I DON'T LIKE MONDAYS

ON A MONDAY IN 1979 IN THE USA A 16 YEAR OLD GIRL ENTERED HER SCHOOL WITH A GUN AND SHOT IT UP, THIS WAS ONE OF THE EARLIEST MASS SHOOTINGS IN A SCHOOL IN THE USA, TODAY THEY ARE COMMON PLACE. 
WHEN ASKED WHY SHE DID IT SHE SAID; "I DON'T LIKE MONDAY'S" 
(SHE WAS CALLED A SPREE KILLER BY THE PRESS)

The Grover Cleveland Elementary School shooting took place on January 29, 1979, at a public elementary school in San Diego, California, United States. The principal and a custodian were killed; eight children and a police officer were injured. A 16-year-old girl, Brenda Spencer, who lived in a house across the street from the school, was convicted of the shootings. Charged as an adult, she pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and was given an indefinite sentence. As of February 2020, she remains in prison.

A reporter reached Spencer by phone while she was still in the house after the shooting, and asked her why she did it. She reportedly answered: "I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day,"^[1][2] which inspired Bob Geldof and Johnnie Fingers to write the Boomtown Rats song "I Don't Like Mondays".^[3]

Bob Geldof, Humanitarian and former BoomTown Rats Frontman tells everyone how & Why the song " I Don't Like Mondays" by The BoomTown Rats was to come to be and how he was thanked by the Spree Killer herself for him making her famous, something which Bob psychologically wrestles with even to this very day.


The Boomtown Rats do their big hit "I Don't Like Mondays" to protest American gun laws and Bob Geldof gives Merv a typical surly interview talking about the band, the press and what Geldof sees as American radio's boycott of their music. Merv Griffin had over 5000 guests appear on his show from 1963-1986. Footage from the Merv Griffin Show is available for licensing to all forms of media through Reelin' In The Years Productions. www.reelinintheyears.com.

 The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload And nobody's gonna go to school today She's going to make them stay at home And daddy doesn't understand it He always said she was as good as gold And he can see no reason 'Cause there are no reasons What reason do you need to be sure Oh, oh, oh tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays I want to shoot The whole day down The Telex machine is kept so clean As it types to a waiting world And mother feels so shocked Father's world is rocked And their thoughts turn to their own little girl Sweet sixteen ain't that peachy keen Now, it ain't so neat to admit defeat They can see no reasons 'Cause there are no reasons What reason do you need oh, woah Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays I want to shoot The whole day down Down, down Shoot it all down All the playing's stopped in the playground now She wants to play with her toys a while And school's out early and soon we'll be learning And the lesson today is how to die And then the bullhorn crackles And the captain tackles With the problems and the how's and why's And he can see no reasons 'Cause there are no reasons What reason do you need to die, die Oh, oh, oh and the silicon chip inside her head Gets switched to overload And nobody's gonna go to school today She's going to make them stay at home And daddy doesn't understand it He always said she was as good as gold And he can see no reason 'Cause there are no reasons What reason do you need to be sure Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like, I don't like, I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like, I don't like, (tell me why) I don't like Mondays Tell me why I don't like Mondays I want to shoot, the whole day down, uh, uh, uhARE COMMON PLACE.


The Boomtown Rats performing at Live Aid in front of 72,000 people in Wembley Stadium, London on the 13th July, 1985. The event was organised by Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for the Ethiopian famine disaster. Broadcast across the world via one of the largest satellite link-ups of all time, the concerts were seen by around 40% of the global population.

Trump is a 'vulgar fool' but world should fear tech titans, says Geldof

AFP / Christophe ARCHAMBAULTAt 68, Bob Geldof is back with The Boomtown Rats' first album in 36 years

Bob Geldof ruffles his white hair in front of the mirror to get it just dishevelled enough for the camera.

He may be 68, a grandfather, an honorary knight of the British Empire, regarded as something of a secular saint after Live Aid, but Geldof remains a rock star at heart.

And an outspoken one at that, dismissing London's other most famous owner of an unkempt mop, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, as a "simpleton" for Brexit.

Geldof is a man, in his own words, who cannot keep his "gob shut".

And particularly not now when he sees the world in "chaos", caught between what he describes as the over-arching power of tech robber barons and autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping and "that vulgar fool (US President Donald) Trump".

Geldof is back "making noise" -- as he puts it -- with The Boomtown Rats, the Irish punk band that first brought him to fame in the late 1970s, with their first album in 36 years.

With the world sinking into panic over the coronavirus, he said it seemed as good a time as any to unleash the rock wild man inside him that Geldof calls "Bobby Boomtown".

"Citizens Of Boomtown" comes with a book of lyrics and essays by Geldof and a documentary of the same name where Sting and Sinead O'Connor bend the knee to "the best rock 'n' roll band to have come out of Dublin" -- although Bono, who is also in the film, may beg to differ on that one.

Even without keyboards ace Johnnie Fingers, the Rats have lost none of their edge nor their rage.

"I said that I wasn't going to go mad when I got back on stage -- I can't do it anymore," Geldof told AFP. "But Bobby Boomtown wanted to hop out of his coffin, and he went nuts..."

- Break up big tech -

And there is plenty to be mad about, with the Rats greatest hits like "I Don't Like Mondays" more relevant now than ever, Geldof argued, with gun massacres almost weekly.

"I wasn't thinking of Big Brother when I wrote 'Someone's Looking At You', but when I sing it now I am," Geldof added, as he railed at the masters of tech.

AFP / Christophe ARCHAMBAULTGeldof says tech was meant to be the "ultimate democratising tool" but has turned out to be "perfect for authoritarianism"

"Your phone is recording you even if it's off... for people like (Facebook's Mark) Zuckerberg and (Jeff) Bezos (of Amazon) and Larry (Page) and Sergey (Brin of Google). They're monopolists and they need to be broken up," the Irishman declared.

"Alexa, your smart television, your device is constantly monitoring your every utterance and every action and they're packaging you.

"Your consumer choice, your political choice, your opinion, and they're selling that on to third parties who can influence those choices but also exploit you.

"The problem is that the product is you. And the worst is that we're complicit because we're doing it for convenience," he despaired.

- 'Political infantilism' -

The tech revolution came at the worst possible time, Geldof believes, just as "we're going to a period of political infantilism.

"In this moment of chaos -- not just because of the virus -- we are reverting back to what we believe are certainties... the nation states, the strongmen who seem to know where to go," he said.

"But Putin isn't a strong man. He's a mafia gangster. Xi Jinping is a ruthless, oppressive autocrat, (Turkish President Recep Tayyip) Erdogan is a simple dictator and Trump a vulgar fool."

Geldof wrote "Banana Republic" released in 1980 about the corrupt, repressive, priest-ridden Ireland in which he grew up.

"But when I sing it now, I think of the White House and the demise of the American republic."

It is tech, however, which gives him nightmares.

AFP / Christophe ARCHAMBAULT"You have to fight every day for democracy," Geldof says in an interview with AFP

"What was meant to be the ultimate democratising tool" has turned out to be "perfect for authoritarianism. So we have to be alert.

"You have to fight every day for democracy," said the man, who rallied the world to respond to the Ethiopian famine in 1984 with Band Aid.

"We had to struggle for centuries. And we are prepared to give it up for the convenience" he said, brandishing his smartphone.

"Fuck off!"

- Britain will bounce back -

But people "still buy into the ridiculous and ultimately fascist trope that only the guilty need be afraid. No, no, that's not it at all," Geldof cautioned.

"Only the innocent need be afraid in this new world. And that's what you must fight against."

Nor has Geldof stopped battling against Brexit, having taken to the River Thames in a barge against Nigel Farage's Brexit flotilla in one of the most surreal moments of the 2016 referendum campaign.

The vote to quit the EU "was an historic mistake", said Geldof who believes that despite the self-inflicted damage, Britain will bounce back. "Because that's what the Brits do. It's an intensely creative society," he said.

"But the argument is not over."

Geldof knows something of resilience, having lost his mother at the age of seven and his former wife Paula Yates and their daughter Peaches, both to drug overdoses.

He also puts that, and his rebel spirit, down to being left to his own devices at home in Dun Laoghaire, south of Dublin, while his father travelled the villages of Ireland trying to sell towels.

"Children learn what's permissible behaviour from their parents. That wasn't there for me. So when I encountered authority, I really didn't understand it."

"So make your own universe in which you can function," he said.

"You have no choice."

1979) The Boomtown Rats were an Irish rock band that scored a series of British hits between 1977 and 1980, and were led by singer Bob Geldof, who organized the Ethiopian relief efforts Band Aid and Live Aid. The Rats were formed in Dun Laoghaire, near Dublin, Ireland, in 1975 by Geldof (born Robert Frederick Zenon Geldof, October 5, 1954, Dun Laoghaire, Ireland), a former journalist; Johnnie Fingers (keyboards); Gerry Cott (guitar); Garry Roberts (guitar); Pete Briquette (bass); and Simon Crowe (drums). They took their name from Woody Guthrie's novel Bound for Glory. The group moved to London in October 1976, and became associated with the punk rock movement. Signing to Ensign Records, they released their debut single, "Lookin' After No. 1," in August 1977. It was the first of nine straight singles to make the U.K. Top 40. Their debut album, The Boomtown Rats, was released in September 1977, on Ensign in the U.K. and on Mercury in the U.S. Their second album, Tonic for the Troops, appeared in June 1978 in the U.K., along with their first U.K. Top Ten hit, "Like Clockwork." In the fall, "Rat Trap" from the album hit number one. A Tonic for the Troops was released in the U.S. on Columbia Records in February 1979 with two tracks from The Boomtown Rats substituted for tracks on the U.K. version. The Boomtown Rats' second straight U.K. number one came in the summer of 1979 with "I Don't Like Mondays," a song inspired by a California teenager who had gone on a killing spree and glibly justified her action with the title line. It was contained on the Rats' third album, The Fine Art of Surfacing, released in October 1979, and subsequently became the band's only U.S. singles-chart entry. The album also contained their next U.K. Top Ten hit, "Someone's Looking at You." The Boomtown Rats released their final U.K. Top Ten hit, "Banana Republic," in November 1980, followed by their fourth album, Mondo Bongo, in January 1981. At this point, guitarist Gerry Cott left the group, and they continued as a quintet. Their fifth album, V Deep, was released in the U.K. in February 1982. In the U.S., Columbia initially released only a four-song EP drawn from the album The Boomtown Rats, finally releasing the full LP in September, when it failed to chart. Also in 1982, Geldof starred in the movie Pink Floyd: The Wall. Columbia released the six-song compilation Ratrospective in March 1983, but rejected the band's newly recorded sixth album, In the Long Grass, which was released by Ensign in England. In 1984, Geldof and Midge Ure wrote "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and organized the star-studded Band Aid group to record it for Ethiopian relief, resulting in the biggest selling single in U.K. history. Geldof then went on to organize the two Live Aid concerts, held on July 13, 1985, in London and Philadelphia. Geldof's increased visibility led to the belated U.S. release of In the Long Grass, but when it failed to chart, the Boomtown Rats were left without a record label. The group folded in 1986, and Geldof launched a solo career. ~ William Ruhlmann, All Music Guide

Canada intelligence committee warns of 'brazen' interference by China, Russia


AFP/File / Michel COMTE

A parliamentary committee has warned that China and Russia are threatening Canada's national security and democracy 

A parliamentary committee on Thursday warned that China and Russia are threatening Canada's national security and democracy by stepping up "clandestine and coercive" efforts to influence politicians, students and the media.

"The threat is real, if often hidden," the national security and intelligence committee of Canadian parliamentarians warned in its annual report.

"The threat to Canada from foreign interference is increasing. The perpetrators have become more brazen and their activities more entrenched," it said, singling out China and Russia as the main culprits.

Their activities, said the report, "threaten the fundamental building blocks of Canada's democracy."

The committee also criticized this government's response to the foreign meddling, saying "Canada has been slow to react to the threat of foreign interference" and "must do better."

The interference has targeted elected officials and their staff, student associations and hundreds of media outlets in Canada that publish or broadcast in languages other than English or French.

The report cites as an example China seeking to "harmonize international Chinese-language media with its own by attempting to merge the editorial boards of those outlets with PRC (People's Republic of China) media."

AFP / Don MacKinnonHuawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou leaves British Columbia Supreme Court January 20, 2020 in Vancouver; Canada has poor relations with both Moscow and Beijing

"This would result in the PRC controlling the message in Chinese-language media, thereby undermining the free and independent media in Canada." 

Several Chinese state-owned media operate in Canada, including Xinhua News, People's Daily and the China News Service.

The report also said Russian agents under diplomatic cover have engaged in "threat-related activities." Details were redacted.

Canada has poor relations with both Moscow and Beijing.

Ottawa imposed sanctions on senior Russian officials after the annexation of Crimea. And its arrest of a Huawei executive on a US warrant followed by Beijing's detention of two Canadians in apparent retaliation plunged its relations with Beijing to a low.

Canada faces 'danger' from China and Russia, intelligence chief warns

By Gordon Corera Security correspondent BBC 13 March 2020

There is a "clear and continuing danger" from "significant and sustained foreign interference" in Canadian public life, the chair of the country's parliamentary intelligence oversight committee has told the BBC.

David McGuinty MP was speaking as his committee published its annual report which includes a detailed outline of the threat and recommendations for how government should respond.

The interference takes a number of forms including targeting the electoral process, government decision-making, academic and media freedoms. Two countries, Russia and China, are singled out as responsible. Russia and China have always denied the allegations of interference.

Mr McGuinty's comments come as a report on Russian interference drawn up by the UK's equivalent body - the Intelligence and Security Committee - has not been published despite being completed a year ago.

The threat of foreign interference while real, was often hidden, the committee's new report argues, pointing to a range of activities.
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deception to cultivate politicians, influence media reporting, monitor specific ethnic communities, harass human rights defenders, and interfere with freedom of assembly and freedom of the media and academia.

Russia is accused of engaging in activities across Canada's political system to influence government decision-making and sway public opinion.

Together there was a "significant risk to rights and freedoms of Canadians and sovereignty of the country" including "the potential corrosion of our democratic institutions", Mr McGuinty told the BBC in an interview.

Some of the specific details of the kinds of activities which have taken place are redacted or censored because they contain sensitive information.

Mr McGuinty said his committee was pointing to ways government could "up its game".

These include more transparency and communication with the public, greater internal coherence in describing and understanding the threat and improved engagement with provincial and municipal partners as well as universities and colleges.
'Insidious threat'

The committee also looked at how other allies are dealing with the issue - the US has had the most high-profile case of foreign interference with intelligence and law enforcement officials saying Russia tried to influence the 2016 presidential election.

But Australia is described as at the "forefront" of Western nations in dealing with the issue.

Mr McGuinty pointed to the way in which Australia had put in place a strategy, a co-ordinator and a task force with a significant budget attached as well as passing new laws to criminalise certain acts.

A report from the UK's Intelligence and Security Committee which covered Russian interference was completed last March and delivered to the prime minister in October but was not published before the election.

A new committee has yet to be formed and it will have to make the decision as to whether to release the report and in what form. Mr McGuinty, chair of Canada's equivalent body, made clear he felt it was important that publics understood what was happening.

"We think it is very important to communicate with Canadians and have them understand the nature of this threat," he said.

"In some respects, it is an insidious threat. It is one Canadians don't fully understand because it hasn't been brought to their attention in the way that we just have for the first time. And we are very much hopeful this is going to ignite a debate."

---30---

China, US spar over origin of coronavirus
LET A THOUSAND CONSPIRACY THEORIES BLOOM
CHAIRMAN MEOW

AFP / STRWith cases falling in China and soaring abroad, Beijing is now rejecting the widely held assessment that the city of Wuhan is the birthplace of the outbreak

A Chinese government campaign to cast doubt on the origin of the coronavirus pandemic is fuelling a row with the United States, with a Beijing official promoting conspiracy theories and Washington calling it the "Wuhan virus".

The spat comes as China tries to deflect blame for the contagion and reframe itself as a country that took decisive steps to buy the world time by placing huge swathes of its population under quarantine.

With cases falling in China and soaring abroad, Beijing is now rejecting the widely held assessment that the city of Wuhan is the birthplace of the outbreak.

Foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian went a step further on Thursday, saying on Twitter that "it might be US army who brought the epidemic to Wuhan" -- without providing any evidence.

He doubled down on his claim on Friday by posting a link to an article from a website known for publishing conspiracy theories about the 9/11 attacks.

Censors usually vigilant against rumours have also allowed Chinese social media users to spread similar claims about the US being behind the virus.

A video showing a US health official saying some flu victims were posthumously diagnosed as having had COVID-19 was among the top searched items on China's Twitter-like Weibo this week, with some users saying it was evidence the virus originated in the US.

Zhao posted the clip on Twitter.

Dali Yang, a political science professor at the University of Chicago, said he believes Zhao was "tweeting in his official capacity".

China's intention in promoting the conspiracy theory is "to divert from domestic discontent" over the handling of the outbreak, which has killed more than 3,100 people in the country.

Asked if Zhao was representing the government's view, fellow foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters on Friday that "the international community, including (people) in the United States, have different views on the source of the virus".

"China from the beginning thinks this is a scientific issue, and that we need to listen to scientific and professional advice," Geng said.

- Seafood market -

The push to question the origin of the disease contradicts China's own initial assessment about the source of the virus, which has now killed nearly 5,000 people worldwide.

Gao Fu, head of China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said in January "we now know the source of the virus is wild animals sold at the seafood market" in Wuhan.

Chinese authorities themselves saw Wuhan and the rest of Hubei province as a threat as they placed the region of 56 million people under strict quarantine to contain the epidemic.

But Beijing began sowing doubts in late February, when Zhong Nanshan, a respected expert affiliated with the National Health Commission, told reporters "the epidemic first appeared in China, but didn't necessarily originate in China."

Scientists, however, have long suspected that the virus jumped from an animal at the Wuhan market to a human before spreading globally.

The World Health Organization has said that while the exact path the virus took between its animal source and humans is still unclear, COVID-19 was "unknown before the outbreak began in Wuhan, China, in December 2019".

Christl Donnelly, a professor of statistical epidemiology at Imperial College London, said genetic analysis of coronavirus samples collected from around the world shows a common ancestor in China.

"This is not in any way blaming a particular country," she told AFP.

- 'Wuhan virus' -

The United States, meanwhile, has angered China by using language directly linking the virus to the country.

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has called it the "Wuhan virus", prompting Beijing to reject the term as "despicable" and "disrespecting science".

US President Donald Trump started a televised address to his nation on Wednesday by speaking about the outbreak "that started in China".

The language is "part of his dog-whistling politics," said Australian National University researcher Yun Jiang.

The WHO warns against naming infectious diseases in a way that encourages discrimination against ethnic groups.

Robert O'Brien, the US national security adviser, on Wednesday insisted that the virus originated in Wuhan.

Blaming the pandemic on a lack of cooperation from Chinese officials and a cover-up when the outbreak first emerged, O'Brien said this had "cost the world community two months to respond" to the threat.

Beijing called his remarks "extremely immoral and also irresponsible".

Jiang said that "by sowing doubts into people's mind about where the virus originated, they're trying to deflect part of the blame for the outbreak".

South Sudan's road to peace marred by 'unconscionable' violence

AFP/File / TONY KARUMBA

Hospital wards overflow with young men disfigured by machine gun fire

The cattle rustlers were asleep, resting ahead of a raid, when automatic gunfire tore through their camp. Ambushed by rival herdsmen, encircled and outgunned, they were cut down, one by one.

Koba Ngacho was lucky. Shot three times and left for dead, the young rustler was found alive in the carnage, the bullets having missed his vital organs, and airlifted to Juba for surgery.

"I'm grateful to be alive," the 20-year-old told AFP as he was wheeled to one of the few operating theatres in South Sudan equipped to deal with complicated gunshot injuries.

In February, after months of protracted negotiations, President Salva Kiir and his rival Riek Machar joined forces in government, drawing a line under a long-running conflict that left around 380,000 people dead.

South Sudan's civil war may have been declared over. But armed violence has anything but slowed in the troubled young country awash with guns, and riven by ethnic turmoil.

Hospital wards overflow with young men like Ngacho -- not soldiers, but farmers and herdsmen disfigured by machine gun fire in brutal fighting over land, cattle and revenge.

These clashes between communities have surged even as violence between Kiir and Machar's forces has eased.

Thousands of armed men from the Nuer and Murle communities have been fighting in Jonglei, an eastern state, since February, leaving towns in ashes and untold dead and injured.

UN special envoy to South Sudan, David Shearer, who toured the conflict-ravaged region this month, said bodies were lying in the open and women and children had been abducted by both sides.

- 'Unconscionable' -

"This is unconscionable," he told reporters in Juba on March 9 after visiting Pibor, where 8,000 civilians -- mainly women, children and the elderly -- have sought shelter at a UN base.

AFP/File / TONY KARUMBAThere are few operating theatres in South Sudan equipped to deal with complicated gunshot injuries


Large-scale battles between government and rebel forces ebbed considerably in the aftermath of a September 2018 ceasefire between Kiir and Machar, who is once again vice-president in a unity government with his old rival.

But in 2019, the International Committee of the Red Cross actually treated more patients for serious gunshot wounds than the previous year -- 769 compared to 658.

The fear is that 2020 could follow the same trajectory.

Since December, UN peacekeepers have been deployed to Jonglei, greater Tonj in the northwest, and Rumbek, in central South Sudan, where ethnic violence has left scores dead and wounded, and thousands more on the run.

Every bed is taken at the ICRC ward at Juba Military Hospital, where Ngacho, a Murle cattle raider from Jonglei, nervously awaits his turn.

"I don't know if these wounds will heal, or if I'll walk again," he says.

Many here endure multiple rounds of surgery to put their bullet-riddled bodies back together.

His Ethiopian surgeon, Dr Belayneh Assefa, assures he'll recover. Thirteen other patients have arrived in the past two days, all victims of a vicious cattle raid, and he is busy.

"During the dry season, we will have an influx of patients," Dr Assefa tells AFP, as a team of surgeons operate on a 26-year-old man with gaping gunshot wounds.

"He is lucky to have survived this."

- Lucky ones -

Especially so in South Sudan, where healthcare is non-existent in remote parts, and there are about 180 doctors for a population of 12 million.

Only the lucky few gunned down in remote bush conflicts get medevaced to Juba. The rest take their chances at local clinics or simply bleed out in the field.
 

AFP/File / TONY KARUMBASouth Sudan's civil war may have been declared over but armed violence has not slowed

"Natural triage has often worked, rather sadly, before patients can get to definitive care. Patients who would be described as red -- needing immediate surgery -- may well have already perished," said Dr Colin Berry, an ICRC anaesthetist.

Left unchecked, these local conflicts risk spiralling further out of control, prolonging misery in a country that has known little but war since its independence from Sudan in 2011.

The EU, among others, has urged Kiir and Machar's government to "redouble efforts" to calm tensions.

But the pair have been busy haggling over key positions in their administration. A new cabinet was announced late Thursday, but the seats of state governors remain unfilled.

"The absence of authority at the state level has caused a vacuum of power and decision-making... emboldening those involved in the recent violent intercommunal clashes," Shearer said.

A new army of their combined forces, meanwhile, is not ready to deploy and restore security to areas where lawlessness has allowed violence to flourish.

- Revenge -

The fighting in Jonglei followed bad floods in the region in late 2019 which wiped out livestock, and left cattle-rearing communities desperately short on assets.

Herders like Ngacho resorted to cattle raiding -- a generations-old phenomenon in South Sudan, but one that has turned increasingly deadly.

Spears and other traditional weapons have been replaced by easily-available automatic rifles, a poisonous legacy from decades of war.

Raids turn into wholesale massacres, spurring vicious cycles of retribution.
AFP /South Sudan


Margaret Malweyi, the Kenyan head nurse at the ICRC ward, said patients from rival clans flown to Juba were sometimes placed in separate wards so "they don't again start fighting".

Others, once recuperated, would "go back home and want revenge", she said.

"They get shot again, then they come back here (and) we treat them," Malweyi told AFP, surrounded by young men in wheelchairs and stretchers, nursing grisly wounds.

Those who pull through confront an uncertain future. Some have lost limbs, or will never walk again.

For others, the trauma leaves indelible scars.

"I don't want to go back," said Peter Majok, a softly-spoken 22-year-old, propped up in a wheelchair after being shot by cattle raiders.

"If I go home... they'll come and shoot me."

Madonna choreographer Damien Jalet lets headless dancers loose

AFP / JOEL SAGET

Franco-Belgian choreographer Damien Jalet is on a mission to reinvent perceptions of the body

The dancers gyrate and contort their bodies into sculptures made by the human body but which look distinctly other-worldly.

A choreographer favoured by superstars like Madonna, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke and Florence Welch of Florence and the Machine, Damien Jalet is on a mission to reinvent perceptions of the body and make viewers question their own human identity.

In the Franco-Belgian 43-year-old's celebrated 2013 show in the Louvre museum, "Les Meduses" (The Astonished), dancers moved around ancient sculptures in what he describes as "sculptural choreography".

But his new show "Vessel" -- a collaboration with the Japanese visual artist Kohei Nawa and nominated to the prestigious Olivier Awards for best dance production -- goes even further.

It looks to find the meeting point between solid and liquid in the human body.

The nearly nude dancers play on a stage flooded with water and a white gooey substance called katakuriko, a kind of Japanese potato flour used in cooking.

The gunk shape-shifts from liquid to solid, echoing the duality of materials in the body.

- 'Taking selfies all our lives' -

In "Vessel" -- shown this week at the Chaillot national dance theatre in Paris -- the dancers' heads are throughout tucked under their crossed arms and not visible to the spectator.

Seemingly headless bodies move eerily to the rhythm of hypnotic music, evoking anonymous creatures from another world.

The show went ahead as scheduled, but with a reduced number of spectators due to the government's guidelines on containing the coronavirus.

"Today the face is very important, we spend our lives taking selfies, defining ourselves. You can tell a lot about someone just from seeing their face," said Jalet.

AFP/File / JOEL SAGET

Damien Jalet draws inspiration from rituals and traditions around the world

"There's this idea that identity, the one that we normally read, disappears" when the dancer's face is obscured, he said.

"Other things emerge and the border between what is human, and what isn't, dissolves. I like asking the question of what it means that we define ourselves as human and at the same time there are so many things that aren't human in us," he added.

After collaborations with Florence and the Machine for the song "No Light, No Light", with filmmaker Luca Guadagnino for the horror-film "Suspiria", and with Radiohead's Thom Yorke and Paul Thomas Anderson for the Netflix short film "Anima", Jalet's cutting-edge work caught the eye of Madonna.

For the "Madame X" tour, the choreographer had the queen of pop sing her 1998 ballad "Frozen" behind a video screen of her eldest daughter Lourdes performing an interpretive dance.

"She's someone who has had enormous influence on the person I've become. 'Frozen' and the pas de deux with her daughter was a way of showing her as more vulnerable, from another angle," Jalet said.

- 'Dissolution of gender' -

Perception is everything for the man who was first a dancer before being an assistant to the legendary Belgian choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui.

"Without technology, without make-up, without costumes, only with the distortion of bodies and the way of choosing certain angles, we manage to create an elsewhere."

Gender boundaries are ripped apart in "Vessel", which Madonna herself saw in dress rehearsal on March 5.
A

FP / JOEL SAGETDamien Jalet had Madonna sing her 1998 ballad "Frozen" behind a video screen for the "Madame X" tour

Assigning a male or female identity to the dancers' folded bodies and bony rib cages is a near-on impossible task.

"The traditional pas de deux between men and women doesn't interest me at all. I like this idea of dissolution where gender is more associated with a state of mind," said Jalet.

For the artist, the journey is not only visual but also spiritual. He draws inspiration from rituals and traditions around the world.

Dancers defied gravity on an inclined platform in "Skid", performed in Paris at the Chaillot national theatre in 2017, mirroring a Japanese ritual "ombarisha" where men are attached to an inclined tree.

The artist will be back with Kohei Nawa at the Chaillot theatre in September with a new creation called "Planet".