"Samedi Détente" premieres this evening at Teatro Campo Alegre

Samedi Détente is French for Saturday Relaxation, and it is the name of a radio broadcast that choreographer Dorothée Munyaneza from Rwanda, used to listen to when she was a child. All the children would learn the songs by heart and would then perform them at school, in the playground.

Through this memory, Munyaneza evokes her childhood, when such daily ordinary moments like this would be forever changed in the summer of 1994, when her country sank into horror due to tensions between the Hutu and Tutsi peoples, which have led to a civil war in Rwanda.

How can one speak the unspeakable? The terror, the fear, the exodus and the long walks? How can one say anything about this atrocious genocide?

Through dance and singing, Dorothea Munyaneza recalls the memory of places she loved and people who are no more. With modesty, humanity and an immense talent as a storyteller, she places this conflict on a human level.

Her testimony resonates strongly in the current climate and invites us to challenge all the identity folds.

 This performance debuts tonight at Teatro campo Alegre, at 9:30 pm.

Ticketing and more info here.