Rhythm at Work is a short video I realised to account for the musical quality of manual work as I witnessed here in Burkina Faso. I first prepared a short montage of four different working situations, then added out-of-sync footage using the waveform as a reference. The result is very quick-paced.

This is, so far, perhaps the post with the longest preparation I put together. I started gathering material in October 2011, and now can say I have more or less assembled all the materials I needed. Its focus is the characteristic uniform of the donsow, a powerful means of identification recognised by both initiated members and…

In a previous post I wrote about the annual collective hunts that involve the male population in Karankasso, during the dry season, and after the ritual of the kurusa. For women it is forbidden to participate to the tèen, even to go into the bush in the direction the hunters will take. The tèen concludes with…

It all started a couple of months ago when Si-Juma Konaté, after we met for filming the building of the Sambla balafon, brought a photocopy to my hunting companion Lasso. Si-Juma described the piece of paper, that seemed to have been kept folded in a wallet for a long time, as a powerful arabic writing…

Once upon a time a hyena came to feed at night in Karankasso, in a hole under the tall trees I see from my house. She brought her cubs to eat the earth men dug out of the hole. One night, she was left without her offspring. According to a version, they were killed by…

Donso music is usually associated with donson’goni, the six-stringed harp-lute played by the musicians of the brotherhood. Sometimes I saw a few drums being added, but only with a secondary role. The foreground is taken by the bard’s voice, and instrumental music often represents just a background for his praises and epic songs. With surprise I…

So it is the day before Christmas, both my friend’s shotgun and mine are being repaired and we have no meat for tomorrow. I could buy yet another hen, but I am frankly tired of being a hunter who buys overpriced chicken. Around December they reach three or four times the normal price, and I…