The Marché des Arts du Spectacle d’Abidjan (Abidjan Market for Performing Arts), or MASA, is one of the major biennial cultural events of francophone West Africa. It stands on par with similar international gatherings in the region such as the Dak’art biennale for the visual arts, or FESPACO in Ouagadougou for cinema. Unlike its peers, however, MASA, which takes place in the financial hub that is the economic capital of Côte d’Ivoire, embraces an expressly commercial function; since its first edition in 1993, the event has provided artists with the opportunity to present their work to a select group of professionals and buyers. In the hopes of delighting a diverse local audience while exploring prospects for future touring engagements, performing artists of all disciplines turn the Palais de la Culture, a multi-venue cultural complex that sits on the city’s Ébrié lagoon and overlooks the business district, into a bustling microcosm of the African performing arts scene, and particularly that of the continent’s francophone countries.
The 2024 edition of MASA (April 13-20) was on the scale of its artists’ ambitions; the event offered a sizeable program that included dancers, musicians, slam poets, circus artists and, of course, theater artists. The theatrical program presented a curated selection of foreign and local companies along with a balance of established and emerging performing artists. Productions reflected a clear desire to highlight theatrical engagements with issues related to the experience of women. The Franco-Ivorian actress Sabine Pakora presented the African premier of her work La Freak, a monologue which Pakora wrote and directed. The work focuses on the artist’s own corporality to explore her coming-of-age as a racialized stage performer in France. In the same performance space, a group of young graduates of Côte d’Ivoire’s national arts conservatory, the Institut National Supérieur des Arts et de l’Action Culturelle (INSAAC), presented an original ensemble piece titled Agoodjié! The energetic work, full of stylized combat scenes and grueling initiation rituals, was inspired by the legendary women warriors, or “Amazones,” of the Dahomey kingdom whose history also inspired the American film The Woman King (2022).
Other remarkable pieces dealing with similar themes included an adaptation of a text by Léonora Miano titled Et que Mon Règne Arrive (And Let My Reign Begin), directed by the Burkinabè grande dame of the stage, Odile Sankara. Festivalgoers had the opportunity to see the work of a selection of emerging playwrights such as Jeanne Diama of Mali, who wrote and performs in Le Pouvoir du Pagne, as well as the Beninois performer Cybelline de Souza, whose Que Nos Voix Résonnent (May Our Voices Resound) gives voice to survivors of sexual violence. These productions and several others too numerous to discuss here made the event’s theatrical program a clear demonstration of the vibrancy of the francophone theatrical scene.
Far from the high-tech stages and velour seats of the Palais de la Culture, another version of the 2024 MASA took place in the venues of the “MASA éclaté.” This part of the program resulted from an initiative to address past criticisms of the event related to its remote location and international focus, both of which tend to exclude the culturally active communities of the city’s diverse outer-city neighborhoods, where much of the urban population resides. The organizers’ efforts were richly rewarded by the crowd that came out for the MASA programming at the Centre d’Action Culturelle d’Abobo (CACAB). Abobo is a densely populated northern suburb of Abidjan. Its many communities are typically drawn to the city for work opportunities but maintain close ties to their ancestral rural regions. This makes unassuming and spartan structures like the CACAB veritable hotbeds of cultural activity that reflect both an urban vibrancy and a rural sense of connection to traditional performance forms.
The Birth of the Zaouli, by the Zaouli Club Djiwidou. Photo credits: Marché des arts du spectacle d’Abidjan
The Zolo de Koriani offered a thrilling example of such an urban and rural mix. The group consists of ten male dancers who execute a series of expansive, swinging dance movements that are cued by the whistle of the lead dancers and accompanied by a small traditional orchestra of percussion and wind instruments. The movements produce a rhythmic swooshing sound made by the dancers’ colorful raffia costumes and traditional headdresses. The group performed to a packed house at the CACAB, which hosted a large delegation of Abobo residents hailing from the dance’s region of origin in the northern district of Denguélé.
Although the CACAB crowd differed dramatically from the one found at the Palais de la Culture – there was a noticeably smaller international presence – troupes presented their work with an eye toward possible performance engagements abroad. In Côte d’Ivoire, one of the most electrifying cases of a traditional form that has taken on broader global appeal is the hypnotizing spectacle of the Zaouli. Rooted in one of the world’s richest masquerading cultures, that of Côte d’Ivoire generally and, more specifically, that of the Guro, the dance and mask of the Zaouli were invented relatively recently, in the 1950s, and were inscribed in UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2017.
The Zaouli mask includes several possible variants but represents a homage to feminine beauty. The dance, performed by a man, is reputed to be one of the continent’s most difficult and includes rapid leg movements that appear to cause the dancer, and the mask, to float in stillness as the legs pump vertically almost to a blur. The Zaouli Club Djiwidou, which performed its production called The Birth of the Zaouli at the CACAB, regaled the audience with the skill of its lead dancer and a choreography that presented an overarching narrative of the Zaouli’s place in modern culture. The young members of the audience also erupted in applause when the Zaouli dancer executed references to urban dance moves associated with contemporary hits like the Ivorian hip hop artist Tam Sir’s song Coup du Marteau.
With such a wide variety of performances and publics, MASA has grown to integrate a range of programming approaches, from market-focused events to forms of community outreach and engagement through performance. Because of this, it proves difficult to describe the whole of the event through a single characteristic or approach. MASA’s plurality of forms, publics, and venues may indeed be taken as an apt reflection of francophone African theatrical creation today, which is often called upon to invent forms while preserving traditions, and to appeal to global audiences while mobilizing diverse local publics.
This post was written by the author in their personal capacity.The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the view of The Theatre Times, their staff or collaborators.
This post was written by Brian Valente-Quinn.
The views expressed here belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect our views and opinions.
