3rd edition:

MALAKI MA KONGO, an International Festival

Press 1993

The Marabout Théâtre du Zaire Unesco center won the MALAKI MA KONGO festival Golden Palm.
Organized from august 10th to the 15th 1993 (under state of emergency funds) the festival should have received groups from Guadeloupe, Rwanda, Zaire and of course from Congo Brazzaville.
They reminded Malaki its duty in these terms:

Malaki  is entering in comunion with our ancester, no one can prevent us from doing so, especially those  who call themselves city administrators.

The festival knew the participation of five congolese groups (Kongo Dia Ntotela, Ballet Monana, Tambours de Brazza, an indipendent group from Mbama) and the Marabout Théâtre from Zaire. This last one, used to what they called “The nowhere theatre”, donated us all their shows on a stage-like podium made by garbage e car wrecks piled up in that time of recent ongo democracy stammerings.

The show was very alive in a city become a cemetary. This master stroke was worth the Grand Prix Special Malaki ma Kongo to Nzey group and it included a microcalculator and a pile of african literature and theatre books.

At the beginning of this festival, the Pool Malebo theatre group was created. This zairo-congolese troupe had as special mission that of concretizing Lumumba’s and Franklin Bukaka’s prophecies, which costed these last ones their lives. Such prophecy is about the unification of the two Congoes and the transformation of the Congo river into a boulevard and not a fronteer. The first Pool Malebo production was entitled: “Brazza Kinshasa Via Paris”, a Nzey and Masengo co-writing.

8th edition

MALAKI MA KONGO

Special Return to Kongo Dia Ntotela, the Promised Land

Malaki ma Kongo 1998

It was planned that this edition would be held in a pilgrimage form.
Leaving from Kongo Dia Mfoa (Brazzaville), the festival should have moved to  Mbanza Kongo (ancient Kongo kingdom’s capital city) and Angola, passing through Kongo Dia Kinshasa.
But eventually the edition was held at the Mbongui Malaki Ma Kongo “Cultural centre for Africa and Pharaons reinassance”, sited by Continue reading →

« Special Return to the Origins»

with Nkelo Wa Kongo from Guadeloupe

press 1994

The fourth edition was inaugurated in Ntsila Mamba, towards Nganga-lingolo, a Brazzaville’s suburb.
The choice of this site was not casual: here the caravan route that connects Nzadia  Mungwa  (the sea) with Nzadia Kongo (Kongo river) passes.
This edition knew the participation of guadeloupeans and zairoises. In the heart of this big ceremony three brave guys, Louya Mpene Malela, Massengo Ma Mbongolo e Tshivili Tshibulu had no other resource than that of their art e their granitic will, in a quite unconstrained dynamics: that of gather men of culture from all horizons around a memory, that of their Ancesters e land.
This was enough to make their gaiety cries heard up to over the Atlantic.

In short, this edition knew the participation of guadaloupeans artists as:  Jocelyn Gabali, Bébé Romspart, Mpemba  « Benzo », and  Marie France Massembo.

In the festival menu were theatre, plastic operas exhibitions, poetry, story telling, singing, theorical and scientific debates and above all… traditional dance. Different tam-tam sounds were heard: those from Kongo but also and especially the far off sounds of kongo drums and singing from Guadeloupe, enriched by the diaspora culture clash.

It was the perfect kermesse, as to abstract that hard civil war time that we were living, the tough time of Cfa franc devaluation.
And the audience, especially children, had flowed to come to this ancestral sanctuary and draw the necessary energy that would, tomorrow, make them become the Bukongo Kongo culture singers. A nowday plural culture because enriched by the emotions and humours from all our country’s regions and from the far off experience of all those who claim their Kongo roots.

One of the most important moments was the festival descent to the Massembo Loubaki train station, on the iron Congo-ocean road to satisfy and give honour to the guadeloupeans Marie France Massembo. She cared very much about seeing her ancesters’ village, and deeply lived this moment of happy reunion among tears. Then a rumbling of drum thunders accompanied “the prodigal daughter” arrived from the far off Guadeloupe to rejoin her “parents” remained in Africa. Gabali found again the Ngabali village and stream, as Benzo Mpemba found agin his Luango.

The fourth edition already revealed itselfas “the faithful translator of our ancestors thought who are close to the already moving diaspora”.

Since then, the bond between Africa and its prodigal children was renewed. Appointments were taken in Africa as in the Antilles, to get the Kongo puzzle rejoined. And a door for the Return to the Origins was opened, a real one, without any colonial or extraversion form’s heaviness.

9th edition

MALAKI’s mistery

Malaki ma Kongo 1999

MALAKI MA KONGO  nineth edition was managed by master Nzambia Mpungu’s (God in kikongo language) hands, on a granades, helicopters hammering bombardaments jazz background, all this accompanied by a kalaschnikovian rythm.

The “Malaki challenges Nzambia Mpungu” was held without our knowledge, even though we actively participated in it. And it was in november when we effectively realized that during those 10 war months – entrenched in the forest, far away from all the civilizing heaviness – we drunk, danced, fished, hunted, reflected, buried our deads, took care of ourselves and walked… we played shows series as our Ancestors used to, in starred nights around a big camp fire. Continue reading →