A few words about your artistic career
I'm a graduate of the Institut National de Formation Artistique et Culture with a major in music, and of the Atelier Théâtre Burkinabé ATB theatre school, and I've been trained as a storyteller and actor on a number of courses. A tireless gardener, I sow the seeds of my stories with young and old alike.
How long have you been an artist?
I've been a professional artist since 2014.
Why did you apply for this scholarship? How will the scholarship support you?
I applied for this grant in order to have more means to create and promote my art, which is storytelling, and above all to move towards new experimentation.
What are your concrete artistic objectives after this residency?
To have a real time-space for artistic work, with high-quality artistic contributors, in order to experiment with new forms, gain visibility, find distribution channels and be able to join professional networks.
What did you achieve during this creative residency? What is the result (work created)? Who was involved in the creative process?
Thanks to the grant I received from Africalia, I was able to carry out as many of the activities planned for my residency as possible. I was able to create stories with morals, which in my humble opinion helped to raise awareness of COVID. They talk about the benefits of respecting safe practices and the urgent need to save the planet.
My stories were performed as street shows in buses, bus shelters and railway stations in Ouagadougou.
In my creative process I worked with an assistant director and a video artist.
How do you think these activities help us to think about the world today, in relation to the COVID-19 crisis, and/or about building for the future?
Tales are stories of yesterday, told by people of today, for generations to come, or as Ahmadou H. Bah put it: "Tales are useful, futile and instructive". Bah said: "storytelling is useful, futile and instructive". What's more, being face-to-face with my audience in the public space, I was able to see the interest and the contributions made by the spectators at the end of each tale. I believe that my project will have helped to keep the oral tradition alive in these difficult times. We need stories to make our bodies dance, our hands express themselves, our insides come alive and our consciousness change. All it takes is the time it takes to change buses or travel from one station to another, the time it takes to get to work. A two-minute story can move a mountain, so she's certainly done her bit to build the future.
How did you feel during the residency? And afterwards?
Throughout the residency, I was delighted to work on a project that was close to my heart and with a team that showed me its professionalism and creativity.
After this experience, my joy is even greater and the prospects await me on the stage.
I was able to carry out my project as I had dreamed and imagined it. The difficulties I encountered in producing my work had to do with managing the public: my project takes place in the public space. As a performance artist, I was able to captivate an audience that kept asking for more. I'm very satisfied with my residency. It gave me a project that will very soon be realised on a large scale, thanks to partners who liked it and promised to support me.
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Constellation project
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