Afrovibes 2024: The Nuances of Belongingness
October 9, 2024
As the 2024 edition of the Afrovibes Festival enters its second week and many of the productions have already premiered, we are getting closer to the festival's mission of shedding light on North African countries. This year’s festival theme is belongingness. Belongingness, with its different layers and nuances, has been unfolding throughout the first half of the program in various genres and forms. Belonging as a fundamental human need, as a source of personal fulfilment, as a means for empowerment and liberation, as a pathway to sustain yourself.
Belonging to can be paired with
a culture
a country
a tradition
but also
a system
a silence
an act of violence.
Each year, Afrovibes spotlights a different part of the African continent, highlighting its particularities, and challenging the homogenization of Africa and its frequent misconception as a single country. For its 21st edition, the focus is North Africa and the (North) African diaspora in the Netherlands. Often perceived as part of the Arab world rather than Africa, the festival provides a platform for artists from Morocco, Egypt, Tunisia, among other countries, to explore and reclaim their identities. How do their works reflect the aforementioned concerns and take a stance to these debates? And, to what extend are these topics limited to the North African context? To address these questions, the three shows that opened the festival on Wednesday, October 2nd, El Botinière, Boujloud - The Man in Skins, and Fake News, will set the stage.
The festival kicked off with a powerful dance performance by the Tunisian choreographer Selim Ben Safia, El Botinière, which seamlessly introduced this year’s festival themes. The hour-long piece, blending elements of reggea and oriental music, cabaret and street style, offered a vivid portrayal of Tunisia’s urban, underground nightlife. Dimly-lit and foggy like the ambience was, it emanated the mystery of a cultural blend - that of North Africa and the Arab world. The performance began with a restrained tone, as six dancers dressed in formal suits moved slowly, in solo's or as a collective, embodying the weight of societal norms. Gradually, they broke free from these constraints, shedding their formal attire to reveal shimmering, sequin costumes beneath.
Ben Safia, Selim. El Botinière, Frascati, Amsterdam, 2024, my picture, Afrobives Festival.
This transformation unleashed their self-expression and fluid movement, highlighting hidden sensualities and challenging traditional gender norms. Set against the backdrop of Arab music, this shift became a metaphor for breaking away from the rigid patriarchal structures of the Arab-Islamic world - capturing both the allure of rebellion and the power of collective liberation. As well as the charm of escaping them together, I shall add. Because, despite the captivating solo’s in the choreography, the dancers were primarily drawn to togetherness, amidst the need for holding space for one another.
Kenza Berrada’s Boujloud - The Man in Skins delves deeper into the notion of social oppression, shining a light on the silenced stories of sexual violence and family trauma. Drawing from the ancestral Moroccan rite of Boujloud - a custom following the sacrifice of the sheep (Eid al-Kebir) during which young men wear the freshly sacrificed animal’s skins and frantically dance around a fire, touching women with the branch-like limbs for fertility - Berrada embarks on a journey of inquiry into what ‘consent’ means to women of her generation. ‘I didn’t think my story would interest anyone,’ one of them said. Boujloud - The Man in Skins is Berrada’s response to this testimony and prayer for the existence of anyone’s.
Berrada, Kenza. Boujloud - The Man in Skins, Frascati, Amsterdam, 2024, photo by Helene Harder, Afrobives Festival, frascatitheater.nl/nl/agenda/2563/kenza-berrada-ma/afrovibes-boujloud-the-man-in-skins.
Upon entering the performance space, the audience is invited to join Berrada on stage, sitting on cushions that surround her instead of the usual auditorium seats - an arrangement that places them as co-weavers of the unfolding narrative. The scenography speaks to the primal nature of the theme: sheep skins, still heavy with the animal’s scent, wet red clay, dry branches, and a plain white plastic chair. Berrada begins the performance as a crouched figure at the back of the stage, soaked in shame, slowly transforming into a sheep-like figure - innocent yet ridiculed - a parallelism that will be present throughout the piece.
Berrada, Kenza. Boujloud - The Man in Skins, Frascati, Amsterdam, 2024, my picture, Afrobives Festival.
Boujloud - The Man in Skins is a direct confrontation with the long-buried stories of shame and sexual violence, archived in the victim’s body for years and passed down through generations. Perpetuated narratives of rape, family assault, (in)visible pain, self-doubt, fear, insecurity. The tradition of Boujloud, much like the narratives of rape and family abuse, perpetuates a cycle of silence and pain. In Morocco, the sacrificial sheep and women both become victims of others’ control and agency, subject to systems of oppression that normalize violence. There is a problematic pattern that we first of all need to recognise. Then, we have to point out our contribution to it. Take accountability over our silence. And eventually, as Berrada states, “make a little bridge to make a better connection between our stories of rape and our bodies.” Hopefully this bridge will serve as an answer to our violated daughters’ bodies.
And right after you have exited the room heavy-hearted and acutely addressed, convinced that the third and last piece of the evening will follow the route of the other two, sharpening your vision and critical insight of digital media and the news, Fake News takes an unexpected turn. Because, as funny and entertaining Nelisiwe Xaba’s work may be, this is exactly what we did not need at that point. Animation, acrobatics, and digital art come together to interestingly indicate how the news we are constantly exposed to may be well-choreographed incidents that, with the help of the camera lens, seduce and construct people’s views and opinions. How do political interests manipulate and gauge beliefs and decisions? What mediums is our insight into wars constructed through? How is the world’s view on the African continent shaped and what interests does this view serve? These are just a few of the questions I would have much preferred to encounter, rather than a collective having fun while playing with perspective. A promising concept the prospects of which could not be appreciated after having experienced El Botinière and Boujloud - The Man in Skins.
Xaba, Nelisiwe. Fake News, Frascati, Amsterdam, 2024, photo by Mariane Silva, Afrobives Festival, frascatitheater.nl/nl/agenda/2546/nelisiwe-xaba-za/afrovibes-fake-news
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