The Acts of the desert - Solar immersion
« I receive audio tapes by mail. Voices of people I met in Mali during my two trips in 1999 and 2011. The testimony of an old man-memory unrolling every name of my family tree. I remind me this text by Jean-Pierre Hamon inviting me yet to a trip in the desert. Suburbs of Timbuktu. I see myself alone, sand as far as my eyes can see, at the sunset, when I decide to make this journey of initiation to find my origins. As a ritual that imposes upon myself, I arrange according to a circle the elements revealing each step. A Malian adage says that dust keeps the memory of ancestors. Sand glides between my fingers and links myself to them. I dance people I've lost.
That is when I decide to go in the desert to reconcile with myself. In Dogon country, it is said that every person dead or alive has a star in the sky. If the old man's voice revealed me my family tree, on the ground, I lay this family constellation too. All along the trip, I go through different states that mold myself and where I fell so many stories that mixes. I pay tribute to my father, to these migrants who decide to leave their country to find a better future. The writter and philosopher Amadou Hampâté Bâ said: « When an old man dies, a library burns. »
I'm dreamming to go to Timbuktu, the city of every knowledge, where I think I can find the secrets of my close country.»
Smaïl Kanouté, translated from its original French version.
Dates
November 19-20, 2017.
Description of the artwork
Choreography by Smaïl Kanouté and music by Batiste Lesly Darsoulant.
Light version of des Mondes de traverse displaying immersive images of the sun.
Actors
[Choreographer and interpreter] Smaïl Kanouté
[Production] Bruno Freyssinet
[Musician] Batiste Darsoulant
[Slammer] Afroriginal MC
[Writer] Jean Pierre Hamon
[Scenographer] Ikse Maître
[Light designer] Alexandre Fandard
[Stylists] XULY.Bët and JAYONE Ramier
[Video] Abdou Diouri
[Accompaniment of executive production] Alternative Inner Motion / A.I.M
[Director] Kevin Gay
[Director of photography] Maxime Col
[Photographer] Henri Coutant
Les Actes du désert is a dance and digital art creation by Compagnie Vivons ! ; an opening of Le sas, science-art-society group ; a coproduction of Compagnie Vivons !, La Transplanisphère and La métonymie ; in partnership with Donner des Ailes, the IAS and the Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay; with the sponsorship of La Diagonale Paris-Saclay. Les Actes du désert is accompanied in executive production by Alternative Inner Motion / A.I.M.
Images of the sun: IAS, MEDOC (CNES/CNRS/Univ. Paris-Sud), data from SDO-AIA (NASA).
Original space design: Christophe Bergon.
Place
Les Actes du désert
Mains d'œuvres
1 rue Charles Garnier
93400, Saint-Ouen
France
Information
Les Actes du désert 180°
