Profanations

Faustin Linyekula, a key figure in the Congolese artistic scene, has partnered with composer and filmmaker Franck Moka to continue creating in a country gripped by chaos. Involving live music and film, Profanations is a performance of urgency. It pits poetry against destruction, a vital energy against the powers of death.

Since 2001, Faustin Linyekula has built a body of work in which dance, music and words contribute to the narrative of a country, the Congo, examining its fractures and its troubled history. Underlying Profanations is a history of violence which the artist and his company Studios Kabako are intimately acquainted with after 20 years in Kisangani. In the face of this brutality, the musicians on stage let the sounds of their synthesizer, guitar, bass and percussion thunder. Profanations is a concert launched as a never ending cry, a musical attempt to pray against fate, even at the risk of giving up all strength. It is also a film by Faustin Linyekula and Franck Moka, a Congolese variation on the Last Supper—an emblematic image of a feast shared in the knowledge that it could be the last. Fueled by the overpowering rhythm of the instruments, Profanations comes as a jolt against the imposed despondency. It could be summed up in one image: a woman stands up to dance.