REVIEW: The Festival d'Avignon Presents GAHUGU GATO By Dida Nibagwire and Frédéric Fisbach

Through music, dance, and storytelling in the Festival d’Avignon’s beautiful Cloître des Célestins, a company of performers brings to life the story of a family. Draped in Eloé Level’s warm sepia lighting and shaded by the Cloître’s two trees, the ensemble transports us to the nostalgic, fractured memories of a childhood marked by exile, community, and the looming shadow of one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies: the Rwandan Genocide. Adapted from Gaël Faye’s novel, Gahugu Gato (Little Country) offers a gentle telling of a harrowing history.

Gaby grows up in Burundi as the comparatively sheltered child of a French father and an African mother. The children remain largely unaware of the political currents shaping their lives. Like Persepolis, the play filters political trauma through the lens of a lived childhood full of whims, warmth, and wonder. But the world intervenes. Politics, sectarianism, and violence gradually intrude on the private sphere. In scenes such as a confrontation with a local bully, the production captures the expansive timelessness of childhood, moments seemingly banal at the time, yet later revealed to be formative. History eventually crashes in, and with it, irreversible loss, as the family is torn apart by genocide.

Modern dance, which is threaded throughout the piece, draws from both plastic movement vocabularies and stylized quotidian gestures, heightening the work’s epic register. An excellent live band adds emotional texture, atmosphere, and, at times, narrative propulsion. But it’s the actors who carry the weight, not only of a real-world tragedy, but of a beloved novel. They unfurl exposition with care, revealing the contours of family life and political circumstance. 

The ensemble reaches out to its audience and invites them into its joy. And there is joy. The performers keep the text’s considerable exposition buoyant. Though Faye’s 200-page novel requires substantial contextual scaffolding, this epic, sub-two-hour performance moves briskly, sometimes at the expense of development. Still, Frédéric Fisbach and Dida Nibagwire’s direction maintains momentum, skillfully integrating the space of the Cloître and leveraging theatrical elements to sustain engagement.

Jean-Patient Akayezu, Kaya Byinshii, and Samuel Kamanzi bring passionate live musical performances that elevate the work further. Costumes by Asantii, House of Tayo, and Moshions give the production visual richness and elegance. This gifted ensemble glows with their commitment. Their belief in this project, and the story it tells, is palpable. What they offer is not only a performance, but a deeply human rendering of an international crisis.

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