Bouki Blues Festival

Theme : Bouki goes back home

A program of the West African Research Association and the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal
Theme : Mediterranean and Trans-Atlantic Echoes

1. Presentation of the project.
Envisioned for the second week of January 2005, in Jiloor Jijaak, Dakar, and Gorée Island, Sénégal, the second edition of Bouki Blues Festival was devoted to the historical and cultural links between West Africa, the Mediteranean world and the Western hemisphere. The first edition, hold on January 7-12, 2002, was primarily devoted to the Mississippi-Louisiana area where African music has survived under the name of Blues, a musical form that evolved in the urban milieu to give birth to Jazz and Rock 'n Roll. Musicians and scholars from Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, and Mississippi were given the opportunity to interact during that week-long event. The keynote speaker was the late professor Peter Aschoff of the University of Mississippi at Oxford and the guest star was the celebrated blues singer James "Super Chikan" Johnson from clarksdale, Mississippi.

The theme of the second edition depicted the will of the organizers to open gradually the festival to all sections of the African diaspora around the world. The main goal of the festival was to bring together cultural expressions of the Diaspora with their African origins to permit the greater public to see the similarities, adaptations, and variations created by distance, time, and external influences. Exhibitions and a symposium will permit specialists to enlighten and educate participants and visitors. The artists and the musicians from West Africa will be able to interact and compare their work with their counterparts from the diaspora.
Interest in such an event existed in the reunion and reconciliation of people, the rediscovery and the promotion of the kind of multiculturalism advocated by UNESCO. It was necessary to promote a culture of peace and fraternity by showing, beyond the horrors of the slave trade and slavery, the results of the resistance and resilience of African culture exported to America, the Mediterranean world and elsewhere. The Festival was also an occasion to honor, on African ground, those who have contributed to the promotion of Africa and its culture.

Bouki Blues Festival was also designed as :

Bouki Blues Festival was conceived as an integrated educational project bringing together scholars, artists, and the target populations in order to perform the cultural connections, not only talk about them. This project would also be a non-sense if limited to urban areas. Participants had the opportunity to discover the rural milieu where african culture is more obvious. The rural population also needed to be associated with international cultural events hitherto limited to big cities.

Jiloor Jijaak or Jiloor-Siin, a small village located between Fimla and Ndangaan in the Sereer country, is prevalent in the poetry of Léopold Sédar Senghor, the late président of Senegal who spent there the most significant years of his childhood. Many years of drought have destroyed the environment and have decided the youth to join big cities like Dakar, leaving behind old people and children. Every year, at the end of the rainy season and after having safely stored the new crops, a wrestling contest is organized by the villagers. This is an occasion for family reunions and a unique opportunity for the youth to fully reconnect with, rejuvenate, and consolidate its roots. One of the goals of the second edition of Bouki Blues Festival is to promote this cultural event and weave a network of solidarity for the benefit of the village.

2. Why the name "Bouki Blues Festival"? What musical form symbolizes human sufferance better than the blues ? The blues is a way of life, a synthesis of African culture in America. Its most typical melodic features came from the Sahel and the savannah of West Africa just like Bouki and Lapin, the famous folktales characters which one still finds today in Louisiana. Compère Lapin is nothing else but the American survival of Leuk-le-lièvre, the West African hare, who eventually evolved into the cartoon character Bugs Bunny. Bouki is the Wolof name for the hyena, a character that also survived in folktales from Florida, the Bahamas, and Haiti.
Bouki symbolizes the persistence of African culture in America, and African wisdom at large. The way West Africans have depicted his character traits summarizes eloquently their mostly dramatic experience with the rest of the world. Germaine Dieterlen and Yousouf Tata Cissé noted in Les Fondements de la Société du Komo that "the hyena, for the Bambara, is gifted with intuition and infallible foresight. It possesses "dark knowledge" : the obscurity, that is to say, the mystery, has no secrets for him. His name is constantly associated with the night which shelters loves, with the secret of maternities, and cults of fertility and abundance. The hyena is guardian of life on Earth. Often presented in popular stories as naïve and clumsy, he is in reality, typical of "gens du savoir" who always seem to be disinterested, carefree and cool."

The Director of the Festival
Dr. Ibrahima Seck

3- Preselected artists :
Marocco : Mahmoud Guinée, Gnawa music.
Portugal : Fado band.
Spain : Flamenco band.
USA : Bobby Rush, Correy Harris, Dr. Michael White.
Mali : Toumani Diabaté.
Mauritanie : Kumbaan.
Sénégal : Guelel Kumba, Papa "Blind Boy" Niang, Vieux Mac Faye, Souleymane Faye, Njum Waalo, Wa Flash, Ngoyaan, Mbay Njaay, Yandeh Koddu Sèèn.
Guest artists : Youssou Ndour, Baaba Maal, Viviane Ndour.

4- Prospective Program.
Tuesday, January 4, 2005.
5 PM : Reception at the West African Research Center. Podium DHL. Musical performance : Guelel Kumba, Njum Waalo, Souleymane Faye.

Wednesday, January 5, 2005.
10 AM : Gorée Island. Prayors and libations at La Maison des Esclaves
1 PM : lunch at Chevalier de Boufflers.
4 PM : Second Line with the women and the children on the streets of Gorée (ngoonal u Gorée). Animation : Dr Michael White, Assico Band of Gorée, Goumbé.
7PM : Petit Theatre of Gorée. Opening ceremony presided over by the President of the Republic of Senegal. Stage performance : Le retour de Bouki, a musical comedy by Charles Cheikh Sow.

Thursday, January 6, 2005.
Cheikh Anta Diop University, Khaly Amar Fall auditorium. Colloquium on the theme :
"Mediterranean and Trans-Atlantic Echoes".
9-9/30 AM : Keynote speech : Bouki-Sorokou Ba, the meaning of a symbol. By Pascal Baba Coulibaly, anthropologist, former Minister of Culture of Mali.
9/30-10 AM : Coffee break
10-12/30 AM : Panel 1 : The historical and cultural links between West Africa and the Western Mediterranean area.
1 PM : Lunch at WARC.
7 PM : Piscine Olympique. Mediterranean night : Mahmoud Guinée, Fado, Flamenco. Guest star : Youssou Ndour.

Friday, January 7, 2005.
9-10/30 AM : Khaly Amar Fall auditorium. Panel 2 : The historical and cultural links between West Africa and the Western hemisphere.
10/30-11 AM : Coffee break
11-12/30 AM : Panel 2. Musical Workshop: let's understand blues and jazz with Vieux Mac Faye, Bobby Rush, and Dr. Michael White. 1 PM : lunch at WARC.
7 PM : Dakar. Piscine Olympique. Sahelian night : Kumbaan (Mauritania), Tocatiña (Cap Vert), Toumani Diabaté (Mali). Guest star : Baaba Maal.

Saturday, January 8, 2005.
10 AM : First group departs for Jiloor Jijaak. Check in and lunch at Ndangaan.
4 PM : Jiloor Jijaak. Traditional wrestling. Circumcision dance.
7 PM : Dakar (Piscine Olympique). Afro-Américan night : Correy Harris, Dr. Michael White, WA Flash, Bobby Rush. Guest star : Viviane Ndour.
8 PM : Jiloor Jijaak. Yandé Codou Sène, Mbaye Ndiaye, Toumani Diabaté.

Sunday, January 9, 2005.
9 AM : Second group Departs for Jiloor Jijaak. Check in and lunch at Ndangaan.
4 PM : Place du village. Traditional wrestling.
8 PM : Ngoyaan, Papa "Blind Boy" Niang, Bobby Rush.

Telephone : 221 865 2277 Email : Boukibluesfestival@yahoo.fr Website : www.warc-croa.org Mailing Address : P.O. Box 5456 Dakar-Fann, Sénégal

CALL FOR PAPERS

The West African Research Association and the West African Research Center in Dakar, Senegal are solliciting papers for the 2nd edition of the Bouki Blues Festival to be held on January 5-12, 2005 at Cheikh Anta Diop University, Dakar, Senegal. This edition will be devoted to the historical and cultural links between West Africa, the West Mediteranean world and the Western hemisphere.

The first edition, held on January 7-12, 2002, was primarily devoted to the Mississippi-Louisiana area where African music survived under the name of Blues. Musicians and scholars from Mali, Mauritania, Senegal, and Mississippi were given the opportunity to interact during that week-long event. The keynote speaker was the late Peter Aschoff, professor of anthropology at the University of Mississippi at Oxford (Ole Miss) and the guest star was the celebrated blues singer James "Super Chikan" Johnson from Clarksdale, Mississippi.

Papers should :
(1) address the cultural expressions of the Diaspora in comparison with their African origins to permit the greater public to see the similarities, adaptations, and variations created by distance, time, and local influences;
(2) promote a culture of peace and fraternity by showing, beyond the horrors of the slave trade and slavery, the results of the resistance and resilience of African culture exported to America, the Mediterranean world and elsewhere;
(3) Address themes and methodologies which sustain the struggle against all forms of modern slavery.

Interested researchers should forward a one to two-page proposal by September 10, 2004 to boukibluefestival@yahoo.fr or to: Bouki Blues Festival The West African Research Center BP 5456, Dakar-Fann Dakar, Senegal Phone: (221) 865 2277 Website : www.warc-croa.org

Notification of acceptance will be mailed by September 30, 2004. For booking assistance (air ticket, hotel, meals, conference, and all festival events), please contact us by e-mail
ALBAY TRAVEL SERVICES offers a package of $1862 covering the round trip ticket (NY - Dakar - NY), Hotel, Meals and Transportation during the Festival.