 Karim, how does that look? Yeah, it's like last time I saw you, really seriously? Yeah, good. What is the name of the client? So it's called Waze of Love. Everyone's ready? I'm sorry, we'll talk after. It's theater and the place where they both move. We have the audience and the project before each other. There's no way you can get people that can look anymore. It starts out as a little thing. You like the theater, you like the room, completely open. Theater for everybody, yes, everybody. Let's get what's really done. Indeed. My understanding of white relationship is that I've already changed. Survival of theater as a platform depends on that. Thank you, everybody, for coming to the Martinis Segal Theater Center here, the Graduate Center CUNY. For those of you who already came to other readings, welcome back. My name is Frank Henschka. I'm the director of the Segal Theater Center, and I'll be here with our really fantastic team of Yuchen, the producer, and Michael up there, Bella, Paloma, Ilyda, Ilyda, and Salma, and so many, many on who made this possible. It is the second day of our festival, which is really close to our heart. It's the Pan World Voices Festival. For over ten years, it has been the privilege for us to collaborate with Penn, this great writers' organization, on this festival I admire that organization. It's one of the great ones. They not only give out one of the most significant literary prizes in the world, but they also fight for freedom for right, and they have gotten writers out of prison, and they may have us also aware of writers who were persecuted because of their beliefs, or like we learned last night from that great play from Stefano Massini, Russian writers who got killed and put their life on the line to report from Chaknya and from Russia and from all places in the world on what to do, what we should be doing and paying attention to. The festival was created by Paul Oster and Salman Rajdi to the first Bush government. They felt very strongly there was a tunnel vision in America. All our voices were being heard. 95-96% of all books come from the US market or from the British market. Only 4-5% not, and half of these were French or German because the governments of these countries believed strongly in subsidizing it. So you end up with one or two books out of 100 that represent up 180 or 200 other countries, and it would be unthinkable for musicians not to listen to music from around the world. Every great musician knows what is being played in Africa and Australia and Asia in Japan, and it's important for local practice to think globally but to act locally, but you need to know what is happening in the world. And this festival, I think, does that. And we here at the Siegel Bridge Academia in professional theater, international and American theater, our hope that these plays will go also to places, and the play company will produce, for example, the play we did last night, and I can't wait to see it as they have many others. So it is our hope that this will also work out. We have a great guest without here who came from Burkina Faso. This is Aristide Tamagdahu, who really came to us, who flew in for over 20 hours. My guest, you know, to be with us here for the reading, we try to get all the writers here. It's very exceptional. We would like to thank Marvin Carlson, the Rudin Foundation, and many others to make this happen. It's very exceptional, and it's a big privilege for us to have that support but thank you for coming. He's a great man of theater. He runs a great and significant festival, and we all do not know enough about parts of the world. And I'm ashamed to say in over 10 years or 12, I think, most probably, this is the first play from Burkina Faso, and there's no reason that this hasn't happened before. So again, thank you for coming and taking time out. In the middle of the day, I know how busy you all are. We need good theater, but we also need good audiences, informed audiences, audiences that are interested. Those means a lot to us. So really, our appreciation to all of you for taking the time out. And it is now time to take your cell phone and I'll do the same and find it and make sure it is a ton of words. It should be somewhere. Here it is. So we don't, yeah, I said this much, so please make sure. It is not on. Karim, the director, thank you so much for doing this. There will be a small discussion, a short discussion afterwards, or a bit longer one, the play. So at 15 minutes, 15 minutes, so we will have time. And here's a voice of a writer, a great writer, master of his field who wrote something that said it was important and good enough to be a story to show in Burkina Faso. Now we have it here and you have the privilege to hear what he has to say and what he came up with. So it's a great honor. Thank you so much. And I hope you will also say for the other readings. Thank you. This is Ways of Love by Aristeen Tarnatham. Allow me to go look at the Boklu for the last time. For the last time, I want to see the wind caress that hill over there. I just need to hear the breath of the sun to savor the smile of the dove who flies through the womb of the Boklu. I just want to be face to face with the dove. For once, there's something I want even though I've never wanted anything. For once, I dare to dream so don't keep me from that. I will speak, but I won't speak the truth because I don't know what it is. I don't know my right hand. I know, I know, I know, Mr. Prosecutor. I learned that being left-handed was pretty bad. Mama taught me that in school. Mama taught me that left isn't good. She even cut the fingers of my left hand with razor blades and slathered them with chili powder to keep me from using them. But I couldn't leave it alone in my bitch of a left hand. And Mama kept spilling tears at me too because me, I understood Mama's eyes. Believe me, Mr. Prosecutor, at the start of the chili powder, Mama's eyes didn't tell me anything. But when she bared herself for the first time in front of Papa and me, when we saw her completely naked memory, me, I couldn't hold back my eyes. And I did everything to know my right hand, but I never saw it. So don't ask me to raise my right hand and tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I never had a right hand. Maybe Mama bought me into this world with one hand only, Mr. Prosecutor. Papa thinks that Mama kept my right hand between her thighs, but perhaps he will be able to get it back for me. My damned right hand trapped in Mama's thighs. So, Mr. Prosecutor, don't ask me to tell you anything at all. And yet, there's something I want to say to you. There's something I've always wanted to say. To tell the sea to come to us. So people don't have to leave to go see her and leave you with the memory of your mother. To tell the wind to take me with him when he wanders in the valve-out tree tops. To tell the shooting star to fly me with her to the other stars. I want to say something but not the truth, your truth. I would like to say something, but I won't raise my right hand. You already know why. So if you like, we will break with that tradition. I'm going to say something without yesterday's bullshit because with yesterday, they're always singing the same song. With yesterday's drunk face, they're experienced. They're a point of view above all. The way you're supposed to live, where you're supposed to go or not go, whom you should sleep with. Yesterday, they controlled you. They formatted you. It's why the memory of mama forced chili powder on my fingers and told me not to get married because it was polygamy. I already told you. I don't understand all that. Maybe there's not even anything to understand because there's nothing to understand with girls like me. Mama forced her to leave before the memory of mama forced her to leave. Papa couldn't deal with mama anymore. He couldn't take the nakedness of mama's memory anymore. He didn't understand why mama forced chili powder on the fingers of my left hand. Papa said to mama, What is that supposed to mean? What you're doing to her? What type of witchcraft is that? Don't you understand that we all can't be right-handed? No, I don't understand. I don't accept that my daughter is left-handed. You don't care, do you? I know that you don't care, but let me take care of my daughter. I want to give her a good education. Don't get involved in what doesn't concern you. It does concern me. For once, it concerns me because it's my daughter, too. And I'm not going to let you piss her life away. No, I'm not throwing her life to chance. I want what's good for her. From here, you spend your time playing checkers, getting shit-faced and screwing little girls, those little uneducated left-handers, and you want me to abandon her like those little left-handers so that you can screw her next, but I won't let you. I'm going out. I'm leaving. I need to get the hell out of here or else. Or else you'll do what, huh? What else do you know outside of getting shit-faced and screwing little left-handers like their own daughter? No, Mr. Prosecutor. Papa never touched me. I don't know where mama would have gotten such ideas. But Papa never looked at me. Even for a single second, he wasn't the type to look at his daughter. Papa, at least not with the eyes that mama was talking about. Papa didn't have time to look at anybody. He calmly drank his beer and went to play checkers, and that's it. No, Mr. Prosecutor. My father was sweet, and me, I loved him. And I think that he did too only, as I told you, it's no longer about understanding us, but to say something, even if there's nothing known, even if there's nothing to say, to say that his daughter was touched, even if all that was done was to calmly drink beer and play checkers, you have to say something to be right, to feed the media, to prove that you are someone that you love. But, Mr. Prosecutor, I'm neither against nor for. I just want you to allow me to look for one moment at that hill across from us. I just need one moment to hear the joy of the dove whom the adder's over the boucle. I just want to see a shooting star. Then I will swear to you on that star, on that hill, on that fig tree that I will return to the courtroom. I'll come back to tell you something, even if I have nothing to tell you. I will try to find my right hand that I left between my mother's thighs, and I will lift it up, and your damned hearing will begin. I will plead guilty because I've killed them. Then you will pronounce her verdict. I will respect your verdict, even if I know in advance that it will be shitty. And I will go to myself bare-naked like mama's memory. Eyes closed, fists closed. I'll hear nothing more. I'll see nothing more. I'll never say anything, and I'll never leave again. Not from the visiting room, no, Mr. Prosecutor. I want to remain condemned because that's the reality of this century. I accept it, me. I accept the reality, your reality. The reality of reason, the reality of the deal, of the reckoning of the warped woman, the reality of being nothing at all, the reality of being like you to be something, the reality of fleeing, the sad reality of condemnation, of competition, the reality of being a machine under control 24-7. Yes, Mr. Prosecutor, I assure you that I won't run away from your reality. Before I despised it, but now I accept it. Not because I'm renouncing my reality, but because I have mama's experience in my ears. Now that I've killed them both, I understand papa. I forbid you from thinking, from lying, from saying that I schooled my own dog. You said it yourself. I'm nothing but a drunk, a checker's player, so lead me to my alcohol and to my game boards. Or else I promise you Google credit. I've always allowed you to say anything to me to insult me as if I wasn't your husband, as if it was an eye who allowed you to give birth to that poor left-hander that you marred with your chili powder. And me, I forbid you to say that I marred her. I don't want my daughter to be left-handed. It's because I love her that I put chili powder in her fingers. You, you don't love her. You don't understand anything. You don't know what a left-hander is, no. You don't love her. You love your buffaloes and your game pieces and her little left-handed ass. Stop saying that. No, I won't stop. I'll even go to the police if you, you don't stop. You're going where? To the police. And what are you going to tell me? That you don't take care of your daughter. In my opinion, you better go to social services, not to the police, because the police don't deal with such things. The police pursue criminals. That's why I'll go to the police, because a father, a so-called father like you, who doesn't worry that his daughter is a left-hander, that she trolls the streets every night with her left hand with a whore crap in her back, is a criminal. That type of father is nothing but a criminal who is happy that his daughter is left-handed because he likes to screw the little left-handed kidneys. You want her to remain left-handed. You did everything so that she looked like me so that she revolved around you. I ask myself if there's in some demon who pushed me to sleep with you to dare to live all this time with you. But whatever the monster, I'm going to fuck you all. Because me, I'm like that. But I don't let myself get upset by bitches like you. Go see whomever you want. Tell them whatever you want, I don't care. But if I ever, if I ever hear from the mouth of whomever it may be that you had thought, that you had even insinuated that I had screwed my own daughter because in bringing her into the world you stole her right hand and that now you're screwing with her. But if I ever again hear my daughter let out one single cry because you forced chili powder in her fingers I will come back, I swear to you. I'll come back, I'll put aside the alcohol, I'll put aside the game pieces, I'll trample the laws underfoot and I swear to you on the head of the left-hander that I love. I don't even know why I love her. Seeing as how here no one loves left-handers no more than I know why I love you when you forced chili powder in the fingers of our own daughter. I don't know why I don't ask for a divorce since you suspect me of cheating on you with my own daughter even though I've never slept with another. When I am happy simply drinking my beer and moving my game pieces and that now I'm going to have to leave all that and get the hell out. If not, I'll always hear that I screwed the left-hander, my daughter, and that will drive me to come back. I'll hear the police bang on my door and before the police enter before I open the door to the cops because I'm going to open the door to them so that they can survey the scene, pick up your body, find my DNA all over your blood on your body sprayed off like a pile of shit, your face in pieces. I'm going to give them my hands for the handcuffs without saying a word because talking to the cops doesn't do anything when you're an outsider, a fugitive. It doesn't do anything to say one single word to the cops then. They don't want to understand anything. They only want to know if you premeditated the crime. They only want to throw you in jail without understanding that the lady who had your DNA in her mouth on her face in her blood, they don't know that you love the body of that lady, that you even had a pretty little left-handed girl, that you loved her. They don't understand cops that left-handers are like Africans. No one wants to look at them, how's that, accept them, and so they push back, they react. And that's when the cops don't understand they don't get that blacks react. That now the lady is rid of you and you rid of her and that you swear that you love her despite everything, but here the cops are not made to understand. The law isn't made to understand. Cops and laws are two assholes made to throw us in jail. That's it. Then what's in jail? Without you or the left-hander. I'm telling you. I'm telling you that I'll drink beer and I'll move my game pieces and the rest. I don't care about anything. And you will shut up for once. Shut it. Just be quiet. I bet you don't do anything at all, please. Don't say anything because if you say something I will be in jail in the military and the left-hander a shadow without memory and all that will be stupid. Do you think you're intimidating me with your manners? You're mistaken if you think I'm afraid of you that I'm going to shut up because you've raised your voice because you're yelling because you think that having balls means prattling on means planting left-handers in girls' wounds to be able to screw them later You think that's what being a pen is? I won't be quiet as long as you won't take care of her as long as you keep her in her left-handed state to be able to screw her I'll go to the police and I'll tell them everything and you won't have the time to kill me because the police will already be here to collect you. They don't let criminals like you hang out for long or else it would be disastrous for their mothers and daughters. They're already here. Soon. Then goodbye. I'm getting the hell out. Where? Maybe I have done enough to screw my left-hander but not as dumb to tell you where the hell I'm going. Stay. Don't leave. It's not good to piss off it's foolish to leave like that to erase yourself from your own family I'm begging you don't run off I don't want parts of you me I want you whole with your game pieces and your beer bottles I'll leave you in peace with my stories and cops If you have to get the hell out forget the police I'll shove the laws in the police up my ass now that you want to piss off I detest them all too late I'm telling you that I didn't go to see anyone I don't even know where the police station is I only wanted to know if you loved your family I didn't understand why you were never worried that our daughter is left-handed even though everyone hates left-handers No man wants a left-hander because left-handers they speak too much they rebel all the time and you know too well that you men you don't like the girls who don't make it easy and left-handers don't make it easy that's why I put chili powder in her fingers to make her make it easy for her to at least have a husband I don't understand why they didn't worry you that she is left-handed so I said to myself that must work out for you in some way it works out for you that she is left-handed that way you can screw her because she's attracted to no other man besides you when no one else is interested in girls they turn to their fathers that's how it is I know what I'm talking about that's it it's not more complicated than that and I know that's crazy to think but what do you expect? it's the age itself that's crazy it's now in fashion to screw your own daughter the time when all the men drool over the asses of their own children and as a result of seeing all around the TV hearing all these stupidities on the radio you end up being crazy you're distressing all men even you you see no and too late men get tired too you know it's never too late too late goodbye no I'm telling you it's never too late for a long time I believed that it was always too late but no because I met you alone accepted to look at me to call me before you no one had ever called me for the chili powder on my hand I was left-handed before I met you I shook with my left I ate with my left I wiped my ass with my left I kissed only a left cheek and mama told me it was impossible that I was intolerable because of my left hand mama said there no man ever looked at me never screwed me despite my lipstick despite my beauty despite my many visits to the dance clubs it's because I'm left-handed the left-handers of that luck they drive me away mama would say she said it's like the blacks if you reject them and you don't allow them to come to where the whites live if they don't have papers even though the tree that made up their paper came from their country if blacks are deported from their kingdom it's not because you don't like them it's because they're black being black is left-handed it's having forests but no paper I'm so beautiful as papa would say how juicy my butt cheeks are as papa would say a forest at the midpoint between my thighs a moon smile as papa would say that no man would grant me one second of time so I no longer believed what mama would say I turned to papa and papa said that being left-handed wasn't a problem but it blasted my papers while they had plenty of forests because they make it easy they let themselves be denied even from one another papa said that he loves me despite me being left-handed do you understand for the first time a man told me that he loves me a man not my father a man and me I didn't know how the man didn't know how but since that moment when the man said to the left-handed that he loved her she saw her tongue slide into the man's mouth and she said nothing did nothing for or against it the man simply put his mouth in the forest that is the midpoint between the thighs of the left-handed and the fruits, the leaves of the forest fell at that moment at the moment when the man told the left-handed that he loved her the birds flew over the forest situated at the midpoint between my thighs the two mouths wailed and mama arrived so since then mama started to cut my left-handed out of it she didn't say anything anymore seeing as it was too late for her every day I stank of her man's scent the fruits of the forest continued to drop despite the chili powder in my fingers and me too I said that it was too late that it wasn't right that I stole the scent of mama's man I said that it was over, that I was done but I couldn't do anything it's like that as a left-handed mama said that left-handed are like glasses but they're denying it's because they're after but papa said it's because they make it easy in spite of the forest and me I don't want to make it easy despite papa who's always in the forest situated at the midpoint between my thighs despite mama who no longer says anything I don't want to let you go seeing as it is not too late but it is never too late or else you wouldn't have come today you wouldn't have said the same thing to me as papa my tongue wouldn't have slid inside your mouth you wouldn't have replaced papa in the forest situated at the midpoint between my thighs you wouldn't have placed another left-hander at the heart of your forest so you won't go anywhere because it's your fault it's your fault that you suspect yes it's your fault we have if you want leave your shitty DNA on my face and that's what you want let me I'm telling you you you are the guilty one you gave me a left-hander who sooner or later would turn it around and see as left-handers they're like Africans they sell their forests to whoever and after they're only Africans without papers neither seen nor known chased, forced to flee, rejected, exiled they run away like you and you you are obligated to undress to say nothing like your mother to know nothing else at all leave then if you're afraid of cops get the fuck out of the stands and that we all we think of that as fleeing after having sold the forests of reduced left-handers who steal the scent of your land go then get the hell out and send it to you allow me a moment Mr. Prosecutor I would like to return to the hill for a moment I would like to go look at the hill stretched out over there and right afterwards I'll tell you everything even if I have nothing to tell you but I know that mama is always crying as soon as I get home she will immediately throw herself into my bag and she will look for crap that crap I'm looking for the crap you are keeping at that what crap mama? don't play innocent, don't pretend to not know what I'm talking about but mama and she emptied my purse she jumped out all the contents cigarettes, condoms, lighter, money what did I do to you I deserve this what's wrong with me my god, she's even making fun of me shut up if you open your mouth again I'll fart is that clear what did I do so that you could be a girl a real girl like everyone else I signed you over for school I always paid for nice uniforms I always took you to the air salon I always told you that a real woman doesn't cook with her left hand I spent all my time at your side you were my lover, my husband all that so that you would be good so that you would be a good girl well educated, so that one day a man would marry you to keep you from trolling in the streets like a prostitute and above all so that you wouldn't steal his scent from me that I was wasting my time you are nothing but a dirty little whore who put those thoughts in my head why did you wonder all do you want me to die is that it well I'm going to die I'm going to die and leave you in peace leave you to live your bitches life that dirty little whore doesn't care about her mother because you don't want me I'm going to disappear leave you in peace leave you to be left handed and not to interest any man except for my man and you're going to see what it's like for a woman to not interest any man not one single man among the millions will look at you will ask you even to touch you and you will know what it is when no hand will caress the lines of your whore's body you will understand when they all end up fucking you and tossing you aside like an orange peel you will see what it means to fuck your mother over above all don't say anything to me I don't want to know anything your dirty little mouth knows everything I'm sick of it leave me in peace don't understand anything at the fuck out right now it's difficult to get the fuck out mama difficult to leave you in peace then I will leave you in peace no mama don't leave me in peace then leave me in peace when you have disappeared from my heart then I will leave you in peace but for the moment you're there planted there even if you think I'm a dirty little whore even if you think that I smoke that I take drugs there you have it it's me who's crazy what here is a whore's crap you don't know what here is a whore's crap oh that's rich the whore doesn't know what crap is whore-ish I'm gonna tell you me what's a whore's crap I will teach a whore's shit her accessories are all these things are a whore's crap I told you to leave me in peace right now don't make fun of me despite what you believe I still have my sense of reason she slammed the door in my face Mr. Prosecutor and the idea of becoming a prostitute replaced it for the first time I opened my packet of cigarettes for the first time I lit my lighter for the first time I rolled a joint for the first time I opened a convent packet and the whore didn't last long she left just as quickly she went to tear open mama's door she was counting a rosary kneeling before a statue of the Virgin Mary mama it had never been opened to my packet of cigarettes I never smelled the scent of a condom the whore never lived in my body because you suspect me of coming back every night from the streets I wanted to know what a cigarette smells like or a joint how to put on a condom I left them in my purse to be a girl of the time says they say so that people would look at me even if I am left handed I tried to identify myself it's a question of not being too of tight, too wild, too stupid but the foolishness of a prostitute as you call it never seduced me but now that you no longer believe me I wanted to be a whore to feel the disgust that it hides and the impunity contained understand why the whore bothers mama why the whore who wants to smoke won't smoke why the girl who wants to sleep with all the men on earth won't fuck them all why we see the devil everywhere even though the sky is blue why the left hander saw her left hand hat with the blade and burned by chili powder and yet I always called you mama I didn't leave I didn't go to see UNICEF I didn't put chili powder on my left hand I didn't even screen to alert the neighbors I just understood I just accepted that you were taking care of me in your own way that you loved me in your own way I simply believed you without seeking to know if mama was right or not because I had nothing to do about it whether you were right or not whether you were mistaken or not seeing as everyone is wrong sometimes we discern ourselves we set up experiments as masters I made it easy but you you don't play the game you don't try to understand me you just want me to be the way you want me to be and for everyone to sing your praises as an exemplary mother that you have educated your daughter well you are alone in your concerns and me I have to deal with it I'm going to do it mama I'm going to do it for the first and the last time I don't smoke anymore my bad will be emptied or filled with anything I want and you'll no longer have to count your rosary I just want you to check one thing I just want you to see if something deep in me is still in place check that it hasn't been touched yet I want you to check if the orange inside my orange tree still has its juice mama where a condom mama whores have aids based on what they say I don't want to contaminate you if the whore is encrusted in the orange deep house deep inside of me go ahead and after I'll kiss you mama and you will see if my saliva has the taste of a prostitute after your exam whether I pass or fail I will run away into the volu watch the doves soaring above the neem trees and the fig trees and I will say nothing ever again I will forget my left hand and I will always understand you you see Mr. Prosecutor allow me just one moment to understand to understand how a beautiful evening when you were across from the hill that hill on which one beautiful evening he told you that he carried you in him that right away he told him without asking yourself any questions without seeking to know if he was sincere or not despite mama's distrust because mama knows that on those hills in those gardens in those bars on the streets the lies planted on Matt Hill two years since I had been with him since I had smeared him with three other women on Matt Hill then Mr. Prosecutor he told me I'm packing my bags I'm taking a flight in a week what are you doing Mr. Prosecutor I'm packing what to do you who know everything you who have experience you who know all the written laws you who condemn me I'm packing my bags I'm taking a flight in a week Mr. Prosecutor what do I do when the dove disappears what do I do when the sky loses its blue neem trees and the fig trees turn yellow because I am left handed and being left handed is being African mama says that it's because Africans are black people don't like them it's because they're without papers but papa says it's because they sell their forests and make it easy Mr. Prosecutor what do I do now that there are no more forests for the papers since the sea isn't here since there's no wheat here to be African and to be African is to be left handed when I left my right hand in my mother's thighs do I play the hypocrite do I ask him why he went back to the sea do I play the abandoned lover and cry out and beg him to stay I play the girl who is who is happy to see her guy get the hell out and jump and throw my arms around his neck to lie to him that I am proud of him that I am happy that he's leaving or do I sculpt him with the questions of this type why do you want to leave even though we're good together on this hill you don't love me anymore is that why you're leaving isn't your family that's making you leave or over there it's the same as over here you know that you know that right you're not going to cheat on me over there are you do I play the lost girl because the guy I love is leaving what would you do Mr. Prosecutor on that hill when the sky loses its color when the dove disappears when the fig trees and the meme trees are on strike because they heard I'm packing my bags I'm taking the flight in a week not even a week tomorrow in just a few hours Mr. Prosecutor in a few hours only he packed his bags I didn't ask him why I could care less why because I know that in this country there's no program to get the hell out and it's not difficult to understand you just have to open your eyes and see that here there is no sea that all the suns have the same face everyone counts on everyone else even though everyone says to everyone else that they are nothing because the earth has been sold the sun sold gasoline sold cocoa sold cotton sold desecrated and so you and me we are nothing because there it is it's too easy it's too stupid we are African we are not American we are not French we are not Chinese we are not Palestinian we are not Japanese there it is it's too simple it's too stupid Mr. Prosecutor but it's like that it's like that like that you sell everything it's stupid what happened to us but I can't do anything if we were persuaded to sell everything to convince them that they are nothing and that they have to be American or French or Italian or Canadian to do guides, chicks, happy mamas and papas so I didn't answer I didn't cry I didn't laugh I didn't listen for a moment to the wind to see the TV the dream that like the waves of the wild sea dragged off far away over there but I listened to the anger and emptiness around us that kicked him in the butt to get him to make him get the hell out listened to everything without hearing anything without crying without laughing no Mr. Prosecutor I listened to this emptiness and I understood his need to leave allowed me then to go listen and I will come back to tell you something I promise you that I will come back to tell you something that what you want to hear I will tell you that it was I who killed them the families will cry I know everyone will forever loathe me I know my co-wives will blame me for having taken their husband away I know the defense will go on and on demonstrating that they are eloquent I know I know I know all of that Mr. Prosecutor my attorney I don't need one even if the law says I must me I won't say anything if I have a lawyer if you want me to give you your truth that everyone see you on TV like all of those left handers who sold everything and got the hell out don't stick a lawyer on my case so if I don't have a lawyer I will come back to you in the courtroom in a few moments trust me put surveillance cameras all around if you want put watchdogs all over if you want elite snipers on all the moves and trees do what you want to as you want to if like mama you don't trust me after all you have the right not to trust me to trust in your laws and your experiences of tracking criminals like me you have the right to be like mama like mama who said to me I don't understand that way of seeing things I'm telling you that that way of several loving and sane men lowers women to her position of being dominated a slave of the male me I'm telling you that I don't like that way of loving I don't like my daughter's way of loving who turned herself into a reproductive apparatus a machine in which the man she pretends to love comes to her when he feels like depositing an aid in the machine and stands there with his arms crossed for nine months waiting for her to push out a baby for him no I don't like her way of loving I'm telling you clearly and openly do whatever you want mama but me I like my way of loving and him does he love you are you sure that he loves you with three other wives does he have the time to love you I don't know mama but I don't care you will see you will see that I'm right despite everything you believe despite all the illusions that cloud your eyes you will see that I am your mother and thus I know more than you as I speak to you from experience you'll see that you will be abandoned like one piece of shit for another you will see that time will harass you and believe me when time corners us from every side we spoil not on the outside no we wither from the inside in our guts in the most noble part of the woman and when time has rotted you from the inside you will begin to whine like a bitch harassed by a pack of dogs except that in your case these will be other bitches two, three, four bitches who monopolize your mate then the more you whine the more time will rot you from the inside nice and deep until your guts secrete jealousy, hatred and welcome the war between the bitches pursuing the same mate farewell to your way of loving you will see you will pick up your odds and ends with a little luck you'll have your face disfigured your spirit faded your gleaming eyes you will see my daughter than me I will be the same when you get back there because mother and daughter are one contagious disease so you have every right Mr. Prosecutor like me I had the right to not take mama's advice into consideration I didn't care about mama's experience I didn't care that this man had multiple wives no Mr. Prosecutor because I didn't want to own him because what me I know and mama doesn't know is that owning means losing when you own what you love you will lose it inevitably you will lose it because no one likes to be owned even your dog doesn't like to be owned otherwise he bites you he gives you back the rage that you infected him with by owning him you will always be exploited the rich will always be bitten by the poor and in the end there will be chaos destruction seeing as the whole world will be owners you the laws for condemning the rich their bank accounts and their weapons for beating down the poor the Africans their hatred towards those who dispossess them of everything the criminals their guns and in the end there will be shots fired there will be shots fired everywhere there will be shots fired towards the end Mr. Prosecutor and this will be hell fucked up because of our possessive insanity because of our egoism we all want to be at the summit of the Bulgu looking down at the others below us and that Mr. Prosecutor is not pretty I assure you it is not pretty that's why I content myself to stay at the bottom of the Bulgu allow me then one moment to return to the base of the Bulgu then I will come back to you to tell you something just let me go to smile at the dove that skins the flanks of the sky with its wings let me just see the sun close its eyes then I will come back to tell you what you want to hear I will tell you that a few days after his I'm packing my bags I'm leaving after the dove after the dove has disappeared after the sky has taken a color other than blue the fig trees and the neem trees have started their strike after the seed, the money, the drought the lack of jobs, the few that own everything after all that has taken away our men he left Mr. Prosecutor I didn't kiss him I didn't look at him I didn't cry I didn't laugh at the airport I didn't make love to him he didn't screw me I didn't say goodbye to him it wasn't my turn but someone else's the second one each of us had one week and when it wasn't my week I was at the Bulgu it's like that when you love the same person and me it didn't bother me that they love the same person as me because that gave me more people to love especially since now it's difficult to find people to love there are no people who love you because you won't find any seeing as people all run up to the summit of a hill towards ownership people spend their time singing to you I don't want my own house I want my own car I want my own bank account I want my own Boeing I want my own moon I want to win the Goncourt Prize I want to be French I want to be American I want to be Italian white mitties I want my own France I want Trump's America I want an Africa attached to my Europe I want to be Ronaldinho or Zidane or Pele or Maradona I want to be Bob Marley or Alfa Blondie or Johnny Aleve I want Mr. Prosecutor when after five years of absence he came back he had returned with a fifth wife Mr. Prosecutor he met her over there and it's normal for a woman to meet a man and for a man if he's already the husband of four women meeting another woman to not tell her that he's already taken as we say here because she wouldn't understand wouldn't accept she wants to own him and me I know that even dogs don't accept that and me I'm telling you to leave me the fuck alone I'm telling you that I'm sick of not being able to leave just to rejoin the bongoo to look at the dove and the shooting star and the fig trees and the neem trees and I'm telling you that I will not lift my right hand stay strapped in mama's thighs leave me the fuck alone I'm telling you I need to look at something other than your ugly face I want to go back to the trees the dogs the moon that disappears over there the wind that carries away those we love the rain that doesn't come here anymore and everybody who runs runs towards there where it rains where the sea is where there where you can become something there where you own and me I'm fucking with you Mr. Prosecutor I'm going to kill you I'm going to beat you like I beat him like them her and him even though I didn't want to touch them but what do you want Mr. Prosecutor when you are left handed you're African blacks as they say and as they say blacks can only do lefty things horse crap mama's way of speaking but maybe mama was right maybe I am a dirty little whore I don't know Mr. Prosecutor I told you I don't know anything not even the truth so what do you want me to tell you when I have nothing to say I just want to hear the verdict that the cell be open for me and handed memory I will go to the window and look out at the Bogu the sky the fig trees, the dove, everything else I don't care after his return even then I ask nothing of him not even to fuck me not even to buy me clothes not even to look at me I accepted becoming his cousin his sister because the white woman decided that we were all his cousins two and I cooked for them for him and his white woman every morning, every noon, every night I made their bed I cleaned the sheets now Mr. Prosecutor becoming my husband's cooked in bothered me at all what bothered me, what bothered my left hand more precisely was when we crossed paths in the kitchen by accident him and me like under the Bogu his mouth moved towards his mouth I don't know why my mouth was maybe too dry I don't know you know Mr. Prosecutor what that's like the drought of the mouth like the land my mouth was dry and naturally moved towards his tongue his tongue that has disappeared for five years from this one his tongue that had been the white woman's mouth every day so my tongue moved towards his mouth to wet itself just a little after five years at first five years during which I got shut down my whole body exactly Mr. Prosecutor exactly like the bodies that you lock up these bodies that you throw in jail with your stupid laws but he understood nothing didn't want to understand anything he pushed me aside like a piece of shit a big load of shit he pushed us aside me in my mouth parched for him even though I had accepted becoming his cousin I had accepted becoming the servant of his wife even though I didn't want to own him so Mr. Prosecutor I don't know anymore about it I already told you I know nothing condemn me and leave me in peace because if he hadn't pushed me if I hadn't had that knife if I hadn't had that knife in my hand if she hadn't by chance come into the kitchen I don't know anything Mr. Prosecutor I won't tell you anything stick me with the verdict that you like the verdict that suits criminals of my background do what you want with me but leave me in peace I don't want anything else I just want to go for one moment I just want to watch the dove caress the sky with its flames I just want to see a shooting star all the rest it's a big mess that I don't understand and mama was right it's time that harasses us and when you have time on your heels the prosecutor on your ass the tongue that's drying out and him pushing you away you are forced to react like papa's blacks all you can do is stab him in the heart in the throat in the fucking throat that he rejected you with everything else is a mess Mr. Prosecutor a mess that your cousin the white woman infiltrated the white woman slipped into this mess and me I was forced to send the knife into her heart I don't know why I reacted to the mess of the moment and that's it because despite everything it's papa and mama who are right not you Mr. Prosecutor no you can't be right only papa and mama are right these times are messed up and we're riding away from the inside only knots in our guts knots Mr. Prosecutor the times are shitty and Africans are forced to leave seeing as that they were dispossessed of everything and that now they're without forests without sea without oil, without land, without cotton that's everything I know Mr. Prosecutor the rest it's my tongue that knows it's my knife that knows these are the witnesses that know interrogate them Mr. Prosecutor I will confess everything I will lift my left hand and I will swear to tell you Thank you for staying I'm Heather Denier I'm a student here PhD candidate here at the Graduate Center and my dissertation is on gender and sexuality in Francophone Theater in Burkina Faso as well as Benin and Togo I came to know this play when I was in France in 2015 and when I saw it performed and it was directed himself it really sort of settled me into my dissertation and it has left an impression on me ever since so I'm really happy to be sharing it tonight Artiste Tarnagda is not only a player but also an actor himself, a director and he runs the theater festival that Franck mentioned before called which happens every other year in Burkina Faso in Ouagadougou and this is a particularly exciting festival because in addition to presenting new plays that are developed on sites they do it in an outside neighborhood where people wouldn't normally go to the theater people who come in to work on the projects are housed by local families and the projects are presented in the courtyards of the local families so it's really exciting work and not only do they do the shows and we have a festival coming up they have a festival coming up but I hope to be there in the fall but not only do they present the shows every other year but they also have workshops over the course of the year for playwrights, for directors for designers as well and one of the ways that Artiste started as a writer was at this festival himself where he worked with Ivorian playwright Kovéko Aroulay so so I made a little introduction to your play so I think that one of the things that was most important for us working on this yesterday was discussing the situation in Burkina Faso and how he got his inspiration for writing this play and also of course the notion of left-handedness which is foreign to us in the United States but it's very prominent in the play Can you tell us what you explained yesterday when you started listening to the piece Good evening First of all I would like to congratulate the team that worked around the text It's always a pleasure to hear his text, his work in another language and despite the fact that my English is bad in spite of the fact that my English is bad I was very moved and I thank you for that I would like to thank Jean and I was happy for meeting her thank you to Franck and it's really happy to be here as an African to participate in the play I would like to thank Jean and I was happy for meeting her thank you to Franck and it's really happy to be here as an African to participate in the global thought and the global conversation When he was in residence at Rennes in 2007 he had a grant from the French Institute for his residency at Rennes So it was you were welcomed by a collective that was called and so I missed you can repeat the National Theatre it's a Nordic installation and so among the collective members there is a daughter called Marine Bachelot who is very activist in the collective one of the artists whose name was Marine Bachelot who was an activist and she invited him to participate in a protest in front of a detention center in Rennes here it says something but the detention center it's a kind of prison where we keep those who are without papers waiting for their expulsion So the detention center at the time was a bit in the bush in the city it was in a kind of forest and so when I was there I found it very funny because it seemed that we made the paper with the forest the wood and certainly in this time of detention there were people who had a lot of forest people who had a lot of forest people who had a lot of forest but who didn't have the paper so the idea of writing in a way of loving is really part of this and then it's also part of reading a book when I entered the protest there was an apartment which belonged to a girl and then I threw a knife in her library and I saw a book in the title it was called the first and the last freedom of Krishnamurti which was the first and last liberty by Krishnamurti Krishnamurti and so that's where the sources are and this was another so this book was also a source of inspiration for a way in which to liberate yourself but as a doctor and like any author there were also plenty of unconscious reasons for writing it can you explain sorry, I'll ask the French first can you explain a little what it means to be left to the left because it has a lot to do with the problem of this girl in English sorry I asked him to explain what it means to be left-handed in Burkina Faso being left-handed it's the same it's not because I wrote it for a girl but in fact as I said yesterday to the team that did the reading it's something to do with metaphysics a certain conception of this part of the left and the left and a very bad view thank you so whether you're a left-handed man or a left-handed woman it doesn't matter there is a sort of conception of that part of your body your left hand as being bad because we consider that it's very bad and it's the same question that there are people who are not easy and there is the perception that people who are left-handed are difficult and the people who are left-handed could be followed by spirits and these spirits might push them to do things that are violent or bad aggressive easily angered when you're a woman we say that when you're left-handed you bring your wife to your husband and the man is the same bad luck you can even go to not you but the spirit that lives the left-handed spirit that lives and who is excessively jealous can go to kill and not necessarily the woman but the spirit that lives in the woman could push you to be so jealous that you might kill or harm your husband and to be left-handed could alarm or cause fear to the people around you who are left-handed so symbolically you become like a pariah I want to ask Karim who directed and the actors who performed if they had any thoughts that they'd like to add about bringing these words to life from an American perspective acknowledging the considerable background of the play this is Nathan Hinton is this one can you hear me I think one of the really cool things about the challenge of this piece is that when Heather translated it she really captured this kind of stream of consciousness feel that Aristide has in the play now when you're going to kind of break that down and separate it as an actor it becomes like kind of crazy because you're looking at a lot of commas and very few periods but there's a poetry within that that lasts more than just like a couple of lines it lasts several paragraphs and if you just follow that stream of consciousness you get a sense of the kind of the space and the place and the symbols that he's talking about that's his world and that's not our world that we can kind of you know translate to American and kind of present to you so I found that wonderful that sort of transaction Nathan probably we should explain that when Aristide wrote in French he didn't distinguish who speaks when he just has no characters distinguished at all and so it was we who divided it and then discussed that a little bit with him yesterday and I think the translation was so beautifully done and I think the way the various voices and the piece conveyed really helped create a sense of action through it what was so illuminating yesterday because bringing Aristide into the process we had a day to put this together but understanding the root of the symbolism in it was so moving to me because I don't believe it on the page but then Aristide is a beautifully eloquent speaker as you guys can all see and sort of just in this very generous way sort of unpacked some of the symbology for us as artists allow us to sort of at least for me as the director to kind of understand it in a very clear way that made it feel very accessible and human and though it's so rooted in he uses the word metaphysical a lot I think it's such a fantastic word in the work that we do as theatre artists but to take that sort of metaphysical ideas that are existing in the culture of Burkina Faso but also it's sort of within the human condition and that felt so alive and accessible both obviously in the piece in the translation of it and then in the wonderful performances so it was a real gift of a piece to work on I would like to add that for me it's not the left it was a pretext just to talk about people who are Africans that I am people that I am that I feel marginalized excluded who can't travel like everyone he just wanted to emphasize that you know the left handed is a metaphor for being an African and not having the ability to travel as everybody else to be feeling marginalized and of course not to play the victim but it is a reality that they live everyday anyway it was a pretext to go through the intimate but to raise all these political questions in order to when we played this piece in Ouagadougou it was very astonishing how it stuck with the news because recently brothers were sold in Libya to have this play to be done recently in Ouagadougou because there was a recent case of brothers being sold in Libya it's a larger issue I don't know how many of you are aware of this that there are people actually being sold as slaves currently from Libya so it was the symbol of the excluded person which is much more important than maybe the specifics of left handedness we should open it up to questions that anybody might have about the play for the actors for ours to you I have a question about the right hand being attached to the mother's thigh does that symbolise pertains to? It simply means that she is left handed it's a metaphoric way to say accept me as I am I came to the world with one hand it's the left hand it's not a choice how do you register and how do you navigate that as actors and as a translator as much as possible as close to possible as his when he uses words like the whore because that's part of the poetry and also part of connecting on different levels of realities in the play I feel really don't like microphones can you hear me? it's going to be recorded great now it is okay hello so I can only address that question thank you for asking that by saying that every word has its own value and meaning and so I hope I can curse on this recording but even you might think that the word fuck is base or one line I have I'm going to fart in your mouth even that word to be a little bit of a linguist like nerd fuck is actually really ancient it's also very poetic so when we say the word fuck we are biting at someone the first if you make an F sound it's so literal and deep it comes from the gut and then so you're literally you're attacking someone so it may sound like oh I'm going to fart in your mouth and fuck but it's actually just as poetic as the other language that he uses and what I think is incredible is that he somehow maybe I don't know if probably knows this but knows this which is why as an actor it is something that you have to get used to because you're not used to doing that a lot of people don't write like that but once you just give into it it informs you about the character it informs you about the story and the relationship in a way that is so unique and so like it makes it easy is it easier? I don't know if that answers your question or not hello and thank you very much to everyone for the work I'm curious about following this question about the language and the the difference in the poetry and then the vulgarity I'm curious about the performing how it's performed are you also playing not in a reading but just up on its feet and fully produced what is the kind of performance style? I don't like using that word but is it realism? are you going for realism or are you going for something like the language? so I'll just point out that when it was performed when I saw it in France and then when it's been performed since it was R.S.T. Tarnaga's own production he directed himself with two breaking up actresses who accompanied the play with the guitar as well as speaking the lines it's a little complicated to speak about your own work it's more comfortable to watch other people play so when I decided I wanted to put this up I had to decide how many actresses so when I decided I wanted to put this up I had to decide how many actresses should it be one voice should it be multiple voices and the question of the figure like the figure the symbol the figure of the woman and he was interested in Tarnaga having two women tell this story and at different moments both actresses play the role of mother and play the role of daughter and you also had a musician and he toured in the United States recently it seems to me that in two of my texts like this one here and if I killed all of my women the voices need to be extended the voices the voices yes the voices need to be extended it means that there are lines that the word does not reach to the end and so I call this musician to extend the voice of his wife but also to be symbolically so the music was in the play the symbol of the man sorry I'm like saying in the there is something the language of the school I think we need to in the theater as we need to the language becomes more concrete the theater becomes less concrete and more musical more metaphysical so the work became to create a poetic object with material that was at once poetic and also concrete so unfortunately we're just about out of time I did want to point out that this play is published in French with another play called Ter Rouge which is a story about two brothers one who remained in Burkina Faso one who went to Europe and how they converse via letters and that collection the two just was awarded a huge prize as selected as the single French literature stand out for last year to finally defeat Ter Rouge Aracid has obviously written a lot of other plays and I'm sure he'd be happy to tell you about them afterwards at the the archive right after the next reading please come back on Saturday for the reading of Cameroonian Agua de la Viz Vuvuma's play in more as in games and thank you so much for coming tonight I also would like to thank Heather for bringing the play to us and for doing a fantastic translation it's a fantastic work and all the best also for your work and thank you really for coming here and it was a very great reading Karim and the actors thank you so much