3 months ago
9
PERFORMANCE
Guewel ★★★
Arts House, until November 16
A guewel is a West African oral historian, someone who carries in memory the stories of local families, who can summon the lore of a place and its people as a celebratory recitation.
Guewel at Arts House.Credit: Gregory Lorenzutti
In this hour-long production led by Lamine Sonko, the figure of the guewel is reimagined as a conduit between earthly rhythms and the life of the stars: the custodian of a larger lore.
The show sketches the outlines of a cosmology, while also showcasing a cohort of gifted performers – dancers, musicians, ritualists – in front of lushly animated projections.
At its centre are three figures personifying the sun, the moon and the stars. Their full-body costumes – gorgeously sculptural – recall masquerades from Senegal’s Casamance region, with their all-enveloping silhouettes.
The dried fronds and towering crest of the figure representing the stars suggest a Kumpo-like apparition, while the moon reads as a delicate crescent, with cowrie shells gleaming on dark cloth.
The voltage that runs through Guewel comes from the drumming and dancing.Credit: Gregory Lorenzutti
The costumes are impressive, but the voltage that runs through Guewel comes from the drumming and dancing. Hand-drum flurries launch sudden accelerations; legs carve lateral pathways as the dancers kick up their heels.
The animations are often beautiful, with veils and translucencies, but at times the smoky effects pull focus from bodies onstage. The visual busyness dilutes the intimacy.
Still, it’s the projections that spell out the work’s big ideas: everything is interwoven; nature moves in cycles. The cosmology is legible, even when dramaturgical transitions feel more ceremonial than exploratory.
The figure representing the stars in Guewel, who harks back to West African masquerades.Credit: Gregory Lorenzutti
What does it mean to really inhabit ancestral knowledge, not just cite it? Brief as it is, Guewel cannot offer a full answer. It plays more like a prelude that clears space for a deeper encounter.
Seven years in gestation and framed as a cross-cultural collaboration, Guewel feels like the opening scene of a larger narrative – and makes you curious for the epic adventure to follow.
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