Mali's traditional theater gives psychiatric patients the stage

BAMAKO, Mali (AP) — In the courtyard of a psychiatric ward in Mali’s capital, a small group of patients acts out scenes of a village dispute to the beat of a djembe, a traditional West African drum.

One patient, Mamadou Diarra, cries out to another in the Bambara language, mocking: “You don’t know anything! Just nonsense!”

But both break into smiles, and Diarra dances as he continues launching insults at his fellow performer.

The group is taking part in koteba, a traditional form of theater practiced by Mali's largest ethnic group, the Bambara. It mixes acting, singing and dancing and is usually performed in villages as an outlet to work through problems and an open space for satire.

But here at Point G, one of the largest hospitals in Bamako, koteba is also a way of offering support and a sense of community to people receiving psychiatric care.

Mali has fewer than 50 mental health professionals for a population of more than 20 million, according to a 2022 report by the World Health Organization. People with mental illnesses are often left without treatment and excluded from society.

Though the use of koteba as therapy hasn't been formally studied, Souleymane Coulibaly, a clinical psychologist at the Point G hospital, said the traditional form of theater is uniquely positioned to help people in the psychiatric ward work through their problems.

“Patients who attend koteba leave the hospital more quickly than those who refuse to attend the theater session,” he said.

In the courtyard, Diarra was the star, and other patients gathered as he spoke.

“I’ve never done any kind of theater before. I’ve never danced. But once I started, God gave me the knowledge of these things,” he said.

Adama Bagayoko, 67, the director of the visiting theater troupe, said the weekly performances at Point G are a rare space where patients feel heard and respected.

“We talk to each other, we dance together, we laugh together,” Bagayoko said. “To touch someone shows that we are equal, to listen to them shows that they are important, and what they say is important."

Bagayoko was part of a troupe that brought koteba to the Point G psychiatric ward in 1983, as mental health workers looked for a way to use Mali’s cultural practices to help people receiving psychiatric care.

The first performance was so effective that patients asked the doctors if the actors could return the next day, he said.

Patients and actors have been meeting for koteba performances every Friday since then.

The koteba performances at Point G unfold in three phases, Bagayoko said. First, the troupe plays music to invite patients into the courtyard. Then the troupe asks what the topic or theme of that day's performance should be. After the performance, they sit in a circle and give the floor to any patients who wish to speak.

Because the patients feel at ease, they often tell the actors details about their lives they are not comfortable sharing with their family or doctors, which can help doctors get to the core of any issue they might be dealing with, Bagayoko said.

On a recent Friday, the patients acted out a familiar scene in Mali: A man in a village is accused of stealing. The thief screams and claims he hasn’t stolen anything, while the villagers ask Diarra, playing the village chief, what punishment he deserves.

“Kill him!” Diarra yells amid the screams. But as the angry mob gathers around the man, he escapes and flees.

Bagayoko said the troupe performs other themes proposed by patients including those about women beaten by their husbands, drug problems and alcoholism.

The hospital at Point G is only a short walk from Mali’s political stage — the presidential palace and main military base — where a 2020 military coup has left the country struggling with increased extremist violence and economic hardship. Last month, Islamic militants attacked Bamako for the first time in almost a decade.

But those problems are far away during the koteba performances at the hospital, as Diarra and his fellow patients are immersed in the world they create.

“You know what my problem is? That I see things for what they are,” Diarra said, laughing, during a break.

Bagayoko chimed in: “Okay, we’ll lighten that load for you.”

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Adama Bagayoko, director of the theater troupe that has been performing with patients at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital, stands in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Mamadou Diarra, right, dances with other patients at Bamako's Point G hospital psychiatric ward in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward act out scenes at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward play instruments in the hospital's courtyard in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

Patients at Bamako's Point G psychiatric ward act out scenes at the psychiatric ward of the Point G hospital in Bamako, Mali, Friday, Sept. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Moustapha Diallo)

After a wildfire decimated a California high school’s newsroom, destroying its cameras, computers and archived newspapers spanning six decades, one of the first offers of help that its journalism adviser received came from the other side of the country.

Claire Smith, founding executive director of Temple University's sports media center, had known Lisa Nehus Saxon since they helped carve out a place for women journalists in Major League Baseball more than 40 years ago. They’d supported each other through the days of being barred from locker rooms, and now with much of Palisades Charter High School damaged, Smith wanted to be there for her friend again.

“I just thought, ‘What can we do? How can we help with healing?’” Smith said.

Earlier this week, she traveled from Philadelphia to deliver the result of that offer: a university paper featuring the high school students’ articles.

Across nearly a dozen pages, the insert showcased articles on price gouging in the rental market after the wildfire and the school returning to in-person lessons, along with poignant firsthand accounts of losing everything to the fire. There were also poems and hand-drawn pictures by students from Pasadena Rosebud Academy, a transitional kindergarten through eighth-grade school in Altadena, California, that was destroyed in the fire.

Wildfires in January ravaged the Los Angeles area, wiping out nearly 17,000 structures including homes, schools, businesses and places of worship.

The Palisades high school, made up of about 3,000 students in Los Angeles, saw about 40% of its campus damaged and had to move temporarily into an old Sears building. Nehus Saxon estimated that around a quarter of its newspaper staff members lost their homes, with some forced to move out of the community and switch schools.

This project, she and Smith said, was a way to give students a project to focus on after the tragedy while also providing them a place to tell a larger audience the experience of their community.

Smith said she thought the project would be healing for the students “but also give them something that they could hold in their hands and, when they grow up, show their children and grandchildren."

Inside a basement classroom in Santa Monica on Wednesday, Smith and Samuel O’Neal, The Temple News’ editor-in-chief, handed out the papers to the high school staff.

It was the first time they had seen their Tideline articles in print, as the paper had moved online years ago due to the cost.

Kate Swain, 18, a co-editor-in-chief for the paper, said it felt surreal to finally flip through the printed pages.

“Because of everything that we’ve gone through together, everything that we’ve had to persevere through and everyone’s had all these personal things that they’ve been dealing with," she said. "And yet simultaneously, we’ve been pouring all this time and energy and all of our passion for journalism into writing these articles.”

Gigi Appelbaum, 18, a co-editor-in-chief of the paper who lost her home in the fire, said the project felt especially distinct because it involved people thousands of miles away.

“The fact that people from across the country are aware of what's going on with us and emphasize with our situation and want to get our voices out there, it’s really special,” said Appelbaum, who has been on the paper for four years.

One of the things she lost in the fire was a box filled with important cards and messages. She said she plans to store her copy in a new box as she works to restart the collection.

Smith and Nehus Saxon met in 1983 during a game between the Angels and Yankees in Anaheim, California. Nehus Saxon said she walked over to Smith to introduce herself and found her hustling to meet a deadline.

“Who knew that little introduction would blossom into this,” said Nehus Saxon.

In the years since, they’ve traveled to London together for Major League Baseball’s first games in Europe, and they cried together in 2017 as Smith became the first woman to win the Baseball Writers’ Association of America’s Career Excellence Award.

“We don’t talk every week,” Nehus Saxon said. “Sometimes we can go, you know, months and months without talking. But all we have to do is send each other a text message and we know the other will be there immediately.”

That bond was made all the more clear when Nehus Saxon heard from Smith as fire engulfed her community. Her home was only three blocks from the school. While it survived the blaze, it’s filled with led laden ash and may not be safe to live in for years.

But with the help of Smith, she and her students have been able to move forward and produce the final edition of the school year. After the papers were handed out, Nehus Saxon kept one for the school's archive.

“When you’ve lost everything you’ve got to start somewhere,” Smith said.

Copies of Tideline, Palisades High School's student newspaper, are placed on a table in their newsroom, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Samuel O'Neal, left, editor-in-chief of Temple News, shows a copy of his school's publication to Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts during a visit to Dodger Stadium, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Los Angeles. AP Photo/Jayne Kamin-Oncea)

Members of of the Palisades High School newspaper staff, from left to right, Cloé Nourparvar, Gigi Appelbaum, and Kate Swain, hold a copy of the school's publication, which was printed in Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Claire Smith, founding executive director of Temple University's sports media center, center, and Samuel O'Neal, left, editor-in-chief of the Temple News, deliver copies of the Palisades High School newspaper to staff, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Staff members of Tideline, Palisades High School's newspaper, Sophia Masserat, left, and Eve Keller read a copy of the publication, freshly delivered from Philadelphia, Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Members of Tideline, the student newspaper, pose for a group photo showing the publication at the interim location for Palisades High School Wednesday, May 14, 2025, in Santa Monica, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)