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Fodéba Keïta

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Nationality
  
Name
  
Fodeba Keita

Role
  
Writer


Fodeba Keita Culture Mass Production fait une rtrospective sur les

Occupation
  
Dancer, musician, writer, playwright, composer and politician

Died
  
1969, Camp Boiro, Conakry, Guinea

Les Ballets Africains - Minuit (1988)


Les ballets africains


Fodéba Keïta (January 19, 1921 in Siguiri – May 27, 1969 at Camp Boiro) was a Guinean dancer, musician, writer, playwright, composer and politician. Founder of the first professional African theatrical troupe, Theatre Africain, he also arranged Liberté, the national anthem of Guinea.

Contents

Fodéba Keïta Fodeba Keita Alchetron The Free Social Encyclopedia

Early years

Fodéba Keïta Fodeba

Keïta was the son of a male nurse. He received his early education at the École normale supérieure William Ponty.

Career

Fodéba Keïta KEITHA FODEBA Laicima 1963 Berlin Beatet Bestes

During his law studies in Paris in 1948, he founded the band Sud Jazz. Beginning in the late 1940s, he founded Théâtre Africain (later Les Ballets Africains), a successful ballet group which toured Africa for six years and later became the national dance company of Guinea; then president of Senegal Léopold Sédar Senghor held it in high esteem. With Kanté Facély and Les Ballets Africains, he became instrumental in showcasing previously unknown Mandé performance traditions to other continents as well.

Fodéba Keïta wwwemanarchivesorgCartomacfilesoriginalket

After returning to Guinea, he published the poetry collection Poèmes africains (1950), the novel Le Maître d'école (1952), and in 1957, Keïta wrote and staged the narrative poem Aube africaine ("African Dawn") as a theatre-ballet based on the shooting by French troops of protesting Africans who had served in the French army during World War II. However, his works were banned in French Africa as he was considered radical and anticolonial.

Fodéba Keïta webGuineCamp Boiro MemorialVictimesKeita Fodeba 19211969

Politically active in the African Democratic Rally, Keïta worked closely with Guinea's first president Sékou Touré from 1956, and in 1957 was elected to the Territorial Assembly. In 1961, Keïta was appointed minister for defense and security. He uncovered alleged plots against Sékou Touré, but was imprisoned in the infamous Camp Boiro, a prison he himself helped construct, for alleged complicity in the February 1969 Labé Plot, and was subjected to torture ("diète noire" – complete food and fluid withdrawal).

On May 27, 1969, he was shot dead without trial.

Fodéba Keïta Fodeba Keita Alchetron The Free Social Encyclopedia

Fodéba Keïta webGuineBallets AfricainsKeita Fodeba amp M HuetPrface

References

Fodéba Keïta Wikipedia