Ivorian masked traditions

Zéphirin Zaly Gbale is the artistic director for Forum des danses traditionnelles de Côte d’Ivoire. Besides sharing the fruits of his 12 years of experience as a choreographer and dancer, accompanying him will be mask wearers and their adornments. Together they will share with the public the masked traditions of the Bété, Senoufo and Gouro people. Attribute of folkloric jubilation, but also mystical in funerals or in ceremonial initiations of the young population, the conference will uncover the mask’s uncontested authority as judge, doctor, supreme chief, educator, and how its omnipresence and omnipotence bestows its role as regulator and guarantor of social stability.