- 2 years ago
Yannick Kamanzi who has embodied dancing, contemporary art, and storytelling in his lifestyle, joins us on a deeper look at his passion and creative process on the latest episode of “MY CRAFT - SESSIONS”.
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Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/IgiheTV?sub_confirmation=1
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/IGIHE
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/igiheofficial
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/igihepictures/
Website: http://igihe.com/
#IGIHE #Rwanda
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [ambient street noise]
00:10 [ambient street noise]
00:25 Dance is a language. It's a language I use to express myself.
00:31 But it's also an escape room.
00:34 Dance has always been the place where I hide when I want to free all the anxiety.
00:42 Even when I want to celebrate, it's always the channel I communicate with my emotions, my thoughts.
00:49 And yeah, it's basically now an identity, a dancer, a choreographer.
00:57 But to me, really, dance is that it's another tool of expression in all the sense that it's possible.
01:04 [ambient street noise]
01:21 Yanni Kamanzi is my name.
01:23 Yanni Kamanzi Yannik is two of my full names.
01:28 Yeah, and I'm a percussionist, I'm a choreographer, I'm a dancer, I'm a project manager.
01:36 I did digital marketing, I'm an actor, and I did artistic direction.
01:43 In the short bio, you mentioned when the journey starts.
01:48 It started in, professionally, it started in 2015.
01:52 I got my first professional training in December 2015.
01:59 Then my second professional coaching in 2017 and 2018.
02:05 Then I was given the opportunities to travel around and learn a little bit more and explore and work with other people.
02:14 [ambient street noise]
02:35 In my career as well, I had opportunities to work with different great artists here in Rwanda.
02:41 Hopa Zeda being one of them, Wesley Ruziviza, Kahol Karemera.
02:47 Currently, I also work on my personal projects and I also work as a choreographer to people like Yvonne Buravan,
02:58 people like Sain Muziki, and many other people around here.
03:04 That's about it. That's who Yannik is.
03:07 [ambient street noise]
03:25 So I started dancing at a very young age.
03:28 I believe by age four I was being trained in Butare.
03:33 She was a wonderful woman who started me in the Kinyarwanda traditional dancing.
03:40 And then after I was introduced to different other styles of dance,
03:45 mostly by TV, Michael Jackson, and then I did a little bit of Dombolo as well.
03:51 And then it kept growing.
03:54 And my thirst for dance came from the fact that it made me who I was.
04:00 I was loving, I could not stay in one place for long.
04:03 So to channel this energy, it's fun to dance.
04:07 For me it's the way to cope with life, so I've danced basically my whole life.
04:12 [music]
04:29 Sasa, choreographing, okay.
04:36 As a person who was trained and who was shown the way things are done,
04:41 not just in Rwanda but internationally,
04:43 I used to call myself a choreographer, but I was not.
04:48 Because all I did was putting moves together.
04:51 And with what we know now, with the standards of the world,
04:55 that is not choreographing.
04:57 And I've only started exploring the idea of choreographing very recently.
05:02 And I'm a choreographer in progress, I'd say.
05:06 I'm still learning how to do that.
05:08 And my approach now to choreography is to explore with different styles
05:15 and to be the one that creates the line in between.
05:19 And that started, let's say, with the first concert of Yvon Bravin,
05:26 Love Lab.
05:28 That's the first big project I choreographed as a choreographer.
05:32 [music]
05:42 And then it grew.
05:43 I was lucky enough to be recruited by companies like Mashirika
05:46 and I choreographed things like Kwe Tisina or Transform Africa.
05:49 And it's only then that I started understanding the idea.
05:52 It's not just about putting moves together.
05:55 There's a whole other space where you need to conceive the idea,
06:01 put together elements, and that is not something a lot of dancers do.
06:05 And I'm only learning how to do that.
06:07 [music]
06:22 I'm more a fan of stage than of camera.
06:28 Because I think--I don't know, there's a layer to camera that is not it.
06:33 You see?
06:36 Let the videographers not look at me in a bad way.
06:39 We appreciate your words.
06:41 But--[laughs]
06:43 I'm saying, man, when it's live, it's live.
06:45 You can feel it.
06:46 You can interact with the audience.
06:47 You can feel their vibe.
06:48 You can respond to that.
06:50 And that's why stage is the best.
06:53 And so backstage, what I'm doing most probably is structuring things.
06:58 I'm like, yo, remember, guys, remember.
07:00 This is how we're going to go.
07:01 This is where it's going to start.
07:02 This is how it's going to go.
07:04 Not like telling them this is the move, but saying, yo, remember, position, position, position.
07:10 Where is your position?
07:11 If you can remember where we positioned you in the space at what moment,
07:14 then even if you forget the actual move and just be you, the whole choreography won't die.
07:20 So a couple minutes before stage or a couple of days or in my last practices before stage,
07:25 if I'm the one choreographing or if I'm part of the people who are giving structure to the dancers
07:30 or myself as a dancer, that's what I'm doing.
07:33 I'm telling myself, remember your position, position, position.
07:36 What did you mark in the space?
07:38 What are you there to do?
07:39 Who is going to be the front line?
07:42 So it's those questions, position, position, position.
07:46 Am I going to stand here?
07:47 Can I do this on the lower?
07:49 Things like that.
07:50 And remembering, remembering, remembering, and structuring, structuring.
07:54 It's like, it's not okay.
07:56 Yeah, it's not okay.
07:58 But then when you get to stage, because you've been through all of that, it's...
08:03 Then it's a natural.
08:04 Your body remembers because you've been telling your body to remember.
08:08 And then on stage, fire.
08:09 Ladies and gentlemen, it's a whole show.
08:11 I'm enjoying the same way the audience is enjoying.
08:14 Yeah.
08:15 [Music]
08:40 So dancers dance to music.
08:42 They dance to a sound.
08:43 They dance to a rhythm.
08:47 When we break down what dance reacts to and what music is,
08:56 you can say that it is, dance is not, like can live without music.
09:01 People can dance without what we call, what we conceive as music.
09:05 But of course, but of course music is always nice.
09:09 Music is a vibe.
09:10 And every artist brings in a different vibe and a different genre.
09:16 And then some dancers were born from the music.
09:18 Some dancers were strictly born from a style of music.
09:22 And it's nice to, you know, that's the dance that belongs to that type of music.
09:27 So music and dance have a very close relationship.
09:30 I believe they're like sisters or cousins.
09:33 But the idea is one can, anyone can live without the other.
09:37 But when they come together it's vibes.
09:40 [Music]
09:56 For you to even get to a level where you develop a dance routine,
10:01 which is very rare, there's no such thing as a new dance move.
10:05 You know, every dance move we are doing today has been done somewhere, somehow.
10:10 You know, maybe we haven't, you know, and now somehow we are recycling
10:14 some of the last things we've been doing.
10:16 If before you were taking it in, today you are taking it out.
10:19 And it feels like a new dance, but it's the same body language.
10:24 So to be able to choreograph something you need to have,
10:29 for example for me, if I'm to choreograph something
10:32 I need to have an image of that thing. What do I want to tell?
10:37 Is it a song? Is it an artist that sent me a song and says,
10:40 "You choreographed this?" So I listen to the song, I feel the vibe of the song
10:44 and I'll come up with a couple of moves that I feel like
10:47 goes either with the melody or the rhythmics or the lyrics,
10:51 something like that.
10:53 If it's a project I need to know, "Okay, what are we trying to say?"
10:57 You know, and then break that thing down to the move.
11:01 If it's, for example, when they ask us to do a huge project,
11:06 for example, "Kwiti Zina," right?
11:10 For me to be able to even think of a movement in a project
11:14 as big as "Kwiti Zina," I need to know what is the theme,
11:17 what is the audience, how many people will I have on stage,
11:22 what would we need to say in this specific scenario,
11:26 how best do we link the narration to what people are going to experience,
11:31 how long do we have?
11:33 When you have all that information, then you can break down to,
11:36 "Okay, my statement for this performance are going to be,
11:41 'Gorillas are essential contributors to the development of the people in Musanze.'"
11:48 If that's the message I'm about to be saying,
11:51 then how do I say it with movement?
11:54 Then it can go into the body.
11:56 Then we can start saying, "Okay, yeah, we're going to show
12:00 that maybe people did not understand what gorillas go through."
12:04 And then we portray a gorilla that is living a good life
12:08 and we portray somebody that is not allowing the gorilla to have a good life.
12:13 And that is movement.
12:14 Then we are going to tell that story.
12:16 Then how that story comes back into a story that says,
12:19 "Yo, wake up and do good," is the whole thrill of the korangash.
12:25 The whole thrill of the storytelling.
12:27 The idea is, this thing is spontaneous.
12:45 You see how writers have writer's block?
12:48 It happens, yeah.
12:49 Sometimes you are revolving around the same movement.
12:53 So, it's again, we are artists.
12:57 And if you want to create, there's a level,
13:00 there's a lot of things that contributes to that.
13:05 There's the dedication you give to your art if you wake up and work out.
13:10 And you are inspired to do a lot of research.
13:14 Then it's always easier.
13:15 You have complete ideas on a daily.
13:18 But even when you are doing that, sometimes there's no idea.
13:21 Or you have an idea and you don't have a way of putting it out.
13:25 So, basically it depends.
13:27 Sometimes it's affected by the time I have for delivery.
13:32 An artist or anybody can come to you and be like,
13:35 "Okay, we need you to create something in two days and yeah, we have this type of budget."
13:41 Then yeah, it has to be there in two days.
13:43 You can't tell them, "No, I'm not okay."
13:46 Yeah, it's there in two days.
13:48 That's it.
13:50 [Music]
13:52 Merci, merci.
13:54 [Music]
14:18 [Music]
14:21 Tadile.
14:22 [Music]
14:27 My daily routine in general is about that.
14:32 I wake up, I'm an early riser most of the time.
14:36 And I wake up making noise.
14:38 So the people I live with don't like me for that per se.
14:42 [Laughs]
14:46 Yeah, and that's going to be it.
14:48 From 6am or 5am, the moment I wake up, I'm dancing, I'm playing songs, I'm running around,
14:53 I'm stretching here, I'm doing that there, then I'm writing this here, then I'm on a meeting there.
14:59 I try my best to push myself to be 110% creative until I'm exhausted.
15:09 And when I'm exhausted, I go have fun.
15:12 But then it's time to ratchet mode. I open my hand and I start doing things I might regret the next day.
15:18 [Music]
15:26 This piece is called "Bubblehead."
15:28 And bubbleheads normally are a nice thing to see until you see them wearing suits.
15:33 Which means someone with air in the head wearing a suit, being in a position of power.
15:42 That is very dangerous, ladies and gentlemen.
15:45 And the one thing that can remove the air from the bubble is a pin.
15:52 So any time you see a bubblehead and it's something you want to get rid of in your life, just use a pin.
15:58 So this painting is just a representation of that.
16:01 I drew it because I hate ego. I don't like people that have ego.
16:06 And this is to remind me never to have a big head.
16:09 [Music]
16:17 Well, I knew I was going to spend a lot more of my time dancing.
16:21 And I needed something to keep that, I don't know.
16:29 You know, dance is like...
16:34 I was going to give an example I can't relate to.
16:38 But okay, addiction.
16:40 People get addicted to their phone. People get addicted to the things they like.
16:44 People get addicted to the feeling you have when you dance.
16:49 You know, it's biologically understandable. Dopamine, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
16:53 Now, when you enjoy dancing to that extent, you cannot live without.
17:00 That's how you see old papas and mamas that love kukata.
17:05 You know, that's about it.
17:07 And now me, when I realized I had that and there's no way I'm going to stop dancing,
17:12 I thought to myself, this needs to carry something bigger than just enjoyment.
17:17 And I started learning how to try and communicate with dance.
17:27 The first thing I did in 2015 was to...
17:31 I was lucky enough to find a place of belonging in 2015, a place called Iriwa Center.
17:38 Iriwa Center is an archive, is a multimedia heritage center.
17:42 From 2015 to now, it's a place I go to learn.
17:47 And I learn about the culture. I learn about the world.
17:50 I learn about arts. I learn about archives. I learn about all of that.
17:55 And then it gives me that depth of knowledge that I can later use to create things.
18:01 And then when I wanted to start creating is when I met people like Wesleru Ziviza,
18:06 who then trained me professionally and showed me how do you do what you want to do.
18:14 And then when I was lucky enough to know the basics, I was hired by people like Opa Zayda
18:20 that then gave me the platforms to do everything I needed to do
18:24 and to gain experience and to meet people and to network.
18:28 And now, you know, the whole journey led me to being who I am,
18:32 like learning about getting information from Iriwa,
18:36 being trained by some of the biggest legends here in the arts industry,
18:42 and then me being able to gather all of that and say, "Okay, what can I do personally?"
18:48 My first professional performance, guys, ladies and gentlemen, this was an eight-minute solo.
18:57 And I'm not even bragging. An eight-minute solo.
19:01 And I was performing it in the Belgian residency in Kigali.
19:06 It was after a two-week streaming from a program called Orles Murs by École de Sable et Amisero.
19:16 The company Amisero is the one that is owned by Wesleru.
19:20 So I was trained there. I got casted in one of my life's biggest productions, I'd say,
19:27 because I was a beginner and I was given that opportunity.
19:34 So that thing is... that performance, Le Boléro, is the thing I look at and say,
19:39 "Okay, this thing is what opened the doors for me."
19:43 And it was before that, and I was selected among a few dancers to present solos,
19:50 like solo performances. I didn't even know that thing existed.
19:54 And so I built a routine, an eight-minute routine, personally.
20:01 Like, it was... it didn't make sense.
20:04 And it had to tell a story, or it had to stand for something,
20:07 and it had to be... it had to be inspired by what I am.
20:13 Yeah, that was the first time.
20:15 I even think my father came to that performance, and it's the day he realized,
20:19 "Yo, I'm... yeah, this is what it's gonna be."
20:22 Before that, we were beefing.
20:24 But that is the performance that I think was the first ever performance I did.
20:29 Even when I look at the pictures now, I'm like, "Goddamn."
20:32 ♪
21:00 The black in order, right?
21:03 So, as I told you, I started a journey in 2015 of trying to explore movement as a language
21:11 and understanding, you know, where this can go.
21:16 I have a given love for the Kinyaranda traditional dance that is...
21:21 that is coming from a point where...
21:24 I started dancing Kinyaranda traditional dance wanting to be Rwandan enough.
21:30 You know, I don't know if it makes sense.
21:33 The history of Rwanda as we know it, has it that some people were born in exile,
21:37 has it that some people are Rwandan by identity,
21:40 but neither speaks Kinyaranda nor know much about Rwanda,
21:46 or, you know, were groomed...
21:49 was a groomed stuff, they were born and raised somewhere.
21:54 So, the idea is, I'm those.
21:57 I am those. I was born in Rwanda, but...
22:02 like, there was that. I was never either Rwandan enough,
22:06 never either, you know, any other person.
22:09 In Uganda, they would confuse me to a Kenyan,
22:12 and Kenyan, they would say, "Okay, you're Rwandan."
22:14 You know, like that thing. And for identity,
22:16 first of all, I didn't speak Kinyaranda until I was like eight.
22:20 I only spoke like French and Swahili and stuff like that, and English a little.
22:24 So, that for me, me starting to dance Kinyaranda,
22:29 was for me to actually be looked at as Rwandan.
22:32 Knowing the Kinyaranda traditional dance,
22:35 then, not like knowing, knowing, knowing, having the basics,
22:39 because I only knew enough to, you know.
22:42 Then, I learned so many other styles.
22:45 I was introduced then to contemporary dance.
22:47 I was introduced then to salsa, kizomba, bachata.
22:50 I had done hip-hop. I had done afro.
22:53 I had a little bit of knowledge on different type of dances.
22:57 And all the other type of dances gave me the ability to
23:02 to express a various, a variety of emotions.
23:08 I don't know if it makes sense.
23:10 In hip-hop, I can only focus on hip-hop movements
23:15 and tell you the story of a guy who like was born
23:20 and then met, had issues, then went through struggles,
23:24 and then conquered the struggles, and you know.
23:26 Like, I have enough vocabularies to go from a happy vibe to something dark,
23:32 and you know.
23:34 The same with every other styles of dance that I've been trying to explore.
23:38 But the Kinyaranda traditional dance, on the other hand,
23:42 from its conception, from the little I know today,
23:45 from the conception to the execution,
23:49 it has a few vocabularies.
23:52 And all these few vocabularies would only talk about happy things,
23:57 bravery, you know, courage.
24:02 You know, we would always be, you know, we did it.
24:06 The other, you know, when you see the dance,
24:08 when you break down the dance to what it is saying,
24:10 you can see that our language, Kinyaranda, our traditional language,
24:16 is for celebration, is for happy times, is for the sun,
24:20 is for us saying to each other we did well.
24:25 And then I started asking myself, is there a language to say,
24:28 okay, I'm sad, I'm not that happy, you know.
24:39 Because again, look at this.
24:41 Our culture, our history has, yes, a lot of glory moments up to today,
24:48 but it has dark moments, right?
24:51 Now, how do I still be able to dance in those dark moments?
24:55 [Music]
25:03 How do I stay true to who I am as a person who loves moving,
25:07 who loves dance, in a time where I'm not supposed to be dancing
25:10 because maybe dance is not the appropriate thing to do?
25:14 And why is dance not the appropriate thing to do?
25:16 It's because our language does not, we don't know how to dance in Machiri,
25:20 for example, you know.
25:23 We don't know how to dance in a time of failure.
25:25 What is our dance of failure?
25:27 We have our dance of conquest, but what is our dance of failure?
25:30 Is failure not part of what we experience?
25:33 Okay, if we can't dance when we fail, what do we do?
25:35 Do we sing? Are we sure we have methodologies to release these tensions
25:40 when we meet things that are not okay in our lives?
25:43 Because movement helps you to breathe out.
25:47 I don't know if you guys know this.
25:49 You know, biologically speaking, psychologically speaking,
25:51 I'll give you an example that I learned from one of my good friends, Frank.
25:56 He told me that Urukwavu, the rabbit, goes through a traumatic moment.
26:03 [Speaking in foreign language]
26:07 What it does, it shakes the tension away.
26:10 It shakes the trauma away.
26:13 There are programs globally that can help people cure their mental health issues,
26:19 their traumas, through movement.
26:22 You know, there's that power, but it's everywhere else except here.
26:30 So that's where I started thinking, "Yo, is there a way?"
26:35 I remember in like 2018, I started doing a project called UniDance,
26:39 and it was a way of detaching Rwandan dance to Rwandan music.
26:43 Because for me, it was the first thing I needed to do.
26:46 I wanted to know that I can dance Kinyarwanda style in any other style of music.
26:53 Like the same way, or I can even do any other style of dance in any Kinyarwanda style of music.
27:00 I don't know if it makes sense. I wanted to separate the two.
27:04 And it was received positive by some, negative by some,
27:08 but the journey was for me to gain that level of freedom to play with things.
27:13 I made one video that went viral, and my dad showed it to me. He didn't know it was me.
27:18 I danced to this, it's called "Symphony du Nouveau Monde."
27:23 You know, the...
27:25 I danced it with one of my good friends called Ada.
27:32 That video, it has a single, "Kangumumucheza Mata"
27:35 [Music]
27:51 You know what I'm saying?
27:53 And my dad was like, "Come see these fools!"
27:55 And I was like, "Yo, mzee, that's me!"
27:57 [Laughs]
27:59 You know what I'm saying?
28:01 So that's the first freedom I needed.
28:03 Then the second freedom was,
28:05 "Okay, now that I know I can dance this form of movement in any type of dance,
28:13 can I do it in silence? Can I make it tell a story?"
28:16 You know, "Can I make, can I create a whole performance,
28:20 fully inspired by the technique of the Kinyarwanda traditional dance,
28:25 but that doesn't say glory?"
28:28 That says, "I'm trying, sometimes I will, sometimes I don't,
28:32 but I'm a regular human."
28:34 You know? In a world where inore is expected to be the most perfect.
28:39 Inore wouldja, "Hey, na inore ganye shachirim zira."
28:43 But what if I don't have that zira?
28:46 You know, 'cause reality is, yes, I struggle,
28:50 but sometimes I make it, sometimes I don't make it.
28:54 Now, the world we live in is a world where we celebrate conquests,
29:00 we celebrate the great things we do,
29:02 social media shows us the great things people do,
29:05 our schools show us the great things people do.
29:08 But ain't nobody has time, not a lot of people have time to tell you,
29:12 "Yo, for me to achieve that, I had to struggle."
29:15 It was not easy, it was not fun. Right?
29:18 And people on TV watching say, "Oh, that guy is famous, that guy has danced in videos."
29:23 They don't know what that guy has gone through. You know?
29:27 These artists, most of these artists burn out.
29:30 Most of these heroes have depression. Right?
29:35 Most of these inores give up on dancing at some point
29:39 because they're like, "Okay, dancing will not make us go anywhere anyway."
29:43 And they go to do some other stuff.
29:45 And this is a system and a way of life we've lived for the longest,
29:50 because anybody has time for progress, everyone wants end result.
29:55 At work we need to deliver.
29:57 Life needs us to deliver.
30:00 If you're a hero, the world expects you to be a hero.
30:02 If you don't want to be a hero, don't be a hero.
30:04 If you're a hero, be a hero.
30:06 If you're on TV, be a star.
30:08 You know what I'm saying? Be a star, have bling blings.
30:11 I can't see you in the streets, walking with me, and consider you a star.
30:15 Because if you're a star, you need to have another standard of things.
30:18 You need to.
30:20 And when I don't have that, am I not allowed to be a star?
30:24 When I'm not that rich just yet,
30:28 do I have ways of saying, "Okay, I'm not yet there, but, you know, it's a work in progress."
30:34 What is that inori that is a work in progress?
30:37 The one that hasn't yet mastered the whole thing.
30:40 The one that is still learning. How is it caught?
30:43 So I had a lot of other ideas.
30:47 I painted my omogara black.
30:53 At first, because I thought, okay, if...
30:56 Because I looked at omogara, when I was a white one, whitish,
31:00 and I'm like, "Okay, if that is the level of perfection,
31:04 "Ude amsa takarimhi invi," you know, that's perfection,
31:07 "how do I start from the beginning?
31:09 "How do I show the journey of the guy in the beginning?"
31:12 And then I painted it black. It looked nice.
31:14 I was like, "Cool, let me go."
31:16 People didn't like it, but I was like, "Cool, let me go."
31:19 Then, later on, I find out--
31:23 and this is things I'm still learning--
31:25 I find out that, yo, people used to wear omogara of different colors.
31:31 Etiblaki omogaras were reserved for people who were not randans,
31:37 but who liked, you know, being amongst randans,
31:40 who wanted to vibe with randans.
31:44 -What about your research? -I don't know.
31:47 We're doing research. When I know, I'll come and tell you.
31:50 And even this one is not--
31:52 'cause, you know, our history is an oral source of history.
31:55 Maybe this thing didn't even exist, this black omogara,
31:57 'cause even that I haven't even seen the picture.
31:59 The red one I have a picture, the black one I don't have a picture.
32:02 And I'm doing my research.
32:04 I need to understand if koko, we didn't have that thing,
32:08 or if we had it and it disappeared.
32:10 'Cause there's some movements that a lot of people don't know.
32:13 Like, for example, the way we dance,
32:15 we have a dance called "gutandirinag,"
32:18 which is a style of dance of its own.
32:20 I saw a couple of people do it.
32:22 Jules Senore, I saw Luthi Joël,
32:24 people that somehow are more knowledgeable on these facts,
32:27 and I'm like, "Wow!"
32:30 You know? They are very different types of imitembo,
32:34 but who has time to learn?
32:37 That's why I support people like Yvonne Bravano
32:40 and things that make people learn these things.
32:43 And now, back to your question,
32:45 how does my journey bring back to the black inori?
32:49 This journey is a journey of curiosity.
32:52 It's a journey of trying to know
32:54 and trying to share the knowledge.
32:56 Now, the black inori is a huge project.
33:00 It's a very huge project.
33:03 Even I...
33:05 And I'm just saying, maybe it's emotion,
33:07 maybe it's a fake project for the world.
33:09 Maybe it's not going to change anything.
33:11 But to me, it's going to be that.
33:15 It's going to be that.
33:17 I'm going to be able to find that language,
33:21 to share that language, inshallah.
33:24 And the black inori is not one person.
33:27 As for now, I'm just a face.
33:30 Right now, I'm just a face,
33:32 the person who's exploring this idea,
33:35 but with movement.
33:37 But there's a whole team behind,
33:39 a whole team that is thinking about
33:41 how best this can be something
33:44 this whole generation can look into.
33:46 Because there's a lot of things that we are tackling.
33:48 Not only the idea that art...
33:51 For example, the black inori as a production
33:53 will be a production with art and technology.
33:56 So we're going to mix dance and technology.
33:59 And that is going to be an amazing thing.
34:01 I'm looking forward to that.
34:03 But as for now, the brand carries more than just that.
34:06 The brand carries the idea of a space
34:08 where heroes can mourn.
34:10 It's a place where artists can cheer.
34:14 And not just be under pressure of delivering and whatnot,
34:18 but they can be who they are.
34:21 We can find...
34:24 I don't know, man.
34:25 For example, this is COVID, right?
34:27 What the black inori could do in COVID is...
34:31 It's a time where a lot of people are isolated.
34:34 And although we look at it in a fun perspective,
34:37 but there's a lot of people who are going through
34:39 a lot of things that are not okay.
34:41 In their households, in their artist life.
34:43 Imagine an artist that hasn't been able to perform
34:46 since the time COVID started.
34:49 What are we feeding them now?
34:51 And they're supposed to be superstars anyway.
34:55 So for example, what the black inori could do in this season is...
34:58 The black inori, not like me,
35:00 the black inori as the collective,
35:02 the collective we are is...
35:05 I don't know, giving back spaces to...
35:07 Like celebrating the local artists.
35:10 I don't know.
35:12 Using that idea or movement or whatever we are as a brand
35:17 into telling them, "You guys, man, you're still the shit.
35:20 "We like you. We like the things you did.
35:22 "Even if you're not producing music anymore,
35:24 "or even if you haven't afforded to go to the studio in a while,
35:27 "we still love your music. We vibe to it.
35:30 "Send us some of your tracks.
35:32 "What is your favourite song in Rwanda
35:34 "of the artists that haven't been releasing songs?"
35:37 And we dance to that and we vibe to that.
35:39 It's to create a place where, you know, we can still be happy
35:43 or we can find comfort
35:45 in not being as perfect as we are supposed to be.
35:48 You know?
35:50 And I'm only approaching it from an artist's perspective.
35:52 If you meet someone in my team
35:54 who is, like I said, doing something related to videography or anything,
35:59 they'll tell you what their conception of the black community is.
36:02 When you meet someone who's in charge of the brand,
36:05 they'll tell you what they believe the black community is.
36:07 So I don't know, you know?
36:09 Let's give it time. Let's give it time.
36:11 Let's see what comes out of it.
36:13 Let's see how it grows.
36:15 But it's a journey I started,
36:18 but it's a journey I don't want to be leading until the end.
36:22 I just want to play my part and have more people join in.
36:26 [Music]
36:45 I think language is the laziest form of communication
36:50 because it's simple.
36:52 If you want, I'll tell you two stories.
36:56 You know?
36:58 And there's no such thing as a straight, one-way thing.
37:01 I don't know.
37:02 What thing do you know is not complex?
37:04 What is the simplest thing you know?
37:07 You know what I'm saying?
37:08 Everything has some level of complexity.
37:11 So communication is key.
37:16 And by focusing on only language,
37:19 you've lost a lot more.
37:21 Okay, for example, we speak English.
37:23 But when you meet a Chinese, how do you talk to a Chinese?
37:26 Can the two of you communicate?
37:28 So whoever created language should start a company.
37:33 If they don't have a company, they'll buy whatever language.
37:36 Whenever someone uses their language, they get paid.
37:39 So humans become more creative in communication
37:42 because there's a lot more we can do.
37:45 Some people have developed the science of reading body language,
37:48 and they can talk to anybody in any language.
37:51 Dance is an international language.
37:54 You know?
37:55 Music is melodies in an international language.
37:58 It's a form of communication.
38:00 Sign is a form of-- painting is a form of communication.
38:02 And by focusing on only language,
38:04 somehow we forget about all of these others.
38:08 That's how people would sit in a piece of dance.
38:11 You know what Marissa did?
38:13 They'd watch.
38:14 They're like, "Okay, what did this guy, what's John, say?"
38:17 Because for him, the moment there's no words, they can't hear shit.
38:22 You get it?
38:23 They can't hear anything.
38:25 "Guys, I need you to tell me, just tell me."
38:29 Yeah.
38:31 So the moment--yeah, what was I saying?
38:35 The moment there's no words, people don't hear.
38:39 They don't have time to assess, reading between the lines.
38:43 That's how we Tunatakers, we Nhokuzins,
38:45 Rwandans used to go beyond just language.
38:48 We would use a small phrase to mean something huge.
38:51 But now, we just say that thing.
38:54 [speaking in foreign language]
39:01 That's direct.
39:02 So life becomes a little bit boring with just words.
39:06 So the body needs to interact.
39:08 We need to learn how to communicate beyond just words.
39:12 On my point of view, the simpler life gets for a human,
39:16 the more lazy we become,
39:19 the more dependent we become to things we use.
39:26 For example, right now, because you know you have a smartphone,
39:28 how many numbers do you know in your head?
39:32 But we all had numbers.
39:35 [speaking in foreign language]
39:41 Yeah, that's about it.
39:42 The more we advance in technology, the less we want to do stuff.
39:46 The more technology will keep doing things for us.
39:50 And yo, it's about time.
39:53 It's about time we wake up.
39:54 I'm just saying.
39:55 It's about time we wake up and we start going back into writing with our hands.
40:00 I don't know.
40:01 Drinking water instead of Coke.
40:05 You know, the basics.
40:06 The basics.
40:07 Learn how to work with your feet.
40:10 Because what if someday all cars decide they want to move?
40:14 Does the body will chill at home?
40:16 No.
40:17 You know, so the easier things get,
40:20 the less willing we are to working on improving our abilities.
40:26 You know, and the moment we are dumb, dumb, dumb, dumb,
40:30 things can take off.
40:31 [music]
40:36 It's always nice to dance before you eat
40:41 or a little bit longer after you've eaten
40:44 because then digestion is no longer a problem
40:46 and you're not doing "ups" and "ups", you know?
40:50 But why are you laughing?
40:53 You're asking me a question I'm asking you.
40:54 No, no, no.
40:55 It's usually the place that you have this would be positive action.
40:58 It's good action.
40:59 Okay.
41:00 Okay, so here you are seeing the future.
41:02 [laughter]
41:08 [music]
41:12 How is that?
41:13 Imagine I tell the story for him.
41:15 [music]
41:18 Everything you want I want.
41:20 [music]
41:22 One leg is on the hip.
41:24 [laughter]
41:26 [music]
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