Tuesday, March 5, 2013

I really like this video !

*"Dance with the Wodaabes"*

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVaShWV79PU**
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*In the heart of the Nigerien Sahel, far off the beaten "asphalt" track, thousands of Fulbe Wodaabe nomads gather every year for a gigantic ceremony named the **geerewol**. *

*For seven full days and nights, following the solar cycle, two lineages are opposed in a genuine ritual war, with for only weapons song and dance.*

*The stakes of war, the clear challenge: stealing women.*

*The ultimate purpose: to break in peace after having mutually expressed recognition of cultural conformity.*

***According to the Wodaabes, giving up these ceremonies - the only gathering where community links are woven - would entail their dissolution as an original cultural entity.*

*But the ecological crisis striking Sahel makes the organization of such gatherings more and more difficult. *

*As a result of ten years' research and friendship, the film is based on an active listening of the ritual's protagonists : fearing that the tradition may die out, they chose to tell us their experiences and their understanding of the event. *

*Their words gradually shed a whole new light on the ritual and sumptuous choreographic cycle that plays out before our eyes.**
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**'Dance with the Wodaabes' is my first documentary. It was finished in January 2010. *

*The film won the first prize Nanook-Jean Rouch at the 'Festival International Jean Rouch 2010' in Paris and the second prize at the 'Festival du Film de chercheur 2010'.*

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