Dancing the Death

Ran Muratsu
2017

 

In Thio Commune in the central part of the Republic of Benin in West Africa, Mahi people carry out a ceremony called '' jonudido'' to end the mourning period. This film shows how a modern young man, Fiacre, who graduated from the University and runs a copy and typewriting business in the village, held a ''jonudido'' and the ceremony of dancing ghosts. Young people inherit the ceremony, modifying it in their own way. They exaggerate some elements like dancing and beating a table and create a new relationship with the ''traditional'' ceremony, as well as with the deceased and the living. This movie reveals today's views of life and death by showing how the young generation copes with the mourning ceremony in a new emergent way.

Short biography/filmography of the director: Born in Osaka, Japan in 1983 Worked at Social Center in Benin   From 2012-2014. Currently Ph.D Candidate at Graduate school of Kyoto University, Working on the religious anthropology in the Republic of Benin. 

Africa: