The musical writing in the ritual-theater of Werewere-Liking Gnepo
ritual-theater; song; Werewere-Liking Gnepo; intersemiotics; polyphony.
This research analyzes the work of the Cameroonian multidisciplinary author Werewere-Liking Gnepo. As a writer, musician, percussionist, novelist, essayist, actress, director, among others; Werewere develops a unique intersemiosis in her creations, especially with regard to the interactions between dramatic and musical language, as she inherited the foundations of the tradition of her Bassa people, also from Cameroon. Thus, in order to better understand and deepen the studies of this culture and its union with modern productions, the first part will be addressed to the text considered rare Recueil de chansons épiques du peuple Bassa du Cameroun (2007). This text dialogues directly with what the author calls ritual-theater, a contemporary theater of her own developed in Ivory Coast and based on the pillars of Cameroonian tradition. In the second part, the play La veuve Dilemme (1994) will be investigated, which is part of a retrospective and repetitive movement of a dead husband who talks to his widow, characterized by Sarrazac (2017) as an "endless scene ". This piece demonstrates an irresolution of the scene through music, in addition, there’s also a modification of the use of didascalias, with a new narrative function, either author, or character that, in a dialogical movement of reception/understanding, triggers multiple independent and polyphonic voices and consciousnesses.