30 Mar 2014

Maitisong recently witnessed a rare pierce of French exuberating cine concert; Toris Tambours Unlion Three Drums and a Lion.

This cine concert was produced by Camille Touzé and behind the decks was Jeremy Labelle. The cine concert was a mind blowing and interesting pierce of art in memory of Jean Rouch, a French film director and ethnologist well known for his practice of direct cinema and for his ethnographic films on Africans such as the Dogon and their customs.

Three Drums and a Lion was a play that encompassed live music, Jean Rouch’s documentary clips, animation a live deejay performance by Labelle. It showed what was filmed in the 1950’s and it depicted the lives of Niger people living across the Niger River.

It showed their different life styles including hunting skills of the hippopotamus, different rituals performed by men and women and their everyday lives. This was all in the presence of artist melodies of different music composed by the brilliant Labelle.

Labelle was doing this entire masterpiece through uniting traditional Maloya of Réunion Island and electronic music in hybrid performances between vinyl records and computer techniques where traditional music from Africa and India, contemporary music, techno and experimental music meet.

With an experience of over 15 years as a Dj and having studied Musicology at a University in Paris, France, Labelle said he was proud of his work and it was an honor to work with such great works of Jean Rouch.

He said that he extracted and recomposed every individual sound from the theme of the documentary and brought live music to the film, not forgetting the roots of this great ethnologist because he was the first French man to record African classical and traditional music.

The project was at the second stop in Gaborone while embarking on a Southern African tour. It started in South Africa and it will grace Mozambique and Swaziland. It was made possible through the partnership of Maitisong and Alliance Française. Ends