Dream Mandé: Bamanan Djourou

A decade ago, Rokia Traoré started the Foundation Passerelle in Bamako to guard, inspire and create a platform for young Malian artists, with a long term view of developing their creative output and investing back into the Malian culture from which her work springs. Part of that process has been the fusion of influences and an interplay between the traditional and the contemporary. 

Bamanan Djourou is a musical show that has roots in this cross-fertilisation. Created around West African acoustic instruments such as the kora, ngoni, calabash, cajon – as well as the acoustic bass and guitar – it is a body of work that highlights the ways in which the traditional can give new life to non-traditional, modern and contemporary music. 

Prepare to hear five musicians and six female singers, led by our 2019 Guest Director Rokia Traoré, deliver adaptations of traditional Bambara songs, popular French (Jacques Brel, Léo Ferré, Barbara) and international (Fela, Bob Marley, Miriam Makeba) tunes as you’ve never heard them before.