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Culturescapes Performance Day | Christian Etongo: Totem
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Culturescapes Performance Day: Languages and Movements
The Sahara is all about rhythms. The circadian rhythms of the desert dwellers sync with the rhythms of day breaks and sunsets. The rhythms of the winds set people in to motion. The Sahara is all about languages. The many languages in and around the Sahara move with the people, some of who are nomadic, while others are migrants traversing the desert from south to north in search of better lives. The verbal and non-verbal languages of movement convergein the Saharan space to share stories, reveal secrets, express pain, voice inequalities and injustices, fight for freedom, dance, laugh, and sing. Embracing the diversity of languages and voices spoken in and around the Sahara requires sensitivity and openness.
The Performance Day that closes Culturescapes 2025 Sahara opens a space to meet the Saharan languages and movements through performative walks, guitar music, dance, chants, and meditation by artists from different parts of the African continent.
Christian Etongo. Totem
In Africa, the totem embodies a deep and sacred bond between a social group and an element of nature, be it an animal, a plant, or some other natural phenomenon. Each group has its own totem, which it respects and venerates as a spiritual protector. This sacred link between a human, society, and nature is fundamental to African beliefs, underlining the importance of nature in daily and spiritual life. In many African societies, it is forbidden to kill, consume, or trade the animal or plant incarnating the totem. This prohibition reflects a profound respect for nature and its role in cosmic balance.
Artist Christian Etongo (Cameroon) offers a contemporary reinterpretation of this ancestral concept of the totem, integrating it into a modern dynamic while retaining its spiritual dimension. As “Ngue'Ngan," a ritual mediator, Etongo symbolically positions himself between ancestral African traditions and contemporary Africa, seeking to recover despoiled cultural artefacts and restore their spiritual role. Etongo's performance goes beyond aesthetic reflection. Through his gesture, the artist restores the symbolic and spiritual power of the objects, while calling into question the colonial practices of despoiling and appropriating African cultures.
Bildcredits: Christian Etongo – Totem at ICA Live Art Festival CapeTown 2022 © ZVG