Playing with Arts and Identity in Koffi Kwahulé’s Recent Theatre: Basquiat and Fela Kuti

Abstract

“Playing With Arts and Identity in Koffi Kwahulé’s Recent Theatre: Basquiat and Fela Kuti” situates Kwahulé’s theatre within the trajectory of Francophone African theatre that queries notions of identity and politics. It sees Kwahulé’s work as part of a movement that turns away from questions of colonization and decolonization to trouble the center and periphery paradigm of postcoloniality. Kwahulé adds a transnational dimension, especially through the use of jazz motifs. He constructs in his plays an identity in constant motion, an identity that refuses borders and transforms through contact and improvisation. In recent works, notably the focus of this essay, SAMO: A Tribute to Basquiatand Kalakuta Dream: A Tribute to Fela Kuti (both written in 2015), Kwahulé incorporates jazz and rap strategies of scrambling lines, repeating phrasing, riffing while rhyming, and syncopation to capture textually the particular aesthetics of both artists. Through musicality, Kwahulé grasps the vibrancy and collage techniques in Jean-Michel Basquiat’s canvases. SAMO thus becomes not only an exploration of Basquiat’s hybrid identity but also a theatrical transposition of how Basquiat’s paintings “speak.” Kalakuta Dream, more a surreal sketch than aplay, invites actors, dancers, and musicians to realize a political commentary through instrumentation.Kwahulé’s Fela Kuti, iconoclastic and gutsy, dreaming of another, and freer, universe in his Kalakuta “Republic,” skewers dictatorial power through irreverent behavior,including trenchant music.Innovative and challenging, both plays foreground the feints and dodges necessary to survive an increasingly materialistic world.