The eleventh edition of the Les Récréâtrales Festival ends this Saturday, October 31, in the capital of Burkina Faso. A unique festival that takes place in the courtyards of houses and which, despite the Covid-19 pandemic, has had growing success.
Braving the epidemic of fear, health or safety, the public, professionals and artists have responded. Everything gathered around this word from FelwineSarr, clapping like a shout, and which was the theme of this issue: “Drawing up”. To stand up “against our discouragement, our misunderstandings, our disappointments, against the other’s fears and mistrust” continues AristideTarnagda, Director of Recreatrals. To stand up to “raise humanity to the top of hope, adorn hearts and faces, lift the fallen laughter of our mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers.”
Gather in Bougsemtenga
The public success of this autumn meeting has never wavered from edition to edition since the early years of 2002, when Etienne Minoungoud gave the body the idea of a popular theater closer to the daily life of the inhabitants of Ouaga. For a week, the young people and families occupy the street 9.32 in Bougsemtenga, the historical and traditional district of the capital, with its family houses, its maquis, where Brakinacoule at night is in waves, its stalls of artisans and its workshops artists. This is also where the cartel is located, a structure that brings together all the city’s theater companies, because this recreational festival for twenty years has structured the landscape and won the loyalty of an audience.
And year after year, this festival has become the hub for artists from West Africa. GiovanniHouansou, a young Beninese writer, believes that the performance here is “an important moment in the author’s visibility”. It is not Avignon, but it is an important stage in the work of recognizing an artist. If the Congolese SinzoAanza is on the program this year at the Théâtrenational de l’Odéon in Paris or at the Antoine Vitez Theater in Ivry, it is because it was discovered here at the Récréâtrales. The same goes for TracesdeFelwineSarr, a monologue of generous and quiet revolt, speech to African youth performed by EtienneMinoungou. The first reading took place in Ouaga before the sanctuary in Dakar. With SaisonAfrica2020, whose opening is constantly postponed and counteracted by the health situation, this festival season has become a meeting place for European professionals.
Lacour is a theater
With Zaïda, Nombrés or in the Gyengani family, cows are formed from kl. 18 or later in the evening to attend a show in the courtyard with mud houses, the red dust floor, pumpkin tree or mango tree for unique decoration. A few spotlights and this living space, in which a few wooden stairs are added, are transformed into a world stage. Popular success, almost all the performances were played at closed counters, especially the one that hosted the chef’s patio and performed by young people from the neighborhood. A rare moment of emotion because these nine young people gathered in a workshop for a year around Aristide Tarnagda, author, director and director of the festival, played for the first time.
And Le quartier tells through text montages of AristideTarnagda and SinzoAanzade’s raw and just moments in a society’s life, the harmattan rising, men’s departure, rivalry between brothers and sisters, family, rebellion of women. And the author’s words become words of life. Africa tells about itself because this is the total Récréâtrales-Elan project that unfolds throughout the year and brings together more than 350 artists from the continent and the diaspora to support them in their creative work.
Courts and a street
The magic of this festival lies in rue 9.32, a small kilometer that has become a pedestrian during the festival, illuminated by a thousand and a luminous sculpture, lanterns or volatile monuments. A wreath of lampshade T-shirts, monsters raised and dressed in non-recycled plastic, giant flowers in colorful fabrics. Here, too, these magical surroundings are imagined by the inhabitants and by the scenographic college, founded by Patrick Janvier, who gathers about thirty inspired craftsmen. It all starts and ends on the street, beer and kebab at any time, between two shows or until late at night. This street gives the pulse of the party, happy and good-natured, and pushes fear of the outside as far as possible.
Police forces are discreet but present because Burkina Faso remains a country hit by Islamic terrorism. Bottles of hydroalcoholic gel have appeared on the tables of the makis, but few Ouagalais wear the “muffler,” a beautiful nickname for the surgical mask. Enchanted spaces, the street is invented and revives the dream of origin when the theater was a public affair.
Shows in touch with the world
From Congo, Benin, Conakry or Nigeria, each show retains its aesthetic, but each takes a part of today’s history. In the murmur of an intense face-to-face and with the text from ZainabuJallo, Murs-Murs, CaroleKaremeranou awakens violence against women and the imposed transfer of their docility. With barn owls or the little shadows at night, Basile Yawanken makes us love the street children designated by society as wizards.Races to the Sun by Giovanni Houansounous confronts the shattered dream of an athlete chasing his freedom. Finally, SinzoAanzanous blows with a plea to sell Congo or the story of a neighborhood council to decide on the compensation the state has asked for, after a police photo that killed 63 people, official figure. A philosophical farce on the price of a life estimated by the state at … $ 30. And if we sold Congo, the country and the underground, we suggest an artist: it would do more for everyone!
Shows, readings, including La Cargaison by Souleymane Bah, winner of the RFI Award for Theater, Music, Dance … this Récréâtrales festival is a delightful window across Africa far from immediate political news, but at the heart of ‘a civil society that “get up to stay upright” in the words of Odile Sankara, the president of this festival. A society that prepares for the future and warns: “We have the baobab’s courage”.
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