A disease called the Villiers Contagion will wipe out most of South Africa. Many will seek refuge in neighboring countries because of it. The remnant within the cities lives in the sewers.”
Oldman: “Why are you showing me this?”
Stranger: “All I am allowed to tell you is that only you can change this.”
Oldman: “Me? Why me?”
Stranger: “That is for you to find out. Will you merge with me?”
Oldman: “What if I refuse?”
Stranger: “Then I will leave you here where you will always be reminded of what you could have changed.”
Oldman: “Take me away from here. Please.”

Grandmother: Merging initiated.

***************

back

Posted on

Travelling through Time – excerpt of the play Mister Time by Noël Minoungou

Aboubacar Traore

Travelling through Time – excerpt of the play  Mister Time by Noël Minoungou

Scène 7

Time :
Il pleut, la pluie.
Elle tombe de la terre.
Elle s’affaisse sur le ciel.
La lune apparait le jour.
Le soleil se balade la nuit.
La mort est amour.
La vie est détestable.
La paix est d’une monotonie suicidaire.
La guerre est bandante.
Le monde énerve.
L’actuel.
Il m’énerve.
Le vide est bourré de vie.
Le monde ne tourne pas.
Il marche, marche sur la tête.
Il a rangé ces pieds.
Le juste, l’injuste.
Je me pers.
Je n’aime pas le jazz, son jazz.
(Un temps).

back

Posted on

TIME WHICH DOES NOT PASS – excerpts of the play Point Zero by Claudia Munyengabe

Sarah Waiswa

Time which does not pass – excerpts of the play Point Zero by Claudia Munyengabe

 

Avertissement
Ceci est un extrait d’une très longue pièce de théâtre, écrite depuis l’existence du premier burundais sur le territoire jusqu’à nos jours.
Aucune mise en scène n’est exigée. Aucun comédien. Aucun costume. Aucune scène. Pas de lumière, ni de décor, pas de rideaux ni d’accessoires. Pas de date de représentation puisqu’elle n’est pas finie. Pas de lecture publique non plus.
Elle ne pourra être jouée que par le concerné : le public
Le nombre de personnages peut aller jusqu’à 12 119 000 dans un espace de jeu de 27 834 km⸊ à condition qu’ils prestent Avec un masque pour casher leurs vrais visages, il ne faut surtout pas qu’un vrai visage soit confondu avec une vrai parole.
Elle reste une pièce de théâtre malgré tout, elle ne fait que sublimer la réalité.
…


SCENE 1
Des miroirs partout
X : Regarde-moi
Me reconnais-tu ?
Regarde-moi
Touche-moi
A quoi je ressemble ?
A qui je ressemble ?
Qui est ce que je te rappelle ?
Aucun souvenir ?
Regarde-moi
Scrute-moi détail par détail
Orteil par orteil
A qui je ressemble ?
A quoi je ressemble ?
A rien dis- tu ?
A tout dis-tu ?
Regarde-moi
Touche-moi
Dis-moi que toi au moins tu me reconnais
Pas nécessairement mon nom
Juste l’espèce
Regarde-moi
Touche-moi
Me reconnais tu ?
Non ?
Regarde-moi
Me reconnais-tu ?
Regarde-moi
N’aie pas peur
Y : regarde-moi
Touche-moi
Me reconnais- tu ?
Regarde
X : regarde
Y : regarde
X : je ne regarde plus
Je vois
Y : je ne sens plus
Je vois
X : je vois le temps passer
Y : je laisse passer le temps
X : je regarde les poubelles se vider
Y : je vide les poubelles
X : je vois et je ne dénonce pas
Y : je suis l’observateur
X : l’observateur
Y : sur la chaine de quotidien

Dans un style d’animateur de radio
Mesdames et messieurs bienvenu dans notre talk
Vous devez répondre à la question suivante en toute simplicité et d’une façon claire

Et si la guerre éclatait ?
Nous attendons la guerre, mentale, physique ou commerciale
Une guerre qui ne tue pas.
Celle qui décime avec tendresse, une magnificence d’une guerre de paix et de repos
Mourir c’est aussi se reposer.
C’est l’âme qui se repose.
L’âme dit au corps, assez tu t’es assez reposé laisse-moi en profiter aussi.
Sauf qu’avec l’âme c’est un repos éternel
Pour ceux qui croient bien sûr.
Encore faut-il croire ! !
Nous attendons donc
Paisiblement cette paix qu’on appelle guerre.

back

Posted on

Travelling Through Time (Aboubacar Traore & Noël Minoungou)

Travelling Through Time

The Malian photographer Aboubacar Traore understands his work as a political statement. Especially the photos of the red empty chair, which he places in the suburbs of Bamako or at the banks of the River Niger speak about the absence of rulers who serve their country instead of exploiting it. In these pictures Mali’s past communicates with the present.

The theatre director Noël Minoungou from Burkina Faso has taken up Aboubacar Traore’s idea of the red chair and the question of power in his play entitled Mister Time. At the centre of the performance is a physicist who travels into the past with a time machine. But something must have gone wrong with the construction. Because suddenly African and European heads of state from different eras are on stage at the same time, reciting passages from speeches they once held. They all talk about Africa and the hope of finally freeing the continent from the shackles of its colonial past. Mister Time – with the knowledge of the present – reacts disillusioned and melancholic. Many of the visions of those days have not been realized until now.

Posted on

Time Which Does Not Pass (Sarah Waiswa & Freddy Sabimbona)

Time Which Does Not Pass

Sarah Waiswa‘s first photo story is about a woman who has bought a dress at a second-hand market that, despite the recitation of a protective prayer, still contains the spirit of the previous owner. When the woman wears the dress for the first time, her body begins to transform into a younger version of herself. A healer confirms to her that she has gained eternal youth by putting on the dress, a wonderful and terrifying news at the same time.  Waiswa’s dreamlike sequence of images oscillates between life and death, expressing on a visual level the ambivalence inherent in the question of whether it is really worth giving up one’s mortality for eternal youth.

Theatre director Freddy Sabimbona and the author Claudia Munyengabe took a photograph of Sarah Waiswa as a starting point for each scene of the play Point Zero. Aesthetically, the production is also significantly influenced by Waiswa’s images. In terms of content, however, the young theatre-makers set another focus. In their collage, they ask about the future of their generation, both in Burundi and abroad. The associative scenes are mainly about violence, death and war. The actors appear more as speakers and bearers of meaning and only rarely as classical theatre figures. In language and direction, Point Zero remains rather abstract. It is musical, sometimes almost lyrical, then again a distorted, grotesque and bitter performance. In the middle of the open-air stage, around which the audience is seated one can see an open grave. The gravestone bears the inscription: “Here rests the world”. 

Posted on

Time Multiplied (Lebohang Kganye & Thokozani Kapiri)

Time Multiplied

Lebohang Kganye‘s first series of photographs consists of silhouette-like images of people that she cut out of family photographs, blacked them out, and in other arrangements, pasted them back into a photo album. Through this approach, Kganye playfully explores the potentials of the visual family archive. By intervening in the photo album, she takes the liberty of reimagining (family) history. She delves into the world of possibilities and imagines, from today’s perspective, what might have been if this or that had happened differently in the past.

Thokozani Kapiri‘s play Ta O‘Reva (based on a short story by Muti Nhlema) is set in a future marked by violence and devastation. Many inhabitants from South Africa have fled to Nyasaland in the north to ensure their survival. This is also the case for a family of three generations who remember their former life in South Africa in fragmentary scenes during the course of the play. With the help of telepathic abilities, an attempt is made from the destroyed future to contact Nelson Mandela in the past. The aim of this endeavour is to correct far-reaching political decisions of the past so that their consequences will be less severe in the virus-contaminated and climate disaster-ridden future. But the experiment fails, because the past proves to be unchangeable.