THEATRE
THE APSARA COMPANY FROM GENEVA IN DAKAR
“Les Papiers de l'Amour” in Black Africa for the first time
The Geneva theatre company Apsara has presented its show “Les Papiers de l'Amour” in Dakar, for the first time in Africa south of the Sahara. It is a love story between a Palestinian and a Swiss jewess who meet in Geneva. Shown at the French Cultural Institute of Dakar, the play proves that encounters, friendships and intimacies are within everbody's reach.
At the same time, it shows that marriage can mean crossing the threshold into adversity, hostility. It denounces the infringement of one of the most fundamental of human rights: the right to love. It also raises questions about integration, about the views of the community on mixed marriages, about prejudice - all of which pave the way for racism and xenophobia.
Company director Silvia Barreiros reminds us that “Les Papiers de l'Amour” was created in 2009, based on a documentary recounting a love story between a Palestinian man and a Jewish woman who, to be able to live their love, had to accept giving up their respective families
In the documentary, she continues, the Palestinian had just lost his pregnant wife, killed during a suicide bombing whilst she was waiting for her bus to go to work just like every other morning. The Palestinian had lost his wife and with her the prospect of becoming a father. “This documentary moved me greatly when I saw it, at least 10-15 years ago”, she says. The Apsara Company then adapted it and presented it to the public in Tunis, Tunisia; Marrakech, Morocco; Dakar, Kaoloack and Zinguinchor, Senegal. The Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (Swiss Ministry), The Education Department of the City of Geneva, the Stanley Johnson Foundation and the Swiss Foundation of Performing Artists (SIS) financed the Senegal leg of the tour, in a muslim country also concerned with the questions raised.
According to Mrs Barreiros, Senegal was suggested by a “friend”. The Counsellor of the Swiss Embassy in Dakar encouraged her and opened the doors of his country to her. “I was delighted, it was my first time in Senegal, and what's more, coming with a show is much more fulfilling because you get to know people much better, you work with them. It's a different reality, because you are not a tourist and mutual contact takes place immediately”, she says. What struck her was the audience's attitude. Even if not everybody speaks French, members of the public liked the set-up and came to tell us about their satisfaction - something we much appreciated after all the effort put into organisational work and the search for funding.
The Swiss director of Apsara, who cannot praise enough her first journey into Black Africa which she calls “a very beautiful adventure”, is delighted by the contacts she has established in Senegal, and is hoping for a coproduction with a local company using a Senegalese actor and another from Geneva, which would give the company a foothold in Black Africa.
Ibc