Psaumes #02: excerpt 3

Excerpt from the video work created by Emmanuel Tussore, screened as part of the piece Psaumes #02.

ABOUT THE PSAUMES PROJECT

With “Psaumes,” I would like to explore and “capture” the multiple meanings of relationships as they play out in society today.
What is sacred? What is sacred today? 
Why is it sacred? How does the meaning of the sacred change based on personal or collective trajectories? What is my approach to the sacred? What is sacred to me? What do I desacralize? What are my sacrileges?
These are all questions that drive me.
At this stage in my personal and professional journey, I feel the desire to write contemporary psalms. It will not be sung poetry, but a poetic dance flow, about relationships (what connects us).

James Carlès – Artistic Director

ABOUT THE PIECE

“When James asked me to do a solo recently, we had known each other for many years. I remembered him as a young man with precise dance moves, hesitant to throw himself into the great struggle of art. We would meet from time to time, aware that we shared what I described that day in the hubbub of a café as we talked: a certain sadness that kept our relationship tense.

I know where my sadness has its roots. I also know how to recognize my brothers in misfortune when I meet them. I suggested to James that the solo be titled “La Tristesse du Roi” (The Sadness of the King). Henri Matisse’s famous and final painting, with its testimony to vital force, mastery, and affirmation of color against the coming darkness, seemed to me a good omen, countering the somewhat depressive connotation of the title.
We talked.

James said that he felt this sadness, as did his whole family, especially his father. He told me a little about his history. Cameroon, the Bamileke, Bana, the town where he was born, and King Happi, who was also saddened by the loss of his world in the relentless march of African modernity. I understood the issue better. I saw James, his ambition, and his determination as a man to speak his own truth. I wanted to help him express it in all its complex truth. To create a dance for him that would help him fulfill the vow he made one day when, barely a man, he promised to return to the land of his ancestors, laden with knowledge and rich in travel. That could indeed be his return to his native land.

To truly dance. To be a man standing tall, a force to be reckoned with. To take one step, then another, and forge your own path as you build your destiny. The land doesn’t matter when we are the ones making the journey. We will undertake this work, hand in hand. Black hand in white hand, survivors of our wounds, slaves to time but masters of ourselves.” – Heddy Maalem