Projets

Burkina

The theatrical workshop is a pretext for meeting people from different cultures

The partner

The Compagnie Marbayassa is an artistic expression body founded in 1995 by three actors that had many years of experience in the Athelier de Théâtre Burkinabé (ATB). Its primary focus is theatre. The current drama troupe is made up of about 10 people working on a voluntary basis who are oriented by a stage director and an artistic director. The plays produced are performed both in Burkina Faso and abroad. The Venus Noire, for instance was performed during a tour as part of the International Festival of Action Theatre in 2004.

Compagnie Marbayassa’s objectives: promote an interactive theatre, establish cultural interactions among peoples and other bodies guarantee the training of young people in the performing arts and bring about a reaction from the population towards the problems they face. Through theatre, storytelling, music and dancing, the Compagnie Marbayassa aims at creating a conscience of the cultural dimension of development. The company’s activities are base in the following axes: the search for dramaturgic esthetics drawn from the cultural realities of the Burkinabe society, putting an emphasis on the public’s active participation; choosing primarily themes related to concrete problems in Burkina so as to raise awareness and encourage a search for solutions. Some of the subjects it deals with are: AIDS, genital mutilation, drugs, women’s status or migrations.

 

The Project

  • Getting to know the Compagnie Marbayassa as a socio-cultural association from Burkina: its activities and its operation, its theatre creation methods and of public awareness-raising. Understanding the role theatre has within the Burkinabe society as a means of artistic criticism, of arousing social conscience and of establishing dialog with the communities. Collective production of a play: during about 15 days a subject is chosen for the play, it is designed and different workshops take place. The culmination of this collective work is the performance done in village communities around Ouagadougou.Daily routine and intercultural interactions: participants experience the day-to-day life in Burkina during their stay with the families of the actors –this allows them to deepen the intercultural interactions–, they also get to know life in the neighborhoods of Ouagadougou and the routine in the villages during the theatre performance tour.

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