Experimental video, dance

Popular culture in the city of Kinshasa is rich and protean. It is born, grows and generally dies out. One of the strong manifestations, or one of the settings in which this nebula manifests itself or is staged, is funerals. During them, in Kinshasa, families mobilise and respect a set of codes established by the community. In this city, which is a melting pot of several of the country’s cultures, customary practices mix and give rise to an almost homogenous funeral vision that is typically Kinshasa. This video, in which the two dancers are staged to music with a funeral scene, relates the acts, stages and main lines of this ceremony; its variations, its importance, the solemn stages and the respect of established codes demonstrating how much the traditional, in this cosmopolitan megalopolis, and the modern have homogenised to create new ways of conceiving death. Places and moments of weeping and joy, reunions, disputes, love affairs, atmosphere, alcohol, ostentation, influences, influence peddling; funerals are here taken in an artistic approach, by these artists, highlighting them through the mixture of video art, contemporary dance, sound, etc.