Where do you come from?

I was born in Matadi, a port city on the coast, in the province of Bas Congo. I was the youngest in a family of four children, with one older sister and two brothers. I spent nine years at boarding school. At the beginning, I didn’t even know how to make my own bed, but it was there that I really learnt how to get along with other people.

What path did you take when you grew older?

At 14, I wanted to become a priest, and I applied to be accepted into a Protestant school. Since I couldn’t pay the tuition, I only lived at the boarding school and I cooked for myself. After, I returned to Kinshasa to find my brothers and sister, who were scraping by. For three years, I set aside my studies to go into woodworking with my brother. With what I earned from woodworking, I was able to go to National Arts Institute, which had recently been started with support from UNESCO.

Was that your first experience in theatre?

Yes, and I even started to put on small plays, with two or three other students, in elementary schools, middle schools, and universities… With the help of the Wallonie Brussels Centre, we formed an association so that the plays we produced could be free. In 1989, I started a small troupe called Kamikazes. It wasn’t very organized and I had had no training in activist theatre [1].

How did you get more training in theatre?

I had to learn on the job, and so for three years I learned from some of the big names in theatre. The last artist I studied with was Norbert Mikanza, an expert on francophonie for UNESCO and the founder of the National Theatre. I met him several days before he died, and I asked him what I needed to do to get to where he was. He told me that I shouldn’t try to do “theatre of the poor.” In other words, create richness through energy and through plot, and not through things like set design. Then, we were invited to meet with Prosper Kompaoré, a big activist theatre troupe in Burkina Faso, which helped our group immensely.

What has changed since starting with the Kamikazes 18 years ago?

I would say that what has changed the most is communication. Starting out with a few pieces of A4 paper, we have now made it to the internet. The ATA [2] seal of approval and its email address are available to everyone, and anybody who wants to can start their own troupe. Through ATA, we have developed three areas of work: research, to study problems on the ground; training workshops, which constitute our permanent activities; and special events, which brings some money into the group and is especially important since the Congo does not subsidize any cultural activities. We have already published six plays, and released as many videos.

What do you think is the real impact of your activist plays?

The impact is palpable. To take one example, several years ago, an airplane crashed in a central marketplace, and many people lost their lives due to a lack of blood banks. We started a bus tour, doing performances on donating blood, and at the end of a week we received help from Germany to pay for the bus tickets for a month-long tour. After that, we performed in a stadium and the German government set up five blood banks in Kinshasa. That’s how theatre can help raise awareness of certain problems and help solve them.

To conclude, what is your relationship with the Congolese authorities?

Officially, relations with my government are good because they are non-existent. There is not too much interaction with Congolese officials. But I have often been questioned, and was arrested twice, because of my opinions. However, I have a good relationship with the commune of N’djili, where the troupe is based, and we are consulted in all decisions made in the area of social action.

I would like to finish by expressing the esteem and respect I have for Résonances and its readers.

Also read: Resonances Africa N° 17 - October 2007