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Sotigui Kouyaté : un Griot moderne

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Griot is a West African term that refers to a poet, praise singer, or wandering musician who acts as a repository of oral tradition, preserving and sharing the cultures they interact with. Filmmake...

Griot is a West African term that refers to a poet, praise singer, or wandering musician who acts as a repository of oral tradition, preserving and sharing the cultures they interact with. Filmmaker Mahamat-Saleh Haroun presents well-known West African Griot, musician, and actor Sotigui Kouyaté, through travels and interviews with Kouyaté, his family and friends, both in his adopted home of France and his childhood home in West Africa. The film follows Kouyate's career, starting from the childhood experience of his favorite entertainments being replaced by French settlers' formal theatre, through early acting work in Burkina Faso, to Kouyate's eventual arrival in French theatre. Moving with Kouyaté through a number of very different cultures, the film demonstrates Kouyaté's long-standing efforts to share the indigenous arts and heritage of West Africa, including his founding of "The Griot's voice" acting company in France and the Mandeka Theatre in Bamako, Mali.

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