In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the fourth edition of the Bosangani dance festival opened on Friday, September 13, at the French Institute in Kinshasa, under the theme “Kingdom of Kongo”, a dance performance that traces the history of this great kingdom that has now disappeared.
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With our correspondent in Kinshasa, Aurelie Bazzara-Kibangula
Mimes, cries and jumps… The 46 dancers are in a trance to the rhythm of the tam-tams, like Guelord Voulu Vangou: “ The ancestors used the tom-toms as a means of communication to call people, when a woman was pregnant or when she had given birth. Well, today, we are using it to call people to come and see what we are doing as research work on dance. »
A call to the public to go back in time, that of Kingdom of Kongoan area that stretched from Gabon to Congo, passing through Angola.
” We have this habit of telling ourselves, in our heads, that before the colonization that we know, there was nothing, when not at all. There was this kingdom that we called the Kongo kingdom. We had all this culture of cowries, all these exchanges, the clothes… There was so much wealth. ! Unfortunately, with modernization, we have forgotten everything. “, underlines Jolie Ngemi, choreographer.
A suspended moment to also show that dance at Congo is not just folkloric, as Tina, Bokata Lokela explains: “ It’s a mix of Afro, Ndombolo, a bit of contemporary… We have to sell what we have as culture. »
In total, around ten paintings retraced the history of this region of central Africa, to the overwhelming enthusiasm of the public.
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