El cementerio sin cultura

Pasaporteman is the project and name with which Senagalese artist and musician Baba Sy develops his artistic practice. His research centers on the experience of migration, specifically focusing on the music lost in the Atlantic Ocean. Pasaporteman delves into the depths of the water cemetery that surrounds Europe’s coasts, accompanied by the anonymous bodies and souls that were lost along the way, in order to produce landscapes and atmosphere that reflect the dire consequences of these desperate journeys. In this way, his practice becomes a vindication and reclamation of passports that break down borders. Through his performances, African sound becomes a “noizy” experience and generates a destructive atmosphere distinguished by its intense textures, penetrating bass and unmixable sounds.

El cementerio sin cultura is a performance by Pasaporteman (stage name of creator and musician Baba Sy) commissioned by Cordova for Festival Sâlmon. Based on “Lamb,” a traditional Senegalese form of wrestling, Pasaporteman has created an immersive work featuring two wrestlers as the protagonists and two percussionists who, together with Pasaporteman, create live music. The piece explores the fight itself as well as the ritualistic processes of dance, song and sound that happen before and after. As is the case in other works of Pasaporteman, El cementerio sin cultura speaks of the process of emigration, in particular the migrants who make the mbeuk mbii or try to come to Europe from Senegal by boat.