Celebrating The Kora

Just off the coastal road linking the international airport to Banjul, along a spectacularly cratered dirt track, you come to a domed brownstone structure that is the Ebunjan Theatre. There, a few nights ago, we watched a group of young performing arts graduates go through their paces.

            We are in The Gambia to chill out (perhaps not exactly the right word, geographically speaking, but you know what I mean) after the anxieties of the two recent elections that I have been banging on about. The electoral outcomes, fortunately, have been most agreeable, so some sort of celebration would, in any case, have been called for. Anyway, here we are in this country at the edge of the Sahara, among the bougainvillea, baobab and jacaranda, relishing the prospect of a balmy few months ahead. And, as it sometimes happens, by happy accident, we came to know about the theatre and the show that we went to.

The Ebunjan Theatre

            The building itself bears its own architectural mark that earns it a separate piece all of its own, but let me just say here that it is, reportedly, fabricated from compressed mud bricks, a material with which I was not familiar but which, I confess, has produced an effect that is more than pleasing.  The seating capacity was no more than 300, I estimated, but The Gambia is a small place, and even though the house was packed, my assessment is that the theatre needs of the community would be served for years to come. One can only hope that the structure has similar durability to those buildings north and east of here, in Mali, that have endured these centuries past, but whose survival is now under threat, in famed Timbuktu, from a bunch of religious fanatics who are ready to defile anything noble or beautiful.

            But here in The Gambia there is little worry of such misanthropes intruding, quite evident in the composition of the cast and the way they disported themselves that night. It was remarkable because the core performers were members of the inaugural graduating class of a group of young male and female artists in a school for the performing arts based at the theatre and under the directorship of Janet Badjan-Young. So, we had straight acting, music, song and dance, and acrobatics as well, all to a very high standard. The centre pieces were, first, a short play entitled “Us and Them” and then, “The Kora: Mystical Strings of the Gambia.” Both pieces were built around the tensions of otherness. In the first, a modified version of a 1972 play by David Compton, directed by Iris Walton, the story explored how two neighbouring peoples, through misunderstanding, might find themselves embroiled in armed conflict. The other was a little more subtle, though no less powerful and, as the title implies, was all about the multi-stringed musical instrument, the Kora, that is the cultural soul of this region. Janet Badjan-Young directed a script she adapted from a story told by the griot, Alhagie Mbye, of how the instrument was gifted, in a Faustian deal, to an ambitious musician in exchange for his beautiful wife.  The musical accompaniment, on the bass and treble instruments, was absolutely magical, making the night one to remember.

You might be wondering what happened to the young and beautiful wife who lost out to the Kora. The script was completely silent on that, but I am sure it was not because she was an albino, a genetic variation which usually carries with it unfortunate connotations in this and other parts of the world. I hope we did not leave with an unintended message.

Tell Fren Tru