Usifu Jalloh
Contemporary stories rooted in Sierra Leonean tradition
Contemporary stories rooted in Sierra Leonean tradition
Usifu Jalloh is a vibrant storyteller, his stories take you through unexpected twists and turns, spring surprises, and bring you face to face with home truths. His stories prise the lid off pressures and release powerful observations about human nature, morality, socio-political processes and much more. They evoke compassion, smiles, laughter and profound thoughtfulness, calling upon the audience to assess their own behaviour and socio-political conditioning. Usifu grew up in northern Sierra Leone in the village of Kamakwie. Born to a family of storytellers, storytelling was part of his daily childhood life. Since then, he has travelled widely and threaded international themes and cultural elements into his repertoire and the traditional African storytelling mode.
Take a moment, sit back and enjoy one of our videos, edited by Raphael Pereira, of Usifu telling a story:
This seems an especially fitting time to welcome African storytelling into our lives. Sierra Leone, having barely recovered from a brutal ten-year long war which ended in 2002, has been severely hit by the 2014 Ebola outbreak. The country's people are not only fighting the deadly disease but also the fear, superstitions, prejudices, alienation and the creeping spectre of starvation it has given rise to. These realities must not be ignored, they threaten the country's infrastructure and it's social cohesion.
The screen shots below were taken from Azim Qizalbash's video footage.
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Keeping things in perspective
Just as importantly, we must fight to ensure that the calamitous realities Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Liberia are battling do not become all defining of them. We want to open eyes upon the generous spirit of ordinary African people; their uncanny insights into human nature, its compassion and elegance as well as its avaricious, treacherous and tricksy sides; their complex yet joyous and colourful cultural heritage, and fantastical, awe inspiring creative powers. Oral traditions keep open avenues for hope and recovery; their intrinsic worth lies in how they preserve cherished values and morals and can remind us of these when we loose sight of them.
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We would like to encourage you to visit Usifu Jalloh's website for more information on him and his work:
http://www.usifujalloh.com/
The production team for this project:
Producer: Chika Ekemezie; Audio: Joe Tennant; DoP: Daniel Gal; Cameras: Azim Qizalbash, Daniel Gal, Massi Guelfi, Shane Fennelly and Adeline Royal; DIT: Massi Guelfi; Director: Nicolette Burford de Oliveira; Editor: Raphael Pereira
With special thanks to Jane Mackintosh, Jeremy James and Steve Sattiekanu at the Greenwich and Lewisham Young People's Theatre (GLYPT), and to Dawn Collins.