Mame Woury Thioubou: Face to Face, Women and Beauty in Saint-Louis | Face à face, Femmes et beauté à Saint-Louis (Senegal)

Mame Woury Thioubou

Mame Woury Thioubou: Face to Face, Women and Beauty in St. Louis (Senegal). Published in Regard Émoi Afrique, 7 December 2011. Translation from French by Beti Ellerson

[En français ci après]

Mame Woury Thioubou was born and raised in Senegal. After a MA in geography at the University Cheikh Anta Diop in Dakar and a diploma in journalism at the University of St. Louis, Senegal, she became a journalist/reporter at the "Quotidien" and for the company Avenir Communication, and technical assistant for Programme Agenda 21 in the city of Matam.

In 2009, she decided to return to her studies continuing in the area of journalism but from a more artistic approach by engaging in creative documentary filmmaking, now considered a genre in itself. She enrolled in the Master II Réalisation de Documentaire de Création  (Creative Documentary Filmmaking) at the University Gaston Berger in St. Louis (Senegal), under the tutelage of Africadoc.

In this context she made the collaborative film with the students in her class, St. Louis and Us, and her first short documentary film Face to Face, (17 mn) for which she received public recognition and the award for the best film at the (Festival du film de quartier de Dakar) Neighborhood Film Festival of Dakar in 2009.

Face to Face by Mame Woury Thioubou

Women and Beauty in St. Louis 

Filmmaker's intentions of the film Face to Face

The history of St. Louis is marked by numerous intermixtures of ideas, cultures and races, for which it has earned the reputation of being at the crossroads between African, European and Arab cultures. Adding to this intermixture, is the legacy of the Signares who gave birth to an original form of savoir-être, which artists have continued to invoke in songs and plays.

With its Signares, St. Louis has maintained a tradition that its inhabitants strive to perpetuate through the "Takussanu Ndar." This old St. Louisian tradition consisted of a parade at twilight, in the likeness of the Signares mingling in the streets. Indeed, during the colonial period, Faidherbe square was the everyday gathering place for all St. Louisians, filled with games, music and encounters, where women chatted, displaying their outfits, and also the men, the "ndanaan," who came to have a good look and show off as well. Of course the Signares were present and dressed in their finery, arriving in their carriages, accompanied by their servants.

As an awkward, graceless child who looked like a tomboy, St. Louis has always been my idea of feminine beauty. Now that I am in this "center of elegance and good taste that has been the fascination of Senegal and West Africa," I cannot refrain from looking everywhere, all the time, for this highly-acclaimed beauty and elegance. The streets and alleys of the city that once welcomed the "Takussanu Ndar" have been emptied of their beauties because of the hardships of modern life. The desire to be noticed that brought these ladies to life, is now expressed only during important ceremonies: baptisms, weddings and religious songs. It is an opportunity for the young and not so young, to deck out in precious cloth, coiffed in elaborate hairstyles.

In my film, I investigate the practices of feminine beauty in St. Louis. How do they express it? What are its characteristics? To find an answer to these questions, I pose my camera in various locations. In a hair salon where ladies come to get made up and their hair done; at a shop where they buy beauty products. Moreover, at their homes, I talk to the elders so that they can tell me about the traditions of elegance in the city. And through the metamorphosis of someone in traditional dress and hairstyle, participating in the carnival "Takussanu Ndar", organized as part of the St. Louis Jazz Festival. In order to have a cross-generational perspective: then and now, what are the practices of beauty, what are the changes that have occurred? How do they adapt to the mutations of fashion?

Beyond the simple matter of aesthetics that traverse the film, I want to investigate the societal practices as it relates to beauty. Why do women have to resort to artifices to feel beautiful? And in so doing, to what need are they submitting?

Mame Woury Thioubou: Face à face, Femmes et beauté à Saint-Louis. Publié le 7 décembre 2011. Regard Émoi Afrique  : https://regardemoiafrique.wordpress.com/2011/12/07/femmes-et-beaute-a-saint-louis/

Mame Woury Thioubou est née et a grandi au Sénégal. Après une maîtrise de géographie à l’Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar et l’obtention d’un diplôme en Journalisme à l’Université de Saint-Louis du Sénégal, elle devient Journaliste/reporter au “Quotidien”, pour la société Avenir Communication et assistante technique du Programme Agenda 21 de la Ville de Matam.

En 2009, elle décide de reprendre ses études et complète son point de vue journalistique par une approche plus artistique en se lançant dans le documentaire de création, aujourd’hui considéré comme un genre cinématographique à part entière. Elle suit ainsi le Master II de Réalisation de Documentaire de Création à l’Université Gaston Berger de Saint Louis (Sénégal), formation sous la tutelle d’Africadoc.

C’est dans ce cadre qu’elle réalise un film collectif avec des étudiants de sa promotion “Saint Louis et nous”, puis son premier court-métrage documentaire “Face à Face”. Elle obtiendra les salutations du public et sera récompensée de l’Ebène du meilleur film au Festival du film de quartier de Dakar en 2009.

Femmes et beauté à Saint-Louis 

Note d’intention du film “Face à face”

L’histoire de Saint Louis est marquée par les nombreux brassages d’idées, de cultures et de races qui lui ont valu sa position de carrefour entre les cultures africaines, européennes et arabes. A ce brassage, s’est ajouté l’héritage des Signares pour donner naissance à une forme originale de savoir-être que les artistes n’ont cessé d’évoquer dans les chansons et les pièces de théâtre.

De ses Signares, Saint-Louis a gardé une tradition que sa population s’évertue à perpétuer à travers le « Takussanu ndar ». Cette vieille tradition saint louisienne, consistait en une parade crépusculaire, à l’image de celle des Signares dans les rues. En effet, durant la période coloniale, la place Faidherbe était chaque jour, le point de ralliement de tous les Saint-Louisiens. Les jeux, la musique et les rencontres rassemblaient en ces lieux des femmes venues montrer leurs toilettes et papoter mais aussi des hommes, des « ndanaan », venus les contempler et se montrer eux aussi. Les Signares étaient également de la partie et parées de leurs plus beaux atours, elles se rendaient à la place à bord de leurs calèches et accompagnées de leurs servantes.Enfant disgracieuse, sans grâce et aux allures de garçon manqué, Saint louis a de tout temps cristallisé mon imaginaire en matière de beauté féminine. Aujourd’hui que je suis dans  ce «centre d’élégance et de bon goût qui faisait battre le cœur du Sénégal et de l’Afrique occidentale », je ne puis m’empêcher de chercher dans tous les lieux et à tout moment cette beauté et cette élégance maintes fois louée. Les rues et ruelles de la ville qui accueillaient jadis le « Takussanu ndar », se sont vidées de leurs belles du fait des difficultés de la vie actuelle. Le besoin de paraître qui animaient ces dames ne s’exprime plus désormais que dans les grandes cérémonies : baptêmes, mariages ou chants religieux. C’est l’occasion pour jeunes et moins jeunes de se parer d’étoffes précieuses et d’arborer des coiffures très élaborées.

Dans mon film, je souhaite questionner la beauté féminine dans cette ville de Saint louis. Comment s’exprime-t-elle ? Qu’est-ce qui la caractérise ? Pour trouver une réponse à ces questions, j’installerai ma caméra dans divers lieux. Un salon de coiffure ou les dames viennent se faire maquiller et coiffer, une boutique de cosmétique où elles achètent les produits de beauté. Ailleurs, dans les maisons, je donnerai la parole aux vielles personnes pour qu’elles me parlent des traditions d’élégance de la ville. Et à travers la métamorphose d’une personne qui va endosser une tenue et une coiffure traditionnelle pour participer au carnaval du « Takussanu ndar » organisé dans le cadre du Saint Louis Jazz festival, je souhaite faire dialoguer les générations de femmes. D’hier à aujourd’hui, quelles sont les pratiques en matière de beauté, quelles sont les mutations qui sont intervenues ? Comment les femmes s’accommodent-elles de la mode ?

Au delà de la simple question d’esthétique qui traverse le film, je voudrais questionner les pratiques de société en matière de beauté. Pourquoi les femmes doivent-elles recourir aux artifices pour se sentir belles ? A quel besoin se soumettent-elles en le faisant ?

Rama Thiaw, A Young Filmmaker in the Struggle

Rama Thiaw, photo ©Sabine Cessou

Article by Sabine Cessou republished from Slate Afrique,  8 September, 2011. Translated from French to English by Beti Ellerson

The Senegalese filmmaker became known with her documentary Boul Fallé, The Wrestling Way, a politically committed film which uses sport to show how the youth of Pikine—a disadvantaged neighborhood in Dakar—overcome their plight.

Rama Thiaw, 33 years old, talks about herself and explores the way that she films Dakar, with her camera, free, in constant movement with perceptive glimpses at the details and surroundings of her city.

Her subject matter also has a purpose. From wrestling, the national passion of Senegal, she goes to reggae, another African passion. Her endeavor: to relate the politics of the last thirty years on the continent through reggae. A vast subject which has already taken her to Abidjan and Bamako, with future locations in Johannesburg following the footsteps of the late Lucky Dube, the South African reggae singer.

First Weapon

Rama Thiaw is of a strong character. While studying in Paris, she pursued both a Masters in economics at the Université de Paris I and a diploma in filmmaking at Université de Paris-St. Denis.  Social issues are her focus. While making her first short film on youth and religion in France, she navigated between the Aubervilliers suburb and the Stalingrad metro station. She also produced short episodes for the politically engaged Parisian television station, Zaléa TV, but quickly ran into hurdles.

“No one wanted me to film, no one believed in what I wrote,” she states.

In 2005, she packs her bags and leaves, returning to Senegal. There she is still disillusioned.

“At first I went to television stations and communication companies. I was a camera operator and I was looking for work. Either I was not given an interview or throughout the interview the French intern next to me was given the attention. When one looks like a rapper and comes from working class neighborhoods… Moreover, there is the idea in Senegal that women cannot have technical skills.

Rama Thiaw is unrelenting. After all, she knows she must fight.  She grew up in Pikine. Her father came from the Tally Bou Mack neighborhood, (the big road in Wolof) and her mother from Guinaw Rail (behind the tracks). Names she mentions with pride, despite their bad reputation and high levels of poverty.

“It is the last part of Dakar, populated by the poorest. Up until the last two or three years there was no power, and before 2004-2005, no water, we had to go to the public tap,” she says.

Both Feet in the Ring

From 2005 to 2009 she wrote her film on the Boul Fallé (don’t worry) Generation, which was born with hip-hop in 1990’s Dakar.

Boul Fallé is the title of a song by the rap group Positive Black Soul (PBS) before becoming the name of the wrestling team founded by Mohamed Ndao Tyson, a Senegalese wrestling star with which thousands of young Senegalese identify. Tyson, who came from nothing, brings hope and shows the way forward. By dint of determination and hard work he became a success.

Rama Thiaw grew up with the Boul Fallé Generation that believed in the "Sopi" (change) proposed by Abdoulaye Wade before being elected president in 2000. For her, the recent developments in Senegal evolved in three stages:

"In the 1980s our parents went to France, we had a French minister, Jean Collin in our government. In the 1990s, young people rejected the French model and French intervention in national affairs. It was about finding out who we were. Wrestling, our national sport, forgotten after independence, had an important role in this quest. It also was a means to break away from these prejudices: the youth of the Dakar suburbs were tired of being treated like bandits, aggressors. In the third stage came the Sopi in 2000, and young people have begun to find their own path, knowing there was nothing else to expect..."

Finally in France she found a Franco-Ivorian producer who was interested in her topic. With Philippe Lacôte she rewrote her script to tone down the aspects deemed "too anthropological." Moreover, she participated in writing residencies with Africadoc in St. Louis, Senegal, an international program for the development of African documentary filmmaking. Then, without a budget, she filmed her documentary, doing the main part of the production work on site.

"I managed to do it," she says, smiling. She obtained a grant of 750 euros from Senegal, after laying siege at the film bureau of the Ministry of Culture.

"It does not look like much, but for us it was a lot of money."

Initially, she wanted to follow Tyson. When she approached him, he had already played in L’Appel des Arènes an adaptation of Aminata Sow Fall’s novel by the Senegalese director Cheikh Ndiaye. She was not able to pay him the desired funds. So she decided to follow Nguer, a wrestler of the Boul Fallé wrestling team in Pikine.

"One may find the spirit of Boul Fallé in hip hop. It is made of liberalism, resistance and involves taking the freedom to own one’s work. To take charge while thinking of others, which is what Tyson did, by investing his money in a team in Pikine to train other young people from the same disadvantaged backgrounds."

Her aesthetic is that of the hip-hop music and action movies that she loves. No fixed frame, the camera moves, as in the Brazilian film City of God [Fernando Meirelles, 2002].

"We're tired of seeing the same brown shades in African films: people who are all black in the same way, while there are people with shades of sand-brown, blue-black and black-brown. In Senegal, there is plenty of light and color. We worked around the camera to change the way of filming. We de-saturated certain colors and saturated others during the shooting, without the classic calibration on white paper or white skin, as everyone does on television or in the cinema.”

Rudolph, her chief operator, fell ill in the middle of filming. Rama Thiaw grabbed the camera and continued working without asking any questions. At one point, her documentary goes from a social perspective to a kind of sensual poem on the bodies of men in training.

"Well-built, hefty men, they’re not my type! But I find them beautiful. It was important to show it. The black man is beautiful. We are always into models that are not our own. Let’s show positive role models, it is important to change the images."

A Fresh Look Amid the Wrestlers

Rama Thiaw filmed a sometimes-violent sport, as Senegalese wrestling is done with punching. She wanted to show the pacifist side, with boys who are committed to great mutual respect, as well as to its spiritual dimension. In rituals prior to the match, the fighters go into a trance, as Nguer is seen in front of the camera. Was being a woman a handicap with the wrestlers? She reverses the question.

"It is because I am from Pikine that I film Pikine in this manner. All the brave people of Senegal come from there. I had to show that I was determined, that I was not there to have fun."

In the male world of wrestlers, it was not yet won. But Rama Thiaw went slowly: at first, she stayed by the door and at the end, she was among the wrestlers, sharing with them a "beautiful human experience." The voice off at the end of Boul Fallé, a film which unfortunately is only visible in film festivals and mobile cinema gatherings across Senegal, provides the key to her topic:

"Let's become again the noble warriors who we are."

Links

Berlinale 2016: The Revolution won't be televised by/de Rama Thiaw

Rama Thiaw talks about “the making of” her film "The revolution won’t be televised"