Au Mali, quand les animaux dansent - Donation Sonia et Albert Loeb

Description

The tradition of animal mask dances, shared by the Bamanan, Marka, Bozo, and Somono peoples, is believed to date back thousands of years. The art of crafting puppets from plant fibers and animating them is said to have been taught to the Bozo by bush spirits. Others believe hunters were the originators. In ancient times, after killing an animal, the hunter would cover himself with its hide and wear its horns as a decoy. This attire also served, during ceremonies, to show their peers the anatomy of the wild animal, its behavior when charging or attacking, and to illustrate through mime which approach technique had been used and how it had been killed. Thus "masked," clad in the animal's hide like a cloak, the hunter "became" a wild beast, buffalo, crocodile, hippopotamus...

This is what we see in these animal mask performances, sogo bò, where the dancer becomes the mask he wears and the spirit of the game that inhabits the mask.

Texts by Sonia Loeb, supplemented by an interview with Sonia and Albert Loeb conducted by Hélène Lafont-Couturier, director of the Musée des Confluences.