Dandyism pays tribute to how Congolese sapeurs use fashion as 'a way of resisting'

Growing up in Kigali, Rwanda in the 1980s and '90s, dancer and choreographer Ziza Patrick was always fascinated by the members of la Sape that he would see around town.

La Sape stands for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, which translates to the "Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People," and it's a fashion-based subculture based around outfits — particularly suits — that often combine bright, vibrant colours and elegant tailoring.

La Sape is also a backronym of sorts, since sapé is French slang for getting dressed up. It originated in the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and spread to Rwanda via Congolese migrants.  

"I would pass through the [Congolese] neighborhood, and I just remember just people having nothing, but really dressed so well and their clothes really being ironed and, and very, very colourful and very confident in the way they express themselves and the way they walked," says Patrick.

Patrick's dance piece, Dandyism, which is making its North American debut in Toronto as part of the Luminato Festival, is a tribute to la Sape. He says that his early childhood exposure to les sapeurs, as la Sape adherents are known, became emblazoned in his brain as "the blueprint of what an elegant African person dresses like."

Patrick has been dancing as long as he can remember, starting as a kid in Rwanda. He left Rwanda with his family after the 1994 genocide there. After spending time in a Tanzanian refugee camp, Patrick eventually landed in England as a teenager, where he still lives. There, he studied dance more formally, eventually getting a degree in it from the University of Sunderland. He performed professionally for various companies and, in 2016, he began wanting to create his own work. His longtime fascination with la Sape seemed like a great place from which to start. 

"All these [memories] came flooding back," he says. "And I just remembered thinking 'God, I can make a work about this.'"

He got a small arts grant — most of which he spent on flamboyant clothes from charity shops — and gathered together a few dance friends and an early version of Dandyism was born.

Patrick says there's some debate about how le Sape actually started, adding that, as far as he knows, it first started being recognized as a style and movement after World War II, but that its roots go much deeper.

"My understanding of how it actually came about in Africa [is] as soon as the Westerners set their foot on Africa that movement started… what you call slave masters would actually give clothes to the houseboys," he says. "And these houseboys would experiment with these clothes. They would really change them and, and kind of, like, create these characters mimicking their slave masters… and these houseboys would then congregate in what you would call a pub or a bar, like these gentlemen's clubs, and they would then have competitions of who's the best dressed."

The sapeurs were also influenced by a 19th Century European style, the dandy, and have sometimes been referred to as "Black Dandies," hence the title of Patrick's piece. The original dandies were English gentlemen who toured Italy and France, and brought continental styles back to England.

"They were also dressed in this beautiful, very flamboyant, very colourful [style]," he says. "And they were actually ridiculed as well."

This influence means today's sapeurs aren't just about dressing well: there's a particular use of language, set of manners, and even a walk associated with the movement.

Patrick wants Dandyism audiences to see the movement as something that goes beyond fashion. By taking European artifacts and flipping them into something distinctly African, the sapeurs are pushing back against colonialism.

"It is really a way of resisting," he says. "It's a way of empowerment… It's a suit in a traditional sense, but it's deconstructed. It is pulled apart. The colours can be loud. There is no rules on how an African dandy should be, the rule is that you have to have taste, because taste is beauty."

Dandyism runs June 7-15 at various locations across the GTA. Check in the Luminato site for details.