Chokri Ben Chikha, Omar Camara and Zouzou Ben Chikha founded the Nit Nithei Garabam npo in 1994. The organisation grew from a series of productions, projects and joint ventures with theatres and local authorities. In 2003, the Ben Chikha brothers then founded Union Suspecte, where the focus was on the creation of professional productions in which text, dance and music were combined. The unifying theme for Chokri Ben Chikha was his family triptych De Leeuw van Vlaanderen (2003), Onze Lieve Vrouw van Vlaanderen (2005) and Broeders van Liefde (2007) through which he laid the foundations of his own theatrical vision.

In 2008, Chokri Ben Chikha left Union Suspecte. Following his doctorate in the arts at University College Ghent and the University of Ghent, he set up Action Zoo Humain, an action group on the fringes of the theatre scene. Taking as his starting point the so-called Zoos Humains, exhibitions of exotic people held in Europe around the turn of the 20th century, his new work Heldendood voor de Beschaving sees him in search of the Zoo Humain in our collective brain.

Chokri Ben Chikha always situates his work in the context of a greater whole. He did so with his family trilogy, and in his new work Heldendood voor de Beschaving he creates a diptych and connects it with the performance L’Afrique C’est Chic which he created in February-March 2010 for the WCC Zuiderpershuis in Senegal.

A central theme in the first part of the diptych is the independence of the Congo, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of its independence on 30th June 2010. Starting on that day, Ben Chikha and Action Zoo Humain will be travelling through Flanders with a living replica of ‘Lippens en De Bruyne’, the monument which stands on the promenade in Blankenberge. They will commemorate the heroic death of these two colonials with a theatrical ceremony. They form a living image with a petrified black woman at their feet.

The statue and its profusion of Flemish, Arabic and Congolese stories demand a second perspective. In the second and final part of the diptych, Chokri Ben Chikha turns the soldiers to stone and shares the stage with the black woman. The woman has no name and is not heard. In the second part, Chokri Ben Chikha and Action Zoo Humain attempt to give her a voice.

Action Zoo Humain is the name given to the action group that’s part of the Nit Nithei Garabam npo. The Wereldculturencentrum Zuiderpershuis npo is producing the stage production.