Baobab

About the Show

Come hear the djembe drums dance and the ngoni’s strings sing as the griots tell you a tale. A tale set long ago when the stars were still babies, and the trees and animals talked. A tale passed down from generation to generation about a water-stealing sun and a baobab tree bearing an unexpected and unusual gift. Featuring music from Mali and Senegal, puppets large and small, one naughty monkey and a witch with an itch to dance, Baobab is a percussion-filled fable about a boy’s heroic quest to save his village from drought.

Did You Know?

1. A griot is a musician-storyteller in West African cultures who shares and preserves a community’s oral traditions, from history and genealogy to religion and folklore.
2. Before the advent of writing, people passed knowledge from generation to generation through storytelling traditions based in the arts—poetry, puppetry, music, call and response, dance. Baobab continues that age-old tradition!
3. Musical instruments native to West Africa, like the djembe drum, agogô bell and shekere, made their way into popular music in the Americas and the Caribbean, as enslaved Africans brought their musical traditions with them.

About the Company

Motus specializes in original theater for young audiences that highlights the diversity of world cultures. Combining live music with different styles of puppetry, the company has collaborated with artists from Japan to Mexico to Burkina Faso, telling tales that integrate other languages and foster cultural exchange. For Baobab in particular, they’ve joined forces with Mali’s SÔ Company to share this West African story authentically. Beyond their native Quebec, they’ve performed in 12 countries, translating their work into English, Spanish and Mandarin for audiences around the world.

Creative Team