COMMENT ON SAPE À KINSHASA How to show your clothes and style in Kinshasa Some gestures and movements    Astrid S. Klein 2008 2 x DV Video, French, English subtitels, 4:3 DV Video 1 - with Mamie Claudine Mambu, RDC/Democratic Republic of Congo DV Video 2 - with Hubert Mahela Katamba, RDC/Democratic Republic of Congo Mamie Claudine Mambu and Hubert Mahela Katamba, from Kinshasa, show in an improvised dialogue with the artist Astrid S. Klein, how young people present their clothes and style in the streets of Kinshasa today. The two performers pretend to wear labeled designer clothes and accessoires like the Sapeurs1 do, and demonstrate, how they percept actually the Sapeurs and their inventions of social success. Astrid S. Klein is a German visual artist, working on longterm artistic projects. She presents her work in different medias - in film, text, sound, performance and installation. Actually she lives in Stuttgart/Germany and Paris/France. The video work Comment on sape à Kinshasa is part of the project Briller et s’envoler, Astrid S. Klein started 2005 on contemporary processes of re-invention of oneself in an African and European urban cultures. She researches the oscillating elements between the continents, related to the colonial past and the contemporary now. (see Violente Question, Installation 2008, Rue Gutenberg, Filmproject 2008, with the journalist Solo Soro, and her text contributions in „Les Histoires Communes“ Kuenstlerhaus Stuttgart 2007) Mamie Claudine Mambu is a musician and performer from Kinshasa, RDC, member of the women theatre group Ngoonâ, the band Nsumenu and in the team of the cultural center Espace Masolo in Kinshasa. Hubert Mahela Katamba is storyteller and performer from Kinshasa, RDC, member of the TamTamTheatre and co-founder of the cultural center Espace Masolo in Kinshasa. Astrid S. Klein: a.s.k@t-online.de     (1) LA SAPE Société des Ambienceurs et Personnes élégantes The Society of Ambience and People of Elegance The SAPE was invented at the end of the 1970s in Congo-Kinshasa (Zaire) and Congo-Brazzaville (République du Congo) with the intention to be successfull in Paris and Brussels and then return to Kinshasa or Brazzaville in a glorious way. Young Congolese people, mainly men, started to develop a complex system of codes concerning their appearance. They created their own distinctive image by wearing expensive European and Japanese designer clothes and transforming them into a special look. As the SAPE is connected to the emergence of new Congolese music styles - Papa Wemba is the famous icon - the Sapeurs staged theatrical battles (la danse des griffes - the dance of labels) to show off their outfits in concerts, clubs and in the streets.