Reclaiming Culture: Bringing the African Pantheon into a Modern Musical
Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC) is proud to host five-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, activist, and actor Angélique Kidjo Hon. Music ’15 and her daughter, actor, writer, and multinational performer Naïma Hebrail Kidjo ’15 for an intimate conversation about identity, belonging, forgiveness, and the power of family. The YSC event coincides with the first leg of a global tour of the Kidjos’ new original music theater work, Yemandja.
Yemandja tells the timeless yet timely story of family who resists slavery in the West African country that is now Benin. Featuring powerful lyrics with West African music, the musical carries the audience through complex themes of slavery, love, betrayal and forgiveness, simultaneously serving as a labor of love between mother and daughter.
Yemandja begins with a traditional Yoruba baptism, where a child is welcomed into the family and a ceremony reveals if an Orishawho wants to be a guiding spirit to this child on earth. Yemandja, the goddess of water, fertility, and love, breaks through the veil and becomes the guide for the story.
“Imagine you’re in a time when the wall between the real world and metaphysical world of deities is thin, and the slave trade was in full spring. What does that tragic moment represent?” said Hebrail Kidjo. “We wanted to bring culture and history together to offer different perspectives while telling the emotionally complex story of slavery through the eyes of our own family.”
Both mother and daughter hope that Yemandja can serve as a catalyst for conversation, forgiveness, and healing. “We hope to give a nuanced, full and human portrayal of this time period to build bridges of healing. Racism, slavery, identity and belonging are all topics that are not fully in the past. How do people know that forgiveness is possible, that if we can talk about it, we can heal in different ways? There is so much more interconnectedness in the world than we realize,” added Hebrail Kidjo.
What are the ramifications of fostering fear, of responding to hatred with even more hatred? What does it mean that our modern thriving economies are built on the slave trade and slave labor — both historical and in new forms of modern slavery? Who does war, pain, and division really benefit? What is the impact when we think only of short-term gains when long term harm is inevitable? These are all big questions posed by this piece.
This event is open to asymptomatic vaccinated and boosted audience members only. Please bring your COVID 19 vaccination card or a clearly legible photo of your vaccination card on your phone and a photo ID. Front of House staff will be checking tickets, IDs, and proof of vaccination.