- The musician, actor and stage director Hassane Kouyaté receives the 2019 MAPAS Illustrious Cartographer award
El griot, actor, percussionist and stage director Hassane Kouyaté received the award today Distinguished Cartographer of MAPS 2019, for being one of the great ambassadors of African culture, demonstrating that the distance imposed by the oceans and borders are nothing when it comes to sharing art. A work that, as expressed when receiving the award, which has not been individual. "In everything I do, I have been lucky to find brothers and sisters at heart."
"To say that I am excited is saying little," he acknowledged at the ceremony held in the Plaza de TEA Tenerife Espacio de las Artes. Accompanied by the three directors of the South Atlantic Performative Arts Market -José Luis Rivero, Octavio Arbeláez and Mario Vega-, the artist wanted to dedicate recognition to all the people he has met in his life and who have helped him "to do this work." Kouyaté also had words of gratitude for MAPAS, "For establishing a bridge between peoples." "It is a very difficult job but what you are doing is planting in hearts," he added.
José Luis Rivero recalled that "the official start of the professional activity of MAPAS" is always done with an honorary act that is the delivery of the Illustrious Cartographer award, which recognizes the trajectory of "those people who guide us, who generate maps by which the rest of us can walk and orient ourselves ”. This edition is dedicated to "one of the great ambassadors of African culture, whose work has undoubtedly opened cultural horizons to the whole world", added the artistic director of Auditorio de Tenerife.
After outlining the profile and contribution of Kouyaté to the development of culture, Rivero indicated that "if this award really favors people whose work favors the promotion and cultural exchange between our shores, between Africa, Latin America and Europe, that position cannot have a better demonstrator than Hassane Kouyaté."
In an emotional speech, José Luis Rivero recalled that this third edition of MAPAS It is dedicated to Antonio Lozano, Illustrious Cartographer of the year 2017, "for all the intense and immense work he did to unite Africa with the Canary Islands" and emphasized that "this is a debt that all Canaries have with him."
Hassane Kouyaté He was born in 1964 into a family with an enormous artistic tradition, he is a descendant of the highest caste of griots in Upper Volta. He enjoys both a consolidated training and an extensive record that have made possible a prestigious career. His early learning years focused on the traditional music and dance of his native Northwest Africa. Later he studied in Paris and Canada, opening new horizons to contemporary performativity.
For five years, he developed his work as an actor and artistic coordinator of the Bouffes du Nord Company, directed by Peter Brook, recently awarded the 2019 Princess of Asturias Award for the Arts. Kouyaté has been key in the realization of geographical maps of culture . This figure of the live arts has thrilled audiences from Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Niger, Mali, Senegal, Togo, Guinea, Congo, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, with his shows, works of great social and creative commitment, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Reunion Island, Canada, United States, Switzerland, France, Belgium, Spain, Austria, Germany and Cuba.
In his considerable artistic career, he has been commissioner of the International Organization for the Development of the Arts of the Word «Mondoral» and Les Arts de Récits de Grenoble, which has led him to artistically direct 12 festivals of orality worldwide. His work at the head of the Yeleen, Burkina Faso, the oldest story festival in Africa, or The House of the Word of Francophone Africa stands out. In Europe, he was appointed to the leadership of the Festival of the Francophonies in Limousin (France).
His professional career has also been linked to the development of culture in Martinique. In 2014 he assumed the management of Tropiques Atrium, which brings together the island's cultural action center and the departmental cultural center, where he has worked in favor of the identification, support and professionalization of emerging teams, as well as for the artistic dissemination to people throughout the region.
An intense morning of academic activities
The academic day of MAPS 2019 It began first thing in the morning, with a conference by Daniela Bosé, director of the documentary Women in Music, through which she has given voice and image to professional women who work in different departments of companies in the music industry. This compilation of testimonies highlights the main difficulties faced by women in the sector, both those who come out on stage and those who carry out their work behind them. It stands out the inequality to which women are subjected, with little presence in positions of responsibility, stereotypes in the artistic field and the lack of visibility of the work they do because they are not sufficiently taken into account as intervening in discussion forums or meetings. of a professional nature.
Daniela Bosé presented during her speech the Association of Women in the Music Industry (MIM), which carries out numerous actions to promote a greater presence and participation of women in all areas of the industry, through cultural, social and educational projects. collaboration with public and private institutions and universities, protest actions or agreements with music festivals, among others. "We want to give visibility to the women who come on stage and the professionals behind them, to show that we have the same abilities and that we are treated as equals," said Bosé, who insisted on the importance of education, especially in education. childhood and youth, to break stereotypes and create references.
The morning continued with a lively and interesting round table on the performance of women in the performative arts, starring leading professionals, such as Daniela Bosé herself, Noela Salas (Chile), Dani Ribas (Brazil), Fabiola Pazmiño (Ecuador) and Paula Rivera (Argentina) and moderated by Isabel Delgado (Canarias). This debate was followed by other training and professional activities with great acceptance, such as the round table The role of networks. What can we do together that we can't do alone?, which was moderated by the co-director of MAPAS Octavio Arbeláez and in which prominent representatives of networks and associations such as the Euro-Latin American Network of Performing Arts (Redelae), the Network of Theaters and Auditoriums of Spain (Redescena), the Association for the Development of the Ibero-American Music Industry (ADIMI), Iberescena, Ibermúsicas or SatéliteLAT.
Various activities were offered at the Museum of Nature and Archeology (MUNA), including the Gallos Debate, moderated by journalist Nicolás Castellano and with the participation of Serge Smockey Bambara (Burkina Faso) and Henry Arteaga The Jke (Colombia), two leading musicians in their countries who are also prominent social activists.
Both analyzed, from their own experiences, the different ways in which relevant social changes can be organized and achieved in towns, neighborhoods and even countries, taking art as a tool for these transformations and creating references that show people, especially, to young people, that there are alternatives that there are other ways of knowing the world. The two speakers agreed that art is a powerful tool for social transformation.
MAPAS is an initiative organized by the Cabildo de Tenerife, Circulart y unahoramenos, which is sponsored by the Government of the Canary Islands, the Santa Cruz de Tenerife City Council and the INAEM, in addition to the support of Acción Cultural Española (AC / E) to through its Program for the Internationalization of Spanish Culture (PICE) in the form of Visitors, which favors the participation in the Market of a dozen professionals of the performing arts from Africa and Latin America. Casa África, the Ibero-American General Secretariat, the SGAE Foundation, Iberia and Hyundai, among other public and private institutions, also collaborate.
