I am now in Firenze, Italy participating to the workshop “To be told”. I decided to join this experience in order to expand my chances to express myself through different artistic ways. I chose to talk about Réunion Island, its communities and how they live together. How it evolved from a virgin volcanic rock in the middle of the Indian Ocean to a multicultural environment at the crossroads of Europe, Africa and many other origins.
In Réunion Island, after the abolition of slavery in 1848, thousands of indentured workers were brought from India, Malaysia, China and Africa to work in the sugar fields. A new racial typology emerged, influenced by European racial ‘science’: Kaf (descendants of slaves, of African origin) were described as ‘lazy, violent, childish’; Malbar (people of Indian origin) were ‘cunning and hypocrites’; Zarab (Muslim Indians) could not be trusted; Sinwa (of Chinese origins) were ‘dirty, liars, thieves’; Yab (poor whites, victims of the land restructuring after 1848) were poor but white and thus ‘good Catholics’. Thus, Réunion’s white elite borrowed the lexicon of racial discourse was an answer to the fear of post-slavery social chaos and its desire to contain the emergence of Creole identity, rooted in the history of the slaves’ resistance, in the syncretism of African, Malagasy and Asian beliefs and rituals, the Creole languages invented by slaves, and the processes of creolization which each ethnic group experienced. The population, that is, ought to be French, Catholic and colonized.
- Françoise Verges
Philosophies of race and ethnicity By Stella Sandford - Read on Google books
Thanks to different workshops by Emanuela Baldi and Caterina Poggesi on self-presentation and theatre expression (movement and voice), the great help of Lorenzo Ciacciavicca, Pamela Barberi, Vanni Bartolini and Olga Pavlenko, Pietro Gaglianò and Marina Bistolfi,I decided to try myself out on conceiving a small installation.
I aim to represent the past memories of each culture from Réunion Island meeting and living together.
I decided to work on the contrast between Identity/Unicity/Communion and Fragmentation/Individualism/Separation.
From several communities/ethnicities/cultures, meeting and through the years evolving together, giving birth to the Réunion Island identity (language, traditions, food, etc.)
My work is based on old times materials describing the way of thinking, in times when the French Republic and its guests met for the first time in this specific place on Earth. But also sounds, songs extracted from a common knowledge shared on this island.
Music available for free download thanks to the respective artists from the akout website: http://www.akout.com/mp3/mp3.php
BENOITE BOULARD
La Pêche Caméléon
Du Quadrille Créole au Séga - Takamba
BENOITE BOULARD
Pauline
Du Quadrille Créole au Séga - Takamba
FAMILLE GADO
Malbaman
Entre Romances et Maloyas - Takamba
FAMILLE GADO
Polidor
Entre Romances et Maloyas - Takamba
LUC DONAT
L’amour l’est Doux
Le Roi du Séga - Takamba
LUC DONAT
P’tit Train Longtemps
Le Roi du Séga - Takamba
GEORGES FOURCADE
Petite Fleur Aimée
Le Barde Créole - Takamba
GEORGES FOURCADE
Zouzoune (Boulevard La Providence)
Le Barde Créole - Takamba
HENRI MADORÉ
La pas besoin croire qu’moin l’est mort
Le Dernier Chanteur de Rue - Takamba
HENRI MADORÉ
Mouvment d’riz
Le Dernier Chanteur de Rue - Takamba
All the rights to their respective owners. No copyright infraction intended.
posted by Jerome Li-Thiao-Té - http://www.jeromos.li
