L’Opéra du Villageois, by Cameroonian dance artist Zora Snake, is both a burial and liberation ritual. It denounces the European museums that harbour looted art in their collections and conjures up the spirit of the stolen objects.
With the dance performance Opéra du villageois, Zora Snake invites us to discover another world. Around the great debates on the restitution of cultural goods, he resurrects within the “mask” all its strength and power in connection with the body and as a vehicle of resistance.
Snake reclaims everything that the colonial powers have plundered over the past centuries: the gold, the salt, the history. But their spirits are not dead: « They took the work, but not the spirit. »
“The history, the interior or even the sacred belly of the mask is an ‘art object’ in the museum, but it also represents the construct of an organized society burdened with a heritage. We are the continuity of this great reincarnation with its inexhaustible and cultural riches, long silenced in the colonial apparatus.”
Zora Snake tells us about the hidden journey of the masks as private treasures, capitalist goods, looted art, and also about the lashes that the bodies of his ancestors had to endure. With the flag of the European Union, a funeral, a ritual around gold and salt, Zora Snake manifests the history of this plundering of riches and the still living artistic diversity of this heritage.
“The idea of resisting silence is also based on the silence of our ancestors who remained silent, not for fear of speaking, but for fear of dying and letting the village perish,” says Zora Snake. “Some of our independence fighters spoke out against the violence of the colonial rulers. It is the power of our silent wealth that is awakened by the performances and : cries out. / Today, the blows reveal the atrocities of a time when people used masks to heal, end wars, appease and forge new bonds,” Snake says. “Once in the museum, they are completely damaged and have lost their function in their society of origin due to alienation from their original places.”
Zora Snake expressively traverses a sacred dimension to bring the lines of this heated debate to life through the aesthetics of the body, performance, dance and props. L’Opéra du villageois is a tribute to the inhabitants of the villages, long considered ‘uncivilized’, in order to awaken their strength and resistance.
Zora Snake
Zora Snake is a dancer, choreographer and performance artist, founder of the company Zora Snake and the international festival Modaperf in Cameroon. He travels internationally and combines artistic creation in public space, performance and political-poetic ritual, art and society.
The development of civil society through performances in Cameroon’s urban districts is particularly important to him. He has won numerous prizes and works with renowned artists, including Serge Aimé Coulibalys and Fabrice Murgia. He has been a guest at the Cité internationale des arts, the Palais de Tokyo and the Centre Beaubourg in Paris, among others. He created his first solo for a stage : « Le départ » in 2018, then Shadow Survivors premiered in Brussels in 2023 with 4 other dancers.
Today, Zora Snake just created Combat des lianes a tribute to the forest inhabitants and his origins with 4 other dancers and 2 musicians on stage at Theatre national Wallonie Bruxelles.
Choreography, concept and performance: Zora Snake
Live music: Maddly Mendy Sylvia
Text: Zora Snake
Audio Sounds: Felwine Sarr, Bénédicte Savoy, Emmanuel Macron, Eliane Azoulay, traditional music Bebe Wandja & Bamilileke
Costums & scenography: Zora Snake
Production: Company Zora Snake with the support of FASO TEATRI
With the support of: La cité internationale des arts à Paris, Collectif Afrikadaa, Palais de Tokyo à Paris, Live art Network Africa à Johannesburg.
Premiere year: 2022
FESTIVAL PERFORMANCE
