FESTIVALS-POLAND/BRAVE West African "griots" celebrated in Wroclaw's Brave festival

Record ID: 146700

  • Title: FESTIVALS-POLAND/BRAVE West African "griots" celebrated in Wroclaw's Brave festival
  • Date: 17th July 2015
  • Summary: MUSICIANS PLAYING DRUMS VARIOUS OF KUSZ DANCING WITH "NDIMA" DANCERS ONSTAGE AUDIENCE (SOUNDBITE) (Polish) WROCLAW RESIDENT, JOANNA KUSZ, SAYING: "I was invited (to dance) and it was rather difficult, those are my impressions. It was very difficult but also very pleasant. Difficult because the rhythms were quite different to native ones. It was a very nice experience." "
  • Embargoed: 1st August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Poland
  • Country: Poland
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVA6QWDFKXHAOW218L96KIIFCWB2
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: West African "griots" -- wise men, poets, storytellers, musicians and teachers -- took to the stage in Wroclaw this week for Poland's Brave Festival - Against Cultural Exile.
    The festival, launched in 2005, aims to use its yearly theme to celebrate "brave" artists -- those who "prevent exile of people from their own culture" by keeping traditions alive, according to organisers.
    For the 2015 edition, Wednesday (July 15) saw Congo Republic's Ndima group shaking up the city's main square with traditional songs played on drums carved out of tree trunks accompanying the buzz of harp zithers.
    Festival attendees were not just passive listeners but were actively engaged by Ndima's dancers -- and in the case of one Wroclaw resident, Joanna Kusz, pulled up onto the stage.
    "I was invited (to dance) and it was rather difficult, those are my impressions. It was very difficult but also very pleasant. Difficult because the rhythms were quite different to native ones. It was a very nice experience," Kusz told Reuters after her Congolese dancing debut.
    In the language of the band, made up of Aka Pygmies, "Ndima" means forest. Their manager, Sorel Eta, said that their performance drew on the diversity of regional musical heritage.
    "During our performances we present music from hunting, because we're in a society where music is functional, that is to say, it has specific functions. So there are hunting songs, there is music to entertain or for celebrations, there is music for women, such as paying homage to a woman when she has died or who has given birth, when she goes out in public with her baby, there is music to accompany all that. There you go. So the themes are diverse," he said.
    But for the director and originator of the festival, Grzegorz Bral, the festival's "Brave" ethos is not just about musical celebrations, but also seeks to shed light on political and social issues such as immigration.
    "If we're talking and we're debating the problem of Syrian refugees, sir, these are not refugees. These are the people who want to live. If we were forced to face such a situation where at any moment someone might shoot us, kill us, starve us to death, torture us, we would like to escape to live. We are not talking about some immigrants, we are talking about people who want to live. Everyone all around the world must be prepared for that," Bral said.
    He praised initiatives such as the annual educational project "Brave Kids" working with international childrens' groups with an artistic focus.
    "Brave Festival, Brave Kids, Rokpa International Foundation, these are organisations that must prepare people for the fact that we have to divert the variety and multiculturalism into strength, not weakness," he added.
    Gambian instrumentalist Sona Jobarteh is this year's festival director and a rare female representative of the "griot" tradition, which combines music-making with community roles as sages, historians and teachers.
    For Jobarteh, the "Brave" performances showed that music crosses boundaries, even though the "griot" tradition has been localised for centuries in West Africa.
    "Music is something which has a unique ability to communicate to people from wherever you are in the world. I mean, it's like...It's not something that's dependent on language, it's not even something that's dependent on understanding each others' culture. So I think for me, music has, a very unique ability to communicate and to bring people together," she said.
    Malian musician Kasse Mady Diabate's singing is accompanied by a live band incorporating numrous elements from the griot tradition: the balafon, the n'goni and the kora.
    Thriving on the traditional sage-like role of the griot, Diabate is often consulted for advice not just on music, but on wider social affairs.
    "I would say to politicians the world over to understand each other in order to make peace," he said in Wroclaw.
    At least Diabate's message of global intercultural understanding has been taken on by Brave festival attendees, who after eight days of music, film and storytelling have been brought closer to West African traditions which usually flourish thousands of miles from Wroclaw.
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