First Lady Jeannette Kagame recently attended a performance of "Carte d'Identité," a play written and performed by Rwandan artist Diogène Ntarindwa, also known as Atome. The play explores Rwanda's history through the experiences of a family shaped by displacement, exile, and the search for identity. Ntarindwa's performance uses humour, personal memory, and storytelling to convey the complexities of Rwanda's past.
At the centre of the play is the story of Ntarindwa's father, Philippe Niwemuto, whose experiences of leaving Rwanda and living in exile become a way of examining the country's history and the choices made by a generation of Rwandans. The play moves between Rwanda, Burundi, and what was then Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo, recounting the family's journey and experiences. Ntarindwa performs different characters, using humour to tell a story marked by loss, displacement, and difficult memories.
One of the central themes of the play is identity, with Ntarindwa recalling his father's message that he should understand himself as Rwandan above everything else. This message becomes particularly important in a story shaped by years spent outside Rwanda. The play recounts how the family left Rwanda through the southern part of the country and headed towards Burundi, where they faced various challenges and experiences that shaped their understanding of themselves and their homeland.
The play also explores the desire to return home, despite life in Burundi having become familiar. However, the family faced a country whose authorities at the time did not want refugees returning, arguing that Rwanda was already full. These historical experiences are presented not as a conventional history lesson but as a personal story, with Ntarindwa turning them into a conversation with his late father and the audience.
The performance attracted a predominantly young audience, who were invited into a conversation between generations about where Rwanda came from and how those experiences continue to shape the country. The play touches on exile, identity, personal and collective memory, and the relationship between generations, asking younger audiences to engage with a history that many of them know largely through the experiences of their parents and grandparents.
The evening also underscored the role of theatre in preserving and transmitting memory, with "Carte d'Identité" telling Rwanda's history through a father and son, a journey across borders, a family separated from home, and a child growing up in exile while carrying the memory of a country he had not yet returned to. Through humour, music, emotion, and storytelling, Atome turns those memories into a conversation with an audience that includes a generation born after many of the events he recounts.
The result is a performance that connects Rwanda's past with its present, while asking a simple but enduring question: what does it mean to belong to a country when history has taken you away from it? The play's use of humour and painful memory created a powerful and emotional experience for the audience, with Jeannette Kagame watching the performance alongside them and thanking Ntarindwa for the production after it ended.
Key points
- The play "Carte d'Identité" explores Rwanda's history through personal storytelling and humour.
