The Malian dancer and performer Makan Gaoussou Coulibaly lifts the veil on the silent pains within households through a poignant creation, the result of the Pirogue du ZEME residency by Don Sen Folo, funded by the European Union and implemented by the Fédération Founou Founou.
With Biri Fini (Bed Cover), Makan Gaoussou Coulibaly invites the audience on a visceral journey into the heart of married life. In this intense choreographic work, the artist questions the role of women within the household: a role idealized before marriage, often confronted with a more complex reality once vows are exchanged.
The scene opens with a striking image: a silhouette seated on a wheel, entirely wrapped in a white sheet — Biri Fini (the fabric of the bed or blanket), symbol of the household. Around the neck of this silent figure, a red cord pierces the whiteness, violently contrasting with the purity of the fabric. The gaze is drawn to this frozen posture, both vulnerable and powerful, silently announcing the buried tensions of the marital bond.
The wheel embodies the burden, the invisible weight women often carry alone in relationships where the promise of balance fades into routines and unshared expectations. The wheel turns, crushes, yet moves forward nonetheless.
The red cord around the silhouette’s neck — a symbol of children. It connects bodies and souls, even through pain. It makes separation harder, almost impossible. It’s a powerful metaphor for those ties that persist despite the desire for rupture. Divorce then appears not as a deliverance, but as an open question: is it truly a solution, or just an illusion of freedom in a world replaying the same dramas, with different partners, in different settings?
Makan Gaoussou makes a bold choice: entrusting this story to the bodies of men. Because, as he says,
“they are the ones who can influence.”
The gesture then becomes a tool for questioning, a mirror held up to those who often dominate without realizing the weight of it.
The music of Rokia Traoré, especially Mouneïssa, flows through the performance like an intimate echo. The artist herself has gone through a painful separation. Mohamed Diarra lends his voice to these diffuse emotions, these unanswered questions.
“Feminism? Domination? Or simple humanity?” The performance doesn’t offer answers. It questions. With delicacy, rage, and truth. As the choreographer whispers:
“We only have one life.”
