Fatoumata Diawara A LIVE at Afrikafestival Hertme 2010

Performance 10 july 2010 Malian singer Fatoumata Diawara (aka Fatou) was born of Malian parents in the Ivory Coast in 1982. As a child she became a member of her father s dance troupe and was a popular performer of the wildly flailing didadi dance from Wassoulou, her ancestral home in western. She was an energetic and headstrong girl and at the age of twelve her refusal to go to school finally prompted her parents to send her to live and be disciplined by an aunt in Bamako. She was not to see her parents again for over a decade. Her aunt was an actress, and a few years after arriving, Fatou found herself on a film set looking after her aunt s infant child. The film s director was captivated by Fatou s adolescent beauty and she was given a one line part in the final scene of the film Taafe Fangan ( The Power of Women ). This led to her being given a lead role by the celebrated director Cheick Omar Sissoko in his 1999 film La Genèse (Genesis).