Ibéré

Initially, Ibéré was an end-of-study project created in early 2021 as part of the Diploma in Traditional and Contemporary Dance at the Ecole des Sables (Senegal). Orphée Ahéhéhinnou conceived a piece for four dancers whose theme extended that of his previous solo, Prisonnier de son ombre (2018): youth and cybercrime, a phenomenon that is particularly rife in Benin. In December 2021, when he was offered a creative residency at Festival Connexion#2, organised by the Centre Multicorps – Marcel Gbeffa in Cotonou, he revived the piece in solo form and turned to a more political subject. The restrictions and other government measures linked to the Covid pandemic, which hit Europe in March 2020 and  later Africa, prompted the young choreographer to ask himself another question, a term which in the Yoruba language is called ‘Ibéré’. At the time, he was performing in Dide, a highly acclaimed piece by choreographer Marcel Gbeffa which was due to tour France and Africa as part of the Africa 2020 Season. His career as a performer, which seemed to be taking off, came to an abrupt halt. Forced to remain confined, deprived of touring, activity and freedom, he lived through this period painfully, with the feeling that he was being subjected, to  his body, to absurd political decisions dictated by the mercantile interests of the world’s rulers in cahoots with the bosses of multinationals.

In Ibéré, Orphée Ahéhéhinnou raises a number of questions about the period that the whole planet has just been through, and from which people have emerged damaged. He approaches it by putting into perspective, on the one hand, the trapped citizen who suffers and suffers, whose protests are stifled by the sound of tear gas canons and flash-bullets, and on the other, the few leaders, powerful, arrogant men who meet in small committees, like the G20, to decide the fate of humanity and impose drastic measures on the people that actually serve their own interests. Conceiving of the artist as the voice of the voiceless, the choreographer uses the stage as a place of expression and revolt, to raise the fundamental questions that all citizens, forced during this strange period to remain silent and to endure, can ask themselves: have the political decisions, such as the confinement, really been taken for our own good? Is our health really protected by a mask and a vaccine whose sale generates huge profits?  What freedom do citizens and even artists have if, in order to travel or practise their profession, they have to be vaccinated against their will? Is it all just a huge manipulation?  

At the start of the solo, an inner voice speaks: ‘Why? What went wrong? (…) I don’t know what to think, please answer, 2020. Please answer! My head is spinning, I can’t feel my arms, my legs are all tangled up in the ground, my body’s memory has lost its purpose, my heart is bleeding, I’ve lost the taste of salt, I can’t smell the wind, I’ve reached a dead end, I’m void, covoid? covid?’ 

The two extracts put into perspective here show the confrontation between the people and their leaders. While the citizen, exhausted with doubts and questions, cowers, suffocated by oppressive measures, a wealthy character, adorned in a haute couture-style coat made up of an assembly of surgical masks, known as “a nose hidder” in Benin, struts about and insolently flaunts his wealth, which the pandemic has clearly enabled him to increase. 

First artistic residency: Festival Connexion#2, Cotonou, December 2021. 

Second artistic residency: February 2022: Centre Multicorps – Marcel Gbeffa, Le Centre – Lobozounkpa, Afrika Sound City (Cotonou). 

Recorded on 3th December 2023, Paillote of the Institut Français du Bénin, Cotonou. 

Source : Interview of Orphée Ahéhéhinnou by Anne Décoret-Ahiha, 27th of April 2024, Cotonou, Benin.