La Danse de la Mort

Gouaches and graphite on blue paper. Ten drawn and two handwritten sheets. 32,5 x 25 cm. Signed lower right: "Combes". Bibliography: Unpublished.

With an alert hand, Charles Alphonse Combes accurately renders the ceremonial of this fateful dance. The artist makes ten drawings that he numbers, thus creating a real sequence of the choreography. Through its dynamic approach and its resolutely modern aesthetic, The Dance of Death attests to the brilliance of Charles Alphonse Combes. This realization places him not only as an attentive witness of the ceremonies of the Yacouba people, but also in the wake of the drawings of Jules Granjouan (Illus. 01) and Antoine Bourdelle (Illus. 02) after the performances of Isadora Duncan.

Made in the 1950s, this series of ten drawings represents the Dance of Death ceremony practiced by the Dan, also known as Danwopeumin or Yacouba. Charles Alphonse Combes draws the entire event and gives the following description: "An ancient custom in Dan country was to sacrifice the chief dancer of the sect to the gods of dance every year. He accepted this sacrifice for the custom and for the gods. He was killed on the last moon of the year by an unknown arrow [?] - with a golden tip - and in the heart. The artist also traces the different stages of this ceremony: 1. the tam tam began to give well 2. The dancer gets dressed 3. He enters the dance 4. He greets the chief of the canton with a stop of the feet 5. He bids farewell to the moon 6. He takes the dust from the ground of the ancestors, brings it to his lips and spreads it over the village 7. He goes freely to death 8. He passes his foot through the cloth, sign of the passage of life into death 9. The arrow makes 10. He dies ".

Illustrations: Illus. 01: Jules Grandjouan, Isadora Duncan. Joie de vivre - Aujourd'hui - Début de la Bacchanale, 1937, Gold leaf heightened with Indian ink and white gouache pasted on blue grey paper, 38 x 26 cm, Nantes, musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes. Illus. 02 : Antoine Bourdelle, Isidora dancing, 1909, pen and black ink, watercolor on paper pasted on paper, dimensions unknown, Paris, Musée Bourdelle. Bibliography: Richard Bonneau, Écrivains, cinéastes et artistes ivoiriens : aperçu bio-bibliographique, Abidjan, Nouvelles éditions africaines, 1974, 175 p.