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Flash
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Letter from Burgundy, 2-15: Out of Africa, not
out of the 'African Dance' Ghetto
Bienvenue to the Francophone Scene
By Marisa C. Hayes
Copyright 2008 Marisa C. Hayes
LE CREUSOT (Saone et Loire), France -- As part of
its second annual Francophone series, L'ARC Scene
Nationale presented a contemporary West African
choreographers platform January 19. Well, sort
of....
The event was billed as "a day dedicated to the
vitality of African choreographers." So imagine
my surprise when the curtain opened to reveal
Xavier Lot's "Welcome to Bienvenue." Lot is an
established French choreographer with no real
visible ties to West Africa unless, like most of
his countrymen, he has visited the former French
colonies on vacation. While he did conceive the
piece as a solo for a dancer from Burkina Faso,
its inclusion in the program was confusing.
With so few opportunities to see examples of
contemporary West African choreography, and only
three slots on the entire program, surely an
additional choreographer from the 17 countries
that make up West Africa was available.
According to Joan D. Frosch, director of the new
dance documentary, "Movement (R)evolution
Africa," the African continent as a whole (with
particular emphasis on its Western regions) is
home to an active contemporary dance scene,
struggling but vibrant. If the dynamic
pre-performance discussion is any indication,
there are a lot of up-and-coming West African
choreographers whose work sounds varied and
intriguing, making it all the more regrettable
that audiences didn't get a better chance to
sample them on this program.
Notwithstanding its questionable presence at an African choreography
platform, "Welcome to Bienvenue" is 40 minutes of
quality dance. It begins with small lamps that
descend from the ceiling, hung on loose cords in
neat rows of five. Dancer Bienvenue Bazie enters
and completes various actions with the lights:
sometimes illuminating them, sometimes swinging
their cords so that the lamps themselves dance of
their own accord. Bazie's tall, muscular frame
first works its way through a long series of
intricate floor postures before undergoing a set
of contemplative standing sequences. With his
back painted in white numbers and letters
representing his French visa application -- a
difficult process that took six months to
complete in real life -- he finishes the dance by
slowly rubbing against the floor, undulating and
articulating his shoulders and back until the
paint eventually wears off and is spread across
the black stage in large smears. This is the
most memorable section of "Welcome to Bienvenue,"
and not as contrived as it sounds. The
sequence in question is without climax, and as a
result, avoids becoming excessive. Instead, the
piece sustains an ambient pulse. It's never
really clear when the paint has been removed or
if it's ever completely wiped away. Certain
aspects of the performance could easily lead to a
literal discussion of immigration policies and
ethnic identity in France (certainly hot topics
in the country today), but more than that,
"Welcome to Bienvenue" retains an abstract sense
of journey, as if the audience were privy to a
personal tour of the dancer's interior landscape.
"Impro-Vise 2" followed suit, choreographed and
performed by Andreya Ouamba (Republic of the
Congo) and Fatou Cisse (Senegal). Inspired by
their experience with street children in Dakar,
the Senegalese capitol where both young dancers
are based, the pair used themes of displacement,
sense of space and physical violence as starting
points to develop an improvisational practice
that evolved into the structured and abstract
work performed here. The only clear references
to street children are the opening music sung by
Richard Bona -- afterwards
silence and ambient soundscapes accompany the
choreography -- and a sculpted pile of discarded
newspapers from which the dancers initially
emerge that remains softly lit in the corner.
Ouamba and Cisse possess a strong knowledge of
how to use the stage as a vast territory. In
"Impro-Vise 2" the dancers work with a variety of
impressive directional changes and spatial
configurations, while exploring underused areas
of the traditional stage such as the extreme rear
proscenium and places where their bodies remain
partially concealed in the wings. Using a
handful of movement influences, from a startling
Butoh-like moment that leaves Ouamba hovering
center stage, to a more athletic physicality, the
two dancers are decidedly contemporary, without a
trace of the folkloric ritual that so often defines
the way we envision African dance. Ouamba even
laughingly admitted during the pre-performance
discussion that his earliest dance training came
from watching Michael Jackson. He relayed how
most children and teenagers in West Africa today
aren't interested in traditional dance and music,
creating a strong generational divide in the
population. This simple observation is
important, not in order to discourage
preservation of folkloric traditions in Africa,
but because the household stereotype of African
artists as "ancient guardians of tradition"
undermines the work that choreographers like
Ouamba and Cisse are doing today to share their
lives in a contemporary context.
The rift in age and attitude became readily
apparent during the third and final performance
of the night, "Le Sacre du Tempo." Mid-career
choreographer Irene Tassembedo is a native of
Burkina Faso, but currently works in Paris while
retaining strong ties with her native country and
working frequently in neighboring West African
regions. She was recently introduced to American
audiences through her work with the Dayton
Contemporary Dance Company. Tassembedo developed
"Le Sacre du Tempo" in relation to attitudes
about mental balance and instability after the
subsequent deaths of her mother and brother
within a short time period. She relies heavily
on traditional Burkinabe motifs -- both visual and choreographic --
to examine the rituals of trance as a source
for finding one's equilibrium. In a recent
interview with "Journal de L'ARC," she cited
tradition as the essence of her identity and as
her constant source of inspiration. Live
drumming and polycentric movements with intensive
use of the shoulders and upper back characterize
the prominent features of West African folk
dance, and Tassembedo doesn't depart much from
these traits except to use the floor from time to
time. Her contemporary approach lies not in the
movement itself, but in its application to modern
situations that fall outside the traditional
purpose of long established ceremonies.
Tassembedo also employs a multi-cultural cast of
dancers, emphasizing that her work is not simply
"African." Unfortunately, in this performance,
her global endeavor took on the mishmash
qualities of a world fusion CD. Sangeeta
Isvaran, a classically trained Indian dancer, was
clad in the vibrant silk garments and ankle bells
of the Bharatanatyam dance style. Her skill was
readily apparent, but her relevance to the show
was entirely unclear. For over an hour, the cast
of seven (including Isvaran, five African dancers
and one Franco-Italian) rotated, appearing in
pairs, short solos, or as an ensemble, recycling
their respective movement vocabularies at length.
Aside from an opening scene during which the
dancers approached a small ritual table, there
was little structure to "Le Sacre du Tempo." Its
physically rigorous choreography, however, was
admirably performed by an able cast of dancers.
Judging by the increasingly strong African
presence at important venues in France
like the Montpellier Dance Festival,
there are numerous other West African
choreographers of the same caliber as Andreya
Ouamba and Fatou Cisse. Next time, I hope to see
them presented for their own artistic merits and
not just as part of an African diaspora event.
We do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the
contemporary voices of a vast and ethnically
diverse continent (yes, remember Africa IS a
continent NOT a country) of which we have far too
little exposure outside media coverage of an
ill-fated humanity torn apart by poverty and
political instability (now more than ever with recent crises
in Chad and Kenya added to that of Darfur).
Choreographers like
Ouamba, Cisse, and even Tassembedo refute any assigned third
world identity, claiming their rightful place on
stage as contemporary artists.
Marisa C. Hayes narrowly missed being dismissed
from her first ballet class at the age of six
when she announced, "I can jump like
Baryshnikov!," ran to the center of the studio
and attempted to execute her best grand jeté.
Marisa has since avoided further
catastrophic events in the studio and even
managed to obtain a degree in contemporary dance
and video/film studies from Goddard College
(Vermont) and Virginia Commonwealth University.
She also studied Butoh in Japan with Kazuo and Yoshito
Ohno. Marisa primarily creates dance for the
screen. Two of her video-dance films were
recently selected for Japan's
International Dance Film Festival and the Moscow
Video Festival. This year she received grants
and awards from Arts Link New York, the New York
Theatre Communications Group and the Ella Lyman Cabot Trust.
Marisa also teaches improvisational dance to adults with
disabilities. She is currently completing a
screen-dance installation for the National
Theatre in Burgundy, France where she lives and
co-creates with her husband and a small army of
rescue cats.
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