Esprit Bavard
In her dance solo «Esprit Bavard» Malian artist Bibata Ibrahim Maiga wrestles with societal norm constraints and with the titular «chatterbox spirit». Accompanied by a babel of voices, the protagonist dances to free herself, first getting rid of a constricting costume and finally seeking peace in the encounter with the audience. Maiga’s performance makes a case for the freedom of expression and the self-determination of female bodies, celebrating dance as an emancipatory and a healing practice.
Performance text in English translation
Note: The text of this performance can have a disturbing effect. It comprises an inner monologue or, more precisely, a dialogue between several inner voices. The text uses partly aggressive, ableist language, through which discriminatory normative ideas are expressed and through which the protagonist's mental and physical health condition is judged. The text represents an inner struggle that is shaped by external social influences. It contains thoughts of suicide.
Hey you, you, Mister, why aren’t you answering me?
Are you dead?
Or, are you dumb?
What am I saying? You’ve never given me an answer when it’s urgent.
Missus, it’s you I’m talking to,
Who are you?
Who are you and why me?
So maybe you’re deaf?
I know you’re there and you’re listening to me
You think me, yes I know it, I know that you think me and so do I in fact, even if sometimes I feel like I’m the only one thinking, and yet you’re always there to think for me or with me.
Someone please tell me I’m not crazy
Who can tell me, actually, Biba you’re crazy?
I stop thinking and I forbid you from coming into my head, I forbid you, I forbid you, it’s my head and I forbid you. From now on, it’s «no entry» for you.
But then, who can reassure me of some mental illness that threatens me by pitting me against myself and against this world. This world of blind conformism, and misguided faith, in which the devil plays his role of master controller, evil angel and benefactor, in which what is fake no longer seems fake because it is too beautiful, in which what is real no longer seems real because it is too fragile, in which unbridled love exists only in our dreams and our memories, and I, lost among all these ideas that contradict and do violence to each other, because the world, our world here, blinds us, and prevents us from seeing its ugliness under these erotic and irresistible caresses. We let ourselves go in its arms, its hard and ugly and yet soft and pleasant hands. And so suddenly in spite of myself I find myself enjoying its tenderness and love which perhaps do not exist.
Who do you want me to be? Me, daughter of Ibrahim Attino and of Fatoumata Diaty, who do you want me to be to you? Or at least who are you to me?
In fact, is it me or you? So I could be you and you me or I am both just by myself? Or you too could be me and be yourself at the same time?! Then I would surely be crazy.
For all this time, crazy, me crazy, and nobody to say it to my face. Who do you intend to say it to if not to the crazy person. Me crazy and nobody to talk to me about it…
Right! It’s decided, I’ll stop thinking.
…
Are you a spirit or a djinn? Or are the two the same thing? Might you be an angel Missus? … no anything but that, or at any rate I think that if that were the case then you would surely be a human angel capable of making mistakes like everyone else. Isn’t it you leading me into error? Or is it the opposite? If it is, give me a sign, just a little sign, a tiny tiny sign Missus, come on… I must be crazy, you that I’m waiting for a sign from the invisible man… Anyway, today you will still need to tell me who you are, even if I have to strangle you, if you are me then I’ll have to strangle myself first before reaching you.
Ah you’re making fun of me? Because Mister thinks I won’t dare to do it.
And if I die, maybe it’s you who dies too, and if I die and you, you don’t die, I’ll come back for you. Because I won’t go on my own. It was your foot my foot in my body why not your foot my foot in another body?
Gentle friend of my heart and of my soul. Give me a sign, talk to me or slap me if you want. People, you know, they think I’m crazy, they think I’m weird and even that I leave and I come back, and it’s always me dealing with it because you, you Missus, you there, nobody sees you, nobody even thinks you, nobody anyway apart from me. Maybe we should try to understand each other.
Nooo! And what if I discovered that it’s been me all this time? Me who thought I was you? And if I discover that actually you never existed, and that all the words I heard, these double ideas and these incoherent thoughts were my own? And I discovered myself on different ground, even if everything seems perfectly clear and if I discovered that actually, actually I am… crazy.
I’ve decided, this time I’m going to stop thinking!
But, and if… and if… and if… you… and if actually… nooo… And yet if…
You are there, I know it, I know you’re there, if I know that you exist it’s not my head, it’s you inside my head, it’s not my body, it’s you inside my body Mister. But why, why you in me my body and not another body?
I didn’t realise I would take so much time and importance to understand the workings of my head which maybe isn’t my head, my thoughts which maybe aren’t my thoughts, my dreams, which maybe are not my own.
I talk to myself Mister, Mister I talk to myself, and yet I am not alone. Mister, Missus, show yourself my friend, show me what your head looks like or else I’ll hang us. I’ll hang you and me, and I’ll stop thinking once and for all.
Extract from «Esprit Bavard» («Chatterbox Spirit») by Bibata Ibrahim Maiga
English translation by Kate McNaughton