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Flashmag September 2018 www.flashmag.net
Geoffrey Oryema
Land of Anaka
Excerpts
You could have been as much a well-known singer because you learned music very early. From 1984 to 1994 you learned music and singing. What has not worked on this side, if it must be said so?
(laughs) Well-known singer? No, I do not think so. Since my mother is a professional violinist and my father is a music lover, I was very early introduced to music and I chose the piano. So, singing was part of my musical education from an early age and it was also part of my curriculum at the conservatory. I also worked for two years in operatic singing. This was further training. So, I would rather define myself today as an actress who knows how to sing.
In fact, I just made a choice in 1994. I was at 15 hours of dance a week and I had just discovered the theater. I considered that my musical bases were solid enough, since I did not have the vocation to make a trade of it, and I preferred to devote myself to dance and theater.
When you make a feed back of your artistic career. If you had to change something, what would you have changed?
In the early 2000s I was admitted to a fairly prestigious dance school in Los Angeles. At the same time, I asked for a scholarship - I do not know which Institute. I had mounted a concrete file, had made the first selections, had been received orally ... but was not finally admitted. If it was to do again, I tell myself that I would leave without this scholarship! Especially after going to Los Angeles last February at the Panafrican International Film Festival to represent the film "Soulmates" by Fred Dom. I could see how much energy was coming out of the City of Angels, how easy it was to meet people, and how easy it was to be in the city of all possibilities. Well, if I had something to change, maybe I would have left, and my life would probably be different (laughs). But I have no regrets. It's really because you asked me the question and I had to dig into my memories to find an answer!
The theater is often a springboard to the cinema. An American actor said, "British actors are often very good because they have a good theatrical
training". The theater brought what, to your artistic creation?
But the theater brought me ALL (laughs)! Especially since I was lucky enough to have an excellent teacher, Jean-Louis Bertsch, himself trained at the National Theater of Strasbourg, in the same class of Bernard-Marie Koltés. A teacher who already had years of experience and who made us work the hard way! On the basis of Stanislavski's actor's training, I remember whole afternoons of trainings to make air movements, flowing ... or even whole afternoons to fall or to find this or that kind of emotions or sensations to feed our game. Our teacher was so invested that we did internships in Italy, with Russian Gitis Moscow, immersed in Ariane Mnouchkine and even with Reda Kateb who at the time was still not known (laughs). This training was supplemented by lyric lessons in connection with the singers (the real ones!) and the classes of instruments. And I'm not talking about the theoretical research that was asked of us, and the number of plays that I would see, several times a week! Really, drama and this particular teaching have taught me to "be", including facing the camera, not "playing". At least all the tools have been given to me for work in this direction.
The cinema you live it virtually behind the camera, in front of the camera, and in the tracks because you do dubbing voice. Realize and play in movies, outside the remunerative point of view, is there anything that you like the most among the 3?
One of the important things to be clear is that there is a real difference between the actor in the cinema and the actor in the theater. Certainly, the tools used can be common. But while in the theater, we project the voice, we play "big" in the cinema, the game is more intimate, it must really be real because the camera captures everything and does not give you a chance to cheat. Although I like to lend my voice, as it was the case recently for Bessie Coleman in an eponymous documentary (what an honor!)