original creation
a musical theatre project by
Gustavo Frigerio and Badara Seck
idea and direction: Gustavo Frigerio
with Badara Seck, Félicité Mbezele, Keba Seck,
Awa Koundoul, Alpha Diene, Madya Diabate, Ibrahim Ouattara
dramaturgy: Alessandra Vanzi
scenography: Marco Solari
costumes: Paola Marchesin
lighting: Luca Storari
coproduction: Associazione Temperamenti,
Fabbrica Europa and Osservatorio per le Arti Contemporanee
Un soir, un comédien me demanda d'écrire une pièce qui serait jouée par des Noirs.
Mais, qu'est-ce que c'est donc un Noir?
Et d'abord, c'est quelle couleur?
(J. Genet)
This study on the text by Jean Genet Les Nègres is the result of the meeting between the Italian director and choreographer Gustavo Frigerio and the Senegalese griot Badara Seck.
The enormous impact of African art and culture on European avant-garde has not yet exhausted its explosive force. Seeing five African artists on stage working on Genet's text with their singing, music and dances still creates a disorientation that is unsettling and magical.
The foreigner is still the stranger, above all if he is black and African; this is why he evokes fascination and at the same time fear.
Genet's words still have the power to touch our deep-seated racism hidden in the folds of multiculturalism. The text, on the contrary, inexorably marks out the steps of a difference and strangeness that are insoluble.
The force evoked by song and dance resound with the sense of the words and create an event full of energy and madness, which leaves ample opportunity for the initiative of the interpreting artists and their unruly temperament.
A strange "child's theatre", innocent and cruel, delicate and wild, partly opera, partly puppet theatre; a "secret party" to which we are invited to relieve the sadness of us "pale" men.
