Photos: BAM|Wikimedia Commons
Dorcy Rugamba’s magnetic Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM” debut, of his “Hewa Rwanda–Letter to the absent“, is drawn from his memoir, a dedication to his family killed on the first day of the Rwandan Genocide. Accompanied onstage by guitarist and collaborator Majnun, Rugamba performs as a powerful actor and orator, weaving poetry, song, and storytelling into what he describes as a hymn to life. He remembers the departed while simultaneously honoring the living, holding the weight of absence alongside a fierce insistence on beauty. A breathtaking ode to memory, culture, and the search for spirituality in the face of unfathomable loss, Hewa Rwanda ultimately prescribes two paths through dark times: love and creativity.
This moving music theater tribute will be playing at BAM from Oct. 7-11.
Author, actor, dancer, and Rwandan stage director Dorcy Rugamba trained at the Royal Conservatory of Music in Liège and was first introduced to the performing arts by his father, Cyprien Rugamba, a writer, choreographer, and composer. Based between Brussels and Kigali, he co-wrote Rwanda 94, founded Les Ateliers Urwintore in Kigali, and in 2012 established Rwanda Arts Initiative. His memoir Hewa Rwanda: Lettre aux absents was published in 2024.
Majnun, born in Senegal and based between Europe and West Africa, is a multi-instrumentalist whose eclectic practice spans Afrobeat, jazz, funk, and trance. He has collaborated with Rugamba on a world tour of Hewa Rwanda since 2024.
