Madagascar
Isorana is a small rural municipality of the Betsileo country, in the highlands of Madagascar. In the heart of this territory, where ricefields are bordering vineyards, the village shelters a remarkable rural library. Set up in november 2006, this Center for Reading and Francophone Exchanges (CLEF), open with the support of the Franco-Malagasy Cooperation and financed by the municipality, gathers nearly 4000 members. Most of them are children and teenagers who use it as a window to the world, a resource for their studies, a cultural center where they can practice poetry, dance, singing, and sometimes simply a convivial place where everyone shares a feeling of being home. Peasants also come to chat, learn how to sight-read, pass on various knowledges or even cook, with a book as a guide...
In january 2007, we made a series of recordings highlighting the different artistic expressions within and around the library : poetry, song, legends, speech, proverbs and of course music... The outcome will be a CD (or a cassette) which, through the Franco-Malagasy Cooperation, will be distributed not only in Isorana, but also in the hundred of other CLEFs all over Madagascar.
This beautiful encounter with a creative and dynamic community calls for a continuation. We are studying a record project based on the creation of a work combining rural music, choirs, oratory art, poetry in malagasy and french, all of this complemented by contributions from musicians and slammers from Seine Saint Denis, France. Read the project (in french)