Héctor Parra – Moins qu’un souffle, à peine un mouvement de l’air – hommage to Khady Demba

Once we have finished reading the last page of the roman Three Strong Women by Marie NDiaye nothing is as before. Literally driven into the void, the abyss of human most absolute anguish, Khady Demba, the protagonist, is in search for personal dignity, a dignity that has been systematically denied. Young widow of twenty-five years old, a true catastrophe to a Senegalese woman of her condition, is greeted at first by her family in law, but is soon expelled under excuse to "spend more that brings." So Khady Demba becomes, unwittingly and almost without being aware, a clandestine immigrant with a tragic fate.
 

In "Moins qu’un souffle, a peine à mouvement de l'air", that has been directly inspired from the novel of Marie NDiaye, Khady embodies the flute of this musical story. As a living reflection of the "flute peule" of West Africa (built with reeds grown from the earth, grown with the help of water, held with the help of fire and played with air), the leading flute delivers us up to the last drop of her energy under the form of musical contortions and progressively stronger transformations of sound. Khady ventures to climb the fence that separates her from the "freedom" and that, paradoxically, lead her to the nothingness. [...]