I’ve just had the privilege of returning from Senegal, having spent 10 days in the company of Mamby Mawine (formerly Patricia Gomis), acclaimed actor and theatre maker, whose work with the Association Djarama, the company she founded, is truly inspirational. Her tenacity and vision have seen a young company created, called Yaak’art, the Wolof word for “Hope”. The young members of this company, many of whom come from precarious and difficult backgrounds, have been trained in circus, drama, puppetry, dance and agriculture by Mamby and her international colleagues, amongst them, Tof Theatre from Belgium. The vision is one of alternative living that “seeks food self-sufficiency, and promotes the development of each person through art, culture, and formal education through the application of principles of agroecology” (1).
Apart from developing a young company with huge potential and with several new works in process, dealing with issues such as the environment and attitudes towards albinism, Mamby has also started a school. Her dissatisfaction with the prevailing education in Senegal led her to this choice. She now employs nine teachers and hosts a primary school on one of her two campuses, that integrates arts and innovative learning techniques into their educational philosophy.
I was attending a Puppetry festival which presented plays from as far afield as Brazil, France, Burkina Faso and Belgium, as well as a workshop by acclaimed South African puppet master and longtime colleague, Janni Younge. Performances were held close to the beach of a nearby village, Ndayane, as well as in her open-air theatre, that she and her husband, Alessandro Fanni have built together.
Thereafter we were able to attend the first Theatre for Young Audiences symposium in Senegal. The symposium was held at the impressive Museum of Black Civilisations in Dakar and involved a range of stakeholders from various government departments, foreign cultural agencies, local and international artists, storytellers, educators, cultural knowledge holders, curators and others. The symposium was designed to kickstart a new beginning for Theatre for Young Audiences in Senegal, and generate dialogue around a strategy for TYA in the region; it is a timely intervention given the fact that Senegal has recently voted in their youngest ever president, who seems determined to change the status quo for Senegalese people.
I was there to share learnings from the South African experience of building an ASSITEJ centre, but I came away just as enriched and inspired by all that Mamby and her team have achieved and still plan to do. Her work is a testimony to the power of courage and belief in possibilities where none seem to exist.
Janni and I were also able to fit in a visit to Goree Island, which is a moving and powerful monument to the immense suffering caused by the slave trade and which bears tribute to this dark history in an unforgettable way.
My sense of Mamby’s achievements is of an indomitable spirit which refuses to be cowed by circumstance, but which finds its way into the light regardless. She is an inspiration to anyone who meets her and a reminder of a phrase by Pliny the Elder, which Mandela may have quoted, “How many things are looked upon as quite impossible until they have been actually effected.”
- https://www.linguapax.org/en/the-language-of-birds-travels-to-toubab-dialaw-to-the-headquarters-of-djarama-the-senegalese-member-of-the-project/
