According to her, an important work has to be done to preserve the Rwandan cultural identity as the young generation is increasingly influenced by global culture to the detriment of their own cultural heritage.
The threat is real though, as Rwanda’s young generation and Africa’s in general is being highly influenced by western pop culture.
The desire to create cultural centres to learn, practice and perform regularly is the most urgent aspect of CEKA I RWANDA’s work.
There is a lot of artistic and academic work to be done for the preservation of Rwandan traditional culture such as the collection of data & knowledge, the transcript and translation of classic folk songs & pastoral poetry, the archiving, the restoration and digitization of old recordings as well as doing new recordings.
“If we want to promote the Rwandan cultural music in this globalized world, the cultural exchange is also important to inspire new forms of artistic expression”, said one close friend of Cecile Kayirebwa.
This was after an intercultural performance by Deo Munyakazi, a Rwandan cultural music artist and Ms. Hilde Cannoodt, a Belgian Choreographer, specializing in Egyptian dance, but who have also studied Indian, Flamenco and Rwandan dances.
Watch a performance in which Deo Munyakazi plays “Inanga””, Ms. Hilde Cannoodt & Nyomufasha Yvette dancing
Born in Kigali in 1946, Cecile Kayirebwa has so far recorded 6 albums and 2 other albums compiling Singles & EPs. Cécile’s songs transcend different generations in her home country, Rwanda and are accompanied by traditional instruments such as the Inanga, umuduri and ikembe.
You can find Cecile Kayirebwa’s music on iTunes, Deezer, Amazon, YouTube and Spotify
