Guewel Review - Melbourne Observer

Seven years in the making, Guewel was a landmark collaboration between Arts House, 13.12 and the National Theatre of Senegal. The show had a well-deserved standing ovation at its premiere in Melbourne.

Non-linear in narrative form, the play consisted of a series of tableaux involving song, dance, music and ritual that together portrayed an ancient African cosmovision of the universe and our place in it. To explain the title, in Senegal a guewel is a cultural custodian of this worldview, responsible for preserving and communicating it to communities and future generations. The creation of the show involved practice-based research both here in Australia and in Senegal. Collaboration with artists and elders took place over an extended period. The end result was a work that involved multiple forms of media such as live music, animations and filmed landscapes projected onto a large screen. This acted as a backdrop to spoken word and song which was performed in Senegalese; the only English used was in the form of simple written phrases that occasionally appeared on the screen. The five performers in Guewel – Awa Coulibaly, Aminata Sarr, Abdoul Aziz Ngom, Ndik Sene and Anita Quayle – were all vibrant and spirited. They sang, danced and played music with a joyous fervour but also embraced moments of stillness, often forming expressive, sometimes enigmatic, tableaux vivants. Guewel was directed by Lamine Sonko who also composed its music. He showed wonderful skill and artistry in blending the different types of media into a cohesive whole. Eschewing surtitles to translate the spoken Senegalese text was a bold choice that added to rather than detracted from the experience. Credit too to producer Olive Moynihan and her team who did a wonderful job of realising Sonko’s vision. Simple yet complex, particular yet universal.
Venue: Arts House, North Melbourne Town Hall, 521 Queensberry St, North Melbourne

Review by Peter Murphy