Porto Seguro: Brice Kapel
Family and Interactive Performance Spectacle
Brice Kapel sings wonderfully, makes the public sing and dance and recounts African or Breton legends. We sense in him a great mastery of the game and children all respond to him in the same way.
Télérama
Poetic, tender and funny, his songs have the audience on their feet. Even the parents.
L’Express
Pure talent, bursting with energy and a striking cheerfulness…An excellent composition of world music written entirely by Brice Kapel who has the audience dancing, all too happy to follow the crowd.
Le Parisien
Brice Kapel is a message, a window on another world. More than a singer, he’s a magician.
Pariscope
The Project
As the follow-up to his interactive performance Coloricocola, Brice Kapel has designed a new performance called Porto Seguro. It is the name of the village where Brice’s mother was born in south-east of Lomé, Togo. It is also the reassuring port, the land we finally reach or the last leg of a trip.
Mixing new versions of songs from U2, Daniel Lanois, Sting and Peter Gabriel, as well as tunes with African sounds and songs bearing messages and basic images, Porto Seguro is a summary of Brice’s life through his French and Togolese cultures. It is also the product of his human encounters and musical influences. He tells his story to the audience who itself becomes actors in the play. Children become part of the staged “game” and interpret some of his sixteen songs along with him.
The tunes, which are in French, English and Mina, Brice Kapel’s mother tongue, speak of childhood reverie but also implicitly bring up much deeper subjects, such as education, the death of loved ones, etc.
Porto Seguro is a playful, interactive and pedagogical performance which delights young and old. There is “not a word, not a song, not a gesture that the children haven’t repeated in chorus.”
The Performer
He’s from everywhere. Brice Kapel is from elsewhere but also from here. From Togo, where he was born. From Paris, where he arrived in 1970. From the Bosquets projects in Montfermeil, where he grew up. From the United States, too, where he studied and made a high-profile tour in April 2008.
Brice Kapel carries around a history that transcends borders. His personal and musical wealth are drawn from the intersections of all of his different parts. He has kept his grandmother’s language from Africa, the joyful rhythm of Togolese lullabies. From everywhere else, he has grazed on the ingredients of his music, a cheerful mixture of world, pop and reggae.
Brice Kapel’s son, Charly, was born in 1992 and Kapel wants there to be hope in his future. He is happily exploring a new path in his musical career by speaking in schools in his adopted department (Seine-Saint-Denis). In 1994, he created an association “Musique en Aide” which allows him to offer students access to lively and interactive music. He thereby contributes to the development of the children’s culture and listening skills and they, in return, nourish his creative work.
At the same time, Brice Kapel has joined in to help disadvantaged children for whom artistic expression is a way to overcome some handicaps.
Performances and recordings
Brice Kapel is on tour in Canada in February 2009 and will criss-cross France in the spring for the release of Porto Seguro, stopping inParis, Agen, Lyon and Sevran, among other cities. He will also record the song ”Essi ladja” with Sting, which will appear on the “Porto Seguro” album.
Cast
Brice Kapel: actor and singer
Program
The songs from Porto Seguro can be prepared in class by students before Brice Kapel’s performance.
Titles from the album:
- Blewu
- Quand la nuit s’ouvre à moi
- Every day
- Ami
- Mégadjo
- Juju Music
- Domini Yansula
- Nena
- O Mawu
- Papi
- Suzana
- Messenger
- Homme Nounours Enfant
- Essi Ladja
- Odolafaco
- Hihiamélolo
Link to the artist’s website and audio clips:
http://www.bricekapel.com/
http://www.myspace.com/coloricocola
http://www.myspace.com/bricekapel
http://www.bigeyesprod.com/work.php?k=netx20csxews
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