Presentation

Tourments Noirs (Black Torments) is a solo show which uses the speeches of the Burkinabe revolutionary President Thomas SANKARA to raise the issue of the Black conditions in today’s globalization situation as well as the thorny one of the African continent development.

Should we keep our identity or should we leave it for an unknown one? What is to be done in order to allow Black men to get their position back among the people of the whole world? What must be done so as to help Africa take the right way leading to its development? These are so many questions which hurt, worry and…torment!

The right thing to be done, as President SANKARA asserts, “…we must accept to live like Africans. This is the only way to live and be free and worthy”. This is also the very only way to evolve towards better living conditions of African people and towards a sustainable development of Africa.

In this solo, speeches and music willingly merge in order to support a both expressively soft and hard dance. The body becomes the loudhailer of all a continent which is looking for better conditions by expressing its uncertainty, its hopes, its pains, its wealth, its future and its torments. It also hands down the thought of a visionary man who knew all in advance.



The Choreographer's intention note

Experiencing moral and physical violence due to the fact that I am…Black…this is both a word loaded with its meaning and a being loaded with its history.

Today, the world has evolved towards globalization in which life is characterized by a duality comprised between original identity and modern evolution. A world made up of several Black generations daily emerges…and is still emerging.

I will invite the speech, the tales and the legends of these generations who crossed and lived throughout centuries so that they tell these Black legends in relation with the present, the future…

It’s just the search for the calming of this being, of his inner torments.

Auguste OUEDRAOGO



Residency

- Choreographic Development Centre La Termitière, February 9, 2009 to April 1, 2009;

- National Choreographic Centre of Nantes (France), May 12-16, 2009;

- Cultural Creation and Performance National Centre of Châteauvallon (France), May 18, 2009 to June 5, 2009.



Performances

- April 2 & 3, 2009, Choreographic Development Centre La Termitière (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso);

- April 11, 2009, Festival Plein Sud (Cozes, France);

- June 13, 2009, Festival Les Connivences (Nantes, France) ;


- June, 16 to July 4, 2009, Le Tarmac de la Villette (Paris, France);


- March 24, 2010, Le Carré des Jalles;


- May 18, 2010, Hangar 23, Rouen;


- May 22, 2010, Gare d'Estocha, Madrid (Spain) ;

- June 5, 2010, Place d'Abando, Bilbao (Spain);June 15, 2010, Salón Teatro – Centro Gallego de Arte Dramático, Santiago de Compostelle (Spain) ;

- June 15, 2010, Salón Teatro – Centro Gallego de Arte Dramático, Santiago de Compostelle (Spain);

- September 21, 2011, Arcachon (France), as part of the 3rd edition of Engagement Féminin project;

- March 10, 2012, Targon (France), as part of festival Comment Dire



Technical information

Choreographer/Dancer: Auguste OUEDRAOGO

Assistant: Bienvenue BAZIE

Composer: Adama KOANDA

Light design: Mohamed BORO, Wend-Nonga SOUBEIGA

Costume design: Martine SOME


Selling conditions

Participants on tour (2 persons)

1 Choreographer/dancer : Auguste OUEDRAGO


1 Assistant : Bienvenue BAZIE




Lodging, Transport (train and/or plane ticket, visa, insurance) and expenses: chargeable to the organizers.


Possibility of making Workshops:
Possibility of artistic interventions in African traditional and contemporary dance.