He is a dancer, actor, choreographer, and director affiliated to Amizero Kompagnie, a local dance and theater group. Wesley Ruzibiza tells Moses Opobo about the company’s work, and what drew him to the arts.

Talk about Amizero                    

Amizero is a Kinyarwanda word that means "hope”. Amizero Kompagnie was founded in August 2005 by the University Centre for Art and Drama in Butare. It was the initiative of Odile Gakire Gatese, the former artistic director of the centre for art and drama, and Irene Tassembedo, a French-Burkinabe choreographer. I was among the co-founders and first members of the company.

Amizero does productions that are not limited to just dance, but also theater. The last production was a radio play, at the beginning of February, first at the Goethe Institute, and at the first Bujumbura Theater Festival. We have weekly dance workshops at the French Institute and lots of collaborations in the region.

We have been to Europe, the USA, all over Africa, Brazil, and Asia, teaching, creating, showcasing, performing, training, and studying too. In 2009, we won Rwanda a silver medal at the 20th Francophonie Games.

What inspired you into contemporary dance?

I was doing BA Finance at the University of Butare when I came across arts through workshops called Art Azimuth, which means "art everywhere” in French. It was not really planned. It was a random decision I took as I saw the beautiful art performances at the time. I was doing theater as an extra-curricular activity at the university, focusing mainly on community theatre.

One day I met a French ballet and contemporary dance instructor who challenged me to try contemporary dance. I liked the freedom of expression, of finding your inner self and telling a story through dance moves, so I quickly moved from theater to dance.

With contemporary dance, you can create from your own body and feelings and emotions. I craved that moment when I would just give myself to the music, and the discipline with the body and technique, so I was like why not?  I started attending more seminars and workshops on dance.

How would you sum up your professional self?

I’m basically a performer. I could say I’m 60 per cent a dancer. I do theater, I write, but my life is all about art and art projects. I’m an upcoming playwright and have written three pieces for performances already. You can’t separate dance from writing because to create dance, I first write a story.

My pieces are a mix of theater and dance. We perform everywhere. We negotiate with restaurant and nightclub owners and stage shows because we have no theater yet. We are negotiating for space at The Office in Kiyovu, and hopefully we shall have a base by the close of this year.

I do art for social change, not for its aesthetic beauty.  It’s important for artistes to be the mirror of society.

In your own words, what is contemporary dance?

There’s a huge debate even within the contemporary dance fraternity about the true definition. Contemporary dance is dancing for the moment; dancing emotions, and telling a story using body movements. Movements are feelings, and we have different movements called colors. It’s a dance with freedom to express feeling and emotion and tell stories through the body.

Have you benefitted from any specialised training?

I attended Ecole des Sables in Senegal for a professional diploma in choreography and dance technique. I also participated in different trainings at the CND in Paris, and the UK Road Art Center on a theater fellowship programme for two years.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

I inspire myself from my tradition. I observe Rwandan traditional dances and create moves for it, to express the Rwanda of today. It can come from anywhere, just like contemporary hip hop, and there are different ways of putting it out. All my teachers have taught me to inspire myself from the environment around me. In our tradition we had stories told through dance and movement. The only challenge is how do you package it for people of today?