At a time when the third globalization is unfurling, channeled by an unprecedented media revolution, as we grow aware of the necessity to “empower” certain key players of the social life, it seems to me that the project of Daniel Labonne comes at the right moment.
Daniel Labonne has had a long and rich career first as comedian, then as director before becoming a playwright and, finally, an administrator of performing arts. On the basis of his strong and tremendous field experience coupled with years of study and reflection at the University of London, he set up ACTPA, an African center for the training of performing artists, stressing the multifold representativeness of performing arts that brings together “a performer, a performance and an audience”.
His Diamond Theory is fascinating and full of promise, because it places performing arts in the centre of four development plans: personal, social, national and economic. First of all, it is evident that a performer’s personal development is enriched by the learning of fundamentals such as dance, drama, stage management, techniques of production, acting and singing. As regards the social development, Daniel Labonne reminds with good reason that performing arts are an integral part of African societies as they inspire and support every aspect of social life. Besides, performing arts can form the core of a cultural industry in Africa, considering the fact that if culture is priceless, it does have a cost. Through training, performing artists are given a chance to become entrepreneurs, teachers, hence, active players in the economic development; and performing arts, a vehicle to foster the development of a cultural industry and support its expansion in the national industry. Finally, in the Diamond theory, it is a different type of gem, a non-mineral…
Also innovative is the neologism ‘Drumma’ created by Daniel Labonne, combining Drum, omnipresent in Africa, and Drama, western by origin but global in outreach, allowing the specific and the universal to come to terms. As he justly points out: Drumma, in order to feel and hear the pulse of a continent reduced to silence. And here I quote Aimé Césaire: “Ma conception de l’universel est celle d’un universel riche de tout le particulier, riche de tous les particuliers…” [My concept of the universal embraces a term enriched with all its particularities and pluralities].
Being committed to cross-cultural exchange, I think that Daniel Labonne’s project fits harmoniously therein. I shall echo the forceful assertion he made: “Underdevelopment is not only about underperforming economies, tyrannical leaders and ethnic warfare. It may be about the inability to listen to each other.” To listen and speak to each other, is precisely one of the stakes in intercultural exchange. The absence of others deprives me of existence, wrote Hannah Arendt.
In show business, he says, Africa has a lot to give and to receive from Europe, from America, from Asia. However, before speaking to the world, it is essential for Africa to speak to herself first, making sure that the process of exchange start at home, among African countries. And already there, the work to be undertaken is huge! Because it implies the need to prevail over the lack of organisation, resistance to change and corruption — the losing trifecta of a rich continent — and, after the martyrdom of slave trade and colonialism, to put an end to the supplement of self-damnation known as negrology. But once the work being launched, the cultural meeting – which formerly failed – between Africa and Europe could eventually begin. Besides, given the African origin of a large number of the population in America, the relations between both continents would only be stronger and mutually beneficial. And obviously, it would be of sheer advantage to the millenary civilizations of China and India to establish cultural ties with the cradle of civilisation. In brief, if Africa makes strategic choices in line with requirements and gets really integrated in the current globalization process and if, in turn, the other continents change their stereotyped representations of Africa, the intercultural exchange between these four continents will be in a position to soar up. Indeed, as I mentioned in previous writings, the intercultural does not see the various cultures as competitors for the title of “the greatest” or “the most developed”, but rather, forming a whole, as majestic and symphonic movements, the history of humanity with its variations and differences. In this particular perspective, Daniel Labonne’s project is crucial.