MABOUNGOU: Being in the World

This 48-minute-long documentary delves into the resonant universe of Montréal-based dancer, choreographer, and philosopher Zab Maboungou. A self-described “child of colonization”, born in Paris to a French mother and a Congolese father, she grew up in the Congo during its revolutionary awakening in the 1960s. Where the juxtaposition of both village and urban life met in past and present convergence, and fought for their futures in the political turmoils of Congo’s efforts for independence. After the loss of her mother in childhood, she resisted traditional matrilineal pressures by following her intuition, claiming the right to become the woman that she chose to be. Zab arrived in Montreal in 1973, and for more than thirty years she has galvanized the contemporary dance scene with her radically regrounded conception of time, the body, and the self. Zab challenges the norms and preconceptions surrounding African dance, by embracing the constantly evolving culture. The artist’s lifelong work has taken shape in what is now respected as the movement practice, LOKETO. The movement practice calls attention to the body’s vibrational presence, allowing for transitional ease between a receptive and pure presence of spirit while maintaining a grounded relationship with the physical body. Maboungou masterfully transforms sites of identity and being, observing and altering the timeless moments that define our place in the world. Zab’s spirit, tenacity, self-assurance, and sense of belonging to the world can be attributed to the life lessons that she learned in the drum and dance circles that filled her adolescence in the Congo, and were then later found with a kindred heart in Montreal. Her personal and political history, her artistry, and her pioneering research of rhythm-cultures are acts of empowerment that have created a sense of place for other African dance artists in Canada and abroad.