Art and Music - non-written history of Rwanda

Art and Music as Historical Record in Rwanda

Art and music in Rwanda traditionally was produced along status, gender, and ethnic lines.  The Rwandan genocide changed all that.  Now there is a battle to preserve Rwanda’s cultural history.  In addition, the arts are being used by new voices to heal the country’s wounds and express its new identity which is being forged out of the ashes of genocide’s destruction.

Music and Dance

Rwandan music and dance is diverse and some is traditionally dependent upon ethnicity.  The Hutu make music about the harvest; The Tutsi produce epics that highlight bravery; and the Twa celebrate hunting.[1]  Drums have also played a large part in Rwanda’s history.  There is a saying that says “He is king who has the drums.”[2]  The kalinga is a sacred drum and representative of the king and his authority, but also connected him to the ancestral rulers.  In the past, only males were Rwandan drummers.  Those traditions are challenged today and females are now practicing the art as well and challenging the cultural gender separation.[3]

Dance is another art in Rwanda that is gender specific.  Dances performed by females are ballets that are graceful, while men perform dances such as the Intore – warrior dance.  Since the Rwandan genocide there are dance troupes that intentionally include members from Rwanda’s three ethnic groups in order to counteract the past’s emphasis on ethnicity and conflict.  Eric Kabera directed a film called Intore (The Chosen) in 2014.  It is a documentary about how the genocide weakened the culture and the ways the arts are rejuvenating and preserving Rwandan culture, blending the old and the new.  The trailer to that film is shown below.

Art

Traditional Rwandan art is gender specific; males produced carvings and sculptures, and women created ceramics, baskets, and art displayed in the home.[4]  One of the traditional Rwandan art forms is Imigongo, which is artwork made from cow dung.  The colors are paints that are made directly from nature.  Yellows and reds can be made out of clay from Rwanda’s soil, and black can be created from ash from banana peels.[5]  The native art form was in danger of being lost in the 1990s by the Rwandan genocide but cooperatives are keeping it alive and renewing the art in the country and for tourists.

Imigongo Traditional Pattern, photo by Ji Elle (own work), accessed at Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Imigongo#/media/File:Imigongo_traditional_patterns_(2).jpg

The Rwandan genocide has given rise to contemporary art that relates to the country’s more recent history and is socially conscious.  One of these works is produced by Epaphrodite Binamungu.  It is a 30-foot statue that stands in the Butare Memorial Center.[6]

 

Bisesero Genocide Memorial, picture by Josh Crane, https://www.flickr.com/photos/jcrane66/3892445739/

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[1] Julius Adenkule, Culture and Customs of Rwanda (Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007), 134, accessed March 29, 2017, eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost.

[2] Gloria I. Anyango, “Drumming the Sound of Success, The New Times, September 25, 2009, accessed March 31, 2017, http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/article/2009-09-25/11392/.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Julius Adenkule, Culture and Customs of Rwanda, 65.

[5] “Kakiro Imigongo Cooperative,” Atlas Obscura, accessed March 30, 2017, http://www.atlasobscura.com/places/kakira-imigongo-cooperative.

[6] Julius Adenkule, Culture and Customs of Rwanda, 66.