Liberté: I Will Have Inhabited Your Dream Until the Last Evening

Liberté: I Will Have Inhabited Your Dream Until the Last Evening is a multidisciplinary play that weaves stories and songs, images and sounds to show us a luminous world. The text is based on the works of three writers who chose writing as the art of resistance: the late French poet and WWII resistance leader René Char; the late psychiatrist, writer and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon; and the Sengalese economist and writer Felwine Sarr. Under the direction of Rwandan playwright, dancer, and actor Dorcy Rugamba, this show explores how art and thought rise against the abject by articulating the relationship of individual consciousness and collective fate.

Felwine Sarr, who is Anne-Marie Bryan Distinguished Professor of Romance Studies at Duke and was named in Time 100: The Most Influential People in 2021, appears prominently in the show alongside actor Marie-Laure Crochant and musicians TIE and Majnun. For Sarr, the acting, staging, and sensuality of the performance aim to resonate deeply with our times. The West African songs, the groove of afrobeat and funk, and the lyrical text promise a unique and engaging exploration of freedom.

Liberté: I Will Have Inhabited Your Dream Until the Last Evening is presented in partnership with the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Duke University. The tour of Traces: Discours aux nations africaines and Liberté, j’aurais habité ton rêve jusqu’au dernier soir in September 2022 is possible with the support of FACE Contemporary Theater, a program of Villa Albertine and FACE Foundation, in partnership with the French Embassy in the United States, with support from The Ford Foundation, Institut français, the French Ministry of Culture, and private donors.