Festival on the Niger
by Mary Walker
If you ever thought no-one ever wins holiday competitions, read on. I'd always dreamt of going to Mali, and hearing all my favourite musicians, so when Songlines offered the chance to win a trip to the Festival on the Niger, in February, I forgot my scepticism, and sent off my entry. Two months later, I heard I'd won a journey for two through Mali with Dragoman Overland. I cancelled all work, and money worries, and said 'yes please!'.
Another mistaken preconception that I had was that Dragoman was exclusively for the young 'gap year' traveller. I couldn't have been more wrong. Our group of eleven people covered an age range of twenty-three to sixty-five, was truly international, and was all the richer for its diversity. Everyone was very well travelled, with many travellers' tales to tell. We were a very congenial group, with two wonderful driver / tour leaders, CJ and Tony, who made everything hugely enjoyable. The thing I was most apprehensive about, camping, was actually a total delight, as we usually slept under the dazzling African stars. So my other fear was getting thrown off the Big Brother Truck, for not being one of life's natural campers was soon allayed. Dragoman definitely has a lot to offer 'wander-lusters' of all ages, and I for one can't wait to go on another adventure with them.
On our very first day night, I actually got to meet Toumani Diabate, who warmly shook my hand and welcomed me to Mali. We were at 'Le Hogon', in Bamako, which seems to be the current crucible of Malian music. What a great start! I told him that I had written a little tribute story and shadow puppet play about the creation of the Kora, the instrument which he has made so famous, and had dedicated it to him personally. We were going to perform it at the festival on the Niger. He grinned hugely and said he would come.
Our journey roughly divided into three massive treats, the first being a three-day walk in the Dogon country, a remote area at the foot of a dramatic escarpment, inhabited by a people who still practice their animist beliefs. Our journey took us through Dogon villages with their distinctive pepper-pot granaries, beautifully carved doors and masked dance troupes. The performance that we saw of a masked ritual dance, with the elders of the village, all wearing their indigo robes and chanting, was one of the highlights of the trip for me. Unforgettable too were the Neolithic remains of pygmy dwellings in the cliffs above, which echoed eerily at dawn with the sound of a thousand ghostly cockerels answering the cockerel on our roof.
The second treat was a three-day trip up the Niger to Timbuktu, in a 'pinasse', a motorized covered canoe. We almost floated up the vast and tranquil waters of the river, past many villages with multi-coloured markets and little spiky mud mosques, small but exquisite imitations of the wonderful huge mosque in Djenne, which we had already visited. Listening all the while to Ali Farka Toure's 'Heart of the Moon' and 'Niafunke' as we glided past his home town of Niafunke, seemed to me poetry in motion! How blissfully indolent our journey was, compared to all those Victorian explorers like Mungo Park, who set out to discover the seemingly undiscoverable Timbuktu! The Tuaregs gave those early explorers short shrift. All they did to us was try to sell their jewellery! What we did discover in Timbuktu was a number of different projects, like the Fondo Kati, which are trying to reassemble the thousands of lost manuscripts from this town's once famous Muslim libraries. It is a vast and scholarly task.
Lastly, and most importantly, we made our way to Segou, and the Festival on the Niger, our ultimate goal. This is only the third year of the Festival, and it has already achieved great things. The Festival was started by Mamou Daffe, a man with a vision about what music and art can achieve, both for a community and for a nation. This year's theme was 'Culture and Employment', with an emphasis on youth and education. Just by coming to this Festival, Europeans are supporting the economy and supporting artistic enterprise. This is about turning local culture and talent into a cultural industry which will help support a nation.
The Festival opened with a huge procession of puppets and masked dancers, bands and speeches, on a specially constructed platform on the river itself. The highlights of the Festival were the three 'Giant Concerts' over three nights, each with an equally brilliant line-up of top bands and artists. Night One included Vieux Farka Toure (Ali's son, who has inherited both his talent and his band), as well as Tinariwen, who have already taken Europe by storm, and certainly took Segou by storm that night. There was a startling and enchanting performance by young diva Doussou Bagayogo, with two shimmering dancers who did fabulous things with their bodies that western women can only dream of! Abdoulaye Diabate, who should be top billing on European stages and concert halls, swept the audience along with his gorgeous velvet voice and massive charisma. He is clearly adored by everyone in Mali, and got the crowds into compulsive irresistible dance mode. It struck me that up to that point, I had only ever discovered half the Mali music experience. Being in a crowd of responsive, ecstatic Malians, dancing and responding to the griots and musicians, is really the total experience. It's completely two-way and interactive. It's all about joy, sex, humour and life-force. The music itself transmogrifies melancholy into exuberance and ecstasy, something that we joyless Europeans can perhaps only achieve through alcohol (but that renders us legless!). Malians are totally joyful about eroticism and life.
The Giant Concert on night two gave us the wonderful Malian / Delta blues fusion of Lobi Traore and Joep Pelt. Their CD is coming out soon, and is highly recommended. Toumani Diabate was there, with his Symmetric Orchestra. This included a show-stopping solo by Mangala Camara, clearly ecstatically adored by the entire audience. His new CD, 'Minye Minye', is coming out soon, but I managed to get hold of a copy, and it is fabulous, with Toumani Diabate featuring with various other musicians. There was also a surprise appearance by Amadou and Mariam. Perhaps one of my favourites of the whole Festival, Les Go de Koteba, two stunning female singers, one from Timbuktu, and the other from the Ivory Coast, who I swear could turn even the grey fortress of the Barbican in London into liquid golden towers with their fabulous voices and incredible drumming. Womad must book them! (They would do for Womad what Angelique Kidjo did last year). Habib Koite finished the evening on a brilliant high note. He was another new discovery for me, being both from an ancient line of griots, and at the same time a totally contemporary and charismatic performer.
The last Giant Concert, held after the big closing ceremony, featured one of my other Festival favourites, ngoni player Bassekou Kouyate. Why had I never heard of him? Why isn't he performing all over the world? Astonishing is the word for what he can achieve with a small wooden bat with a few strings! Electrifying is the word for his performance, alongside his wife, a singer, and a line-up of bass ngonis behind him. The audience knew him and loved every moment. His CD comes out soon, and I for one will rush to buy it. Also appearing were Papa Gaoussou Diarra and Neba Solo, with his balafon ensemble and two unbelievably energetic and well coordinated male dancers - more delirium from the crowd! The two divas, Oumou Sangare and Mah Kouyate, both gave commanding and sonorous performances at the Festival.
Throughout the Festival, there was a rich programme of puppets of all shapes and sizes, small bands, drumming sessions, leaping Tuareg dancers, hunters shooting off their flintlock rifles with gusto, and masked Dogon dancers. Oh, and then there was the Dragoman shadow puppet performance of the myth 'How music was created in Mali', all in French, with my husband as storyteller, myself and two Icelandic girls as puppeteers, and four masked monsters played by fellow travellers as well as CJ pulling the crowds with a fire juggling introduction. We got a very good crowd, who all participated with relish, especially making the sound effects of all the horrible monsters and hyena-men who dissolved into the night when they heard the first magical sounds of the Kora. We felt honoured to be part of the programme.
I was already a lover of Malian music, but this trip has opened up new landscapes of Malian music. And it is precisely this, the combination of travelling through the great desert and river landscapes of Mali, and hearing the music that for centuries people have created in response to the landscape, which will be my enduring memory of a mind altering journey.
To learn more about this trip and to see current dates and prices click here.
Mary Walker is a children's writer, who writes books and poetry for children under the name Mary Lister, and is also a storyteller and puppeteer. Thank you Mary for this great article.
