
Maurice Mbikayi
Maurice Mbikayi’s Techno Dandy is a person who dons the outfit for a parade and then performs several characters.
On this occasion, the Techno Dandy uses a form of expression called the “Sapeur”. A sapeur is an adherent of La Sape which is an acronym based on the phrase Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes (French; literally "Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People") and hinting to the French slang word sape which means "attire", it is a subculture centered on the cities of Kinshasa and Brazzaville in the DRC and the Republic of Congo respectively.
According to Maurice Mbikayi, La SAPE is also another form of expression that has developed after successive dictatorial regimes from both Congo’s.
Unable politically, culturally and economically to express their frustration openly like the rest of the population of their countries, sapeurs artistically transcend this monotony in the hope of a larger cultural transition; they see their transcendence as a form of agency to compensate for political and economic deprivation.
In other words, Sapeurs manifest ambivalent attitudes which are both beautiful and confusing – a rather disguised weapon of expression.
In this scene the Dandy personifies a sapeur in an exaggerated outfit, which could also reveal the idea of reinventing a foreign culture as an autonomous form, a revolt against the established order.
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