The Courier

Mayra Andrade. A big asset for ACPs: music.

© Hegel Goutier

For the first time ever, the Group of African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries has staged a Cultural Festival. Organised last autumn in Santo Domingo, it was a unique event, not only for show-casing talent, but also as a trade fair and opportunity to fine-tune an ACP strategy on marketing creativity.

This Festival was a culmination of the initial stage of the ‘Dakar Declaration’ and ‘Action Plan’ on a strategic programme for expanding the ACP countries’ cultural resources, set in motion in 2003. As well as agreeing to hold regular cultural festivals in the future, governments also decided to set up a cultural foundation. Several international agencies have welcomed the ‘Dakar Declaration’ as an important instrument of public international law since it backs cultural industries as a priority both within ACP countries and also for international cooperation.

Twelve months on, the Maputo Summit of ACP government leaders, on June 23, 2004, fixed the choice of culture ministers Member Countries were encouraged to adopt legal texts on boosting the sector's industries, while paving the way for extensive job creation.

Santo Domingo springs a surprise

The Festival erupted in a shower of fireworks sponsored by the authorities of the Dominican Republic, setting the mysterious night-blue Caribbean sky ablaze, much to the surprise of Santo Domingo which had seemed indifferent to the huge posters and banners that, perhaps somewhat belatedly, publicised the event. Sparks flew against the backdrop of the timeworn stones of the majestic ruins of a Hispano-Moorish convent that still seems to echo to the footsteps of Christopher Columbus.

The Cultural Festival took hold of the city, gaining in intensity, like swinging jazz music. Starting quietly, by the end of the week it was a dazzling event that is bound to go down in the annals of this charming ‘mestizo’ capital. Witness the increasing number of spectators, and above all their delight, particularly the younger ones, whose curiosity was visible in their eyes sparkling with wonder at the sight of these cultural treasures from distant civilisations. Santo Domingo discovered that their African, Pacific and Caribbean neighbours had sent the finest of what they had to offer of their art worlds. News spread quickly by word of mouth, even for the less popular art forms, such as contemporary dance. All the performances were staged in the Fine Art College's large Manuel Reda Theatre. The venue was half empty on the first day, full on day two and after that they were turning people away at the door. The same went for all the other events, even business meetings on commercial strategies.

Extolling beauty and elegance

The Festival was host to hundreds of artists, cultural agents and other experts from 40 or so ACP countries, dozens of activities, performances, exhibitions, film shows, fashion shows and the grand parade of artists. A Council of ACP Culture Ministers from three continents with numerous representatives of partner countries preceded all these activities, lauding the beauty, elegance and quality of the performances. Most of the contemporary dance performances had previously won awards at leading festivals. These include Rako (Fiji), the Compagnie Kettly Noël (Mali), Opiyo Okach (Kenya) and the Akiyodans Dance Company (Haiti). The smooth dance style of the quartet of dancers from the Rako company is lyrical. The light steps, spaced percussions and gently swaying hips are an ode to silence and equilibrium, within ourselves and between us.

Kettly Noël, a dancer of Haitian origin, but brought up in Mali, transfixed the audience by her solo, ‘Errance’, a portrayal of isolation and madness, scrutinising our inner fears, without seeking to amuse or shock. In the theatre, you could hear a pin drop. At the end, there was suspended silence before a huge burst of applause erupted.

Showcase

People living in ACP countries tend not to be familiar with each other’s cultures. The visitors to the exhibitions of visual arts, paintings, sculptures, photographs, videos and installations came face to face with showcases, not only of the cultures of this group of countries, but also of their histories, societies, political tendencies, looking for things in common and differences. How the visitors must have been gripped by the piece by Benin’s Pélagie Gbaguidi on the theme of the ‘Black Code’. A copy of this book could be seen spinning in front of gigantic pictures of Toussaint Louverture’s historic gesture of freedom. Together with ‘Mein Kampf’, this is possibly the most despised book in the history of publishing, sounding the death knell for man’s humanity!

The piece by Freddy Tsimba (DRC) was also deeply moving: his sculptures are cries from the heart for the women who were raped and became pregnant in the recent war that ravaged his country, but who still found the tenderness within to love their children. Bullet cartridges and shells are bound together with lace; the shells for the savagery and the lace, shedding tears for the gentleness inside the victims and in everyone. “Initially, I met a woman who told me about how she came to be raped. An idea of how to express this harrowing experience formed in my mind. I ended up creating a work about nine women and their nine months of pregnancy... People speak about women being raped. When you say women being raped, this implies the rape of us, every one of us”.

With ‘Illusion Men’, Togo’s El Loko’s exhibit suspended portraits of faceless men mirroring tiny receptacles on the ground which cast liquid blue reflections: it was an allegory of Africans talking to Europeans while overlooking talking to each other. Social and political questions are raised. There are questions, too, about existence, as in the case of Geneviève Bonieux, from Mauritius, who uses ‘The snake charmer’, a sculpture of a woman's head wreathed in a snake of ropes and nails, a striking view of the inner torment of a human being.

Key asset: music

The ACP’s edge to gain a foothold in the market for cultural products is first and foremost through music. Small countries are managing to gain recognition thanks to the efforts of their musical communities. Andy Palacio's triumph has been to draw outside world's attention to Belize, particularly the Garifuna, black Amerindians of this country. The young musicians of Mozambique’s ‘Nfithe’ managed to whip the Santo Domingo audience into a frenzy. They and their counterparts from Zimbabwe, ‘Bongo love’ are members of the ‘Music Crossroads Network’, created to boost the cultural and economic opportunities for young people from disadvantaged, unstable backgrounds.

And if there is a symbol of the Festival's success, this accolade should no doubt go to the young Cape Verdean singer, Mayra Andrade. Barely 22-years old, she is now busy making her mark on the international music scene with her first recording ‘Navega’. She is admittedly following in the footsteps of Cesaria Evora, who is championing her and has no doubt helped her to understand that coming from a small country may be a tremendous advantage. “It has been a great help to me coming from a tiny country, a microscopic nation like Cape Verde. I may not have achieved so much if I had been born in the United States or the United Kingdom. People are curious and wonder what is going on over there. Cape Verde's music is world renowned, it is its banner, but 15 years ago most people had hardly heard of the country. Now when I tell people I'm from Cape Verde I can see it firing their imaginations.”

Mayra Andrade also symbolises the mutual understanding in Santo Domingo between creative people, business people and policy-makers. Without a shadow of a doubt, this open-minded attitude is another of the Festival's triumphs. This was shown when we asked her to imagine having the opportunity to speak her mind to a fictitious minister. She didn’t pull any punches: “Mr Minister, I didn't expect to see you here this evening. I hope you will be good enough to take note of what the artists represented here in Santo Domingo have to tell you: at times you tend to overlook the values and principles that you yourselves uphold. I can put this in song better”. And then, looking at us straight in the eyes, using the table as a percussion instrument, she delighted us with a chant in a mixture of Portuguese and Cape Verdean Creole.

The minister found it absolutely enchanting!

Keys to success

We take a quick look at what went on behind the scenes to ensure the success of the first ACP Cultural Festival with one of the key members of the organising team. The ACP Secretariat took the initiative acting on a decision of ACP Culture Ministers three years earlier to organise this first ACP Festival, right up to the choice of the country by the Caribbean region, which picked the Dominican Republic to host the event and the conclusion of negotiations with the European Commission on financing.

With the support of the Committee of Ambassadors, the ACP Secretariat set up a ‘Task Force’, representing all departments involved in the event’s organisation. It worked on the project’s feasibility, put forward people to run it, negotiated with European partners and made contact with dozens of cultural networks in ACP nations. A team of consultants led by Dominique Thiange, organiser of many large African culture events in Europe, carried out this part of organising the event.

"Working out the logistics of the Festival took two months. And the groundwork obviously took much longer. The Festival did not take its final shape until June, after an initial fact-finding mission to the Dominican Republic. We started setting things up on the spot mid-August. At that point, the ACP Secretariat picked a small team of high-calibre, well-chosen experts who were of crucial importance in putting the project into motion in a short space of time. My task was thus assisted,” comments Ms. Thiange.

The various arts networks and cultural entities in African, Caribbean and Pacific nations played a big part in gathering famous musicians, dancers, actors, film producers, and fashion stylists and other artists from three continents, as well as specialists in the arts who led seminars on culture and the creative industries. “The success of the festival is largely down to these front-line professionals on the ground,” stresses Ms. Thiange.

In praise of the discipline in African art

Senegalese choreographer, Germaine Acogny, was one of the founders, along with Maurice Béjart and the Senegalese President and poet, President Léopold Sédar Senghor, of the Mudra Dance School in Dakar. She took advantage of her visit to Santo Domingo to hold a master class attended by, among others, many well-known dancers from the Dominican Republic and some from Cuba: "I believe African dances can reinvigorate a dancer's body with energy, the joy of dancing for fun and discipline. In my master classes, the focus is on having a good time. Fun but strict! Fun and serious! Our traditional dances are very intricate. We learn to dance methodically. Africans are said to be born dancers, but I don't agree. I even think it's a racist remark. Rhythm and dance have cultural roots. They can be learnt. With perseverance. It’s all about discipline".