Balles perdues

It was a poignant documentary about homelessness in France, and in particular about homeless women and elderly people, that prompted Mouhamadou Ba Tounkara, who was deeply affected by the discovery of this phenomenon, the existence of which he had no idea, to create a solo on the subject. He began walking the streets of Saint-Louis at night, meeting the people who live on the city’s sidewalks, rendered invisible by the hustle and bustle of the day. In particular, he is intrigued by an old man, sitting by a wall in a strange, almost yoga-like posture, totally motionless, a cigarette slowly burning between his fingers but never put it to his mouth. Continuing his explorations, the choreographer meets up with the tramp who used to hang around his high school and who, though drunk most of the time and looking half-mad, would discuss philosophy with him, peppering his remarks with great quotations. He tries to get to know him better, to understand his story. He observes how the man, with a piece of cardboard and red-and-white marking tape, recreates in urban space his personal territory, a little home, protected from the traffic of passers-by and cars.

From his encounters and observations of the world of street life and begging, Mouhamadou Ba Tounkara draws gestures, postures and bodily states that bear witness to the experience of street people, wounded by life’s salvoes, society’s stray bullets: the arm that stretches out to beg for alms, then retracts, weighed down by a jolt of dignity; the exhausting trips back and forth across the city in the hope of finding a coin, a cookie; the body weighed down by the weight of these living conditions. On his square of cardboard, an attribute undoubtedly common to all the world’s homeless, the old hobo, huddled in on himself, nevertheless begins to dream: his imagination soars, and dance becomes his refuge, his home.

Dance residencies: Culture Lab, Institut Français de Saint-Louis, Senegal (November 2023), Rencontres Chorégraphiques de Lomé, Togo, (November 2023,) Festival Connexion#3, Centre Chorégraphique Multicorps – Marcel Gbeffa, Cotonou, Benin, December 2023. 

Mouhamadou Ba Tounkara is sensitive to the needs of people living on the streets, and in parallel with his artistic project, would like to offer dance workshops for the homeless, designed to restore their self-confidence and help them reintegrate into society.

Recorded on December 16, 2023, during Festival Connexion#3, at the Ecole Internationale de Théâtre du Bénin, Cotonou. 

Source: Interview with Mouhamadou Ba Tounkara, by Anne Décoret-Ahiha, March 4, 2024.

This video was registered thanks to the support of the Institut Français, the Metropole de Lyon and the City of Lyon as part of the 2023 – 2024 project “Development of a digital resource on African choreographic creation and a tool for artistic training, art criticism and cultural mediation in Benin and Togo” led by Dr Anne Décoret-Ahiha.