In the documentary,
African Dance: Sand,
Drum, and Shostakovich,
choreographer Zab Maboungou, says that she always has to "negotiate the
space" when she dances, implying that it is naive of us to think that
there are many places on this earth that do not carry some echoes of our
past, culture and heritage. She negotiates the space in order to give
this past a present meaning.
In the
film, Maboungou is quoted thus, "It is never just there, just like that,
for me. It is a space that is inhabited; it is a space that is alive and
I have to negotiate. I`m not just coming in to fill it up. There are
things already there."
Like the space that Maboungou
inhabits, African dance is a vast history of ‘culture’ and ‘heritage’
that all the dancers, in this documentary, attempt to account for in
their modern day expression.
Zab
Maboungou,
Compagnie Danse
Nyata-Nyata (Congo/ Canada), is a choreographer and dancer and is one of
eight dance companies featured in,
African Dance: Sand,
Drum, and Shostakovich.
The
documentary is a map of African dance not just across West and Central
Africa but also its ongoing negotiation between being a traditional and
contemporary dance. The award-winning companies in the film were presented in
Montreal, Canada, in 1999 at the Festival International de Nouvelle
Danse, and it was at this festival that producer Ken Glazebrook took the opportunity to shoot the footage for this
documentary. Alla Kovgan
would later join him in the post production work.
The modern stage and past
negotiate themselves in many forms throughout this film. Rather
appropriately, the modern stage is usually quite bare and dark with only
the dancers and their music to fill it.
Both
Maboungou and Vincent Sekwati Koko Mantsoe of
Compagnie Vincent
Mantsoe
(South
Africa) are presented as solo artists (even though Maboungou emphasizes
that her musicians are not just decorations).
Maboungou
performs, Incantation in a red light and bare set. Her body
rolls and gestures, making steady, progressive steps throughout her
space and in the music. Technically, her ability to move every inch of
her body simultaneously shows an incredible command of her own internal
space.
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photography ©
John Hogg |
A self-declared ‘shaman in
theatre’, Mantsoe
demonstrates how people, African people, can feel lost if they do not
know their own culture. Mantsoe’s performance of Mpheyane is
more dramatic than Maboungou’s, using emotionally intense
movements. His dance dramatizes his story with the beautiful lines he
creates with his body. The space negotiated in this story is that of
identity that is filled by one’s culture.
In the film, Mantsoe states, “It (Mpheyane) basically
talks about this man, it doesn’t matter what kind of man -- a man or a
woman. He or she goes to adventure and the problem comes that he didn’t
even have any idea, any knowledge of his own culture -- where he comes
from, who he was … And so, in that way, he got very confused and went
mad. In the end, he learns that it is very important to learn to know
who you are and where you come from and to have respect for other
people’s culture.”
Both performances from
Compagnie Tchétché (Ivory Coast) and
Compagnie Cie Salia
Ni Seydou
(Burkina Faso) deal with the concept of blindness – a space that is a
darkness of the mind and perception. Being aware of one’s ‘blindness’
begins the process of seeking expression. Through this awareness comes
a sense of calm and serenity.
The title
of
Compagnie Cie Salia
Ni Seydou`s
choreography, Figninto, means ‘blind’ in the Bambara language.
The dance implies that the faster we go, the less time we take for each
other, and the more disconnected we become.
“For example,” choreographer, Seydou Boro, explains in the film.
“Between two friends talking: One says, “I want you to listen to me
now.” And his friend says, “Well, I do not have time to listen to you
today, we will meet tomorrow.” The first says, “No, I want you to
listen to me today, it is today I want you to listen to me.” And you
say, “No, no, no, we can wait until tomorrow.” Well, you leave and
when you come back the next day you find out that your friend is dead.
And you, you are left alone. And at that moment, you do not know
anything anymore. And you are about to blame yourself.”
Figninto makes use of the image of sand to suggest
this return to the earth. Boro says, “When one becomes aware that
physically you will leave one day I think that life becomes calmer,
steadier.”
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Photography Wolfgang Weimer |
Compagnie Tchétché`s
dance, Dimi, deals with the same theme of blindness but in a
different manner.
"She is
blind not in the sense she has lost sight," says Béatrice Kombé Gnapa,
"but that she is innocent and she is trying to find her life and she is
trying to find her way out and in her improvisation and with her
sensibility she is trying to come up with movements."
Dimi is an intense physical dialogue between the dancers created
through bodily contact and lifts.
Compagnie Sylvain Zabli`s (Ivory Coast) performance of Heritage modernizes the
definition of the word. While Sylvain Zabli pays tribute to all his
teachers in African dance and music, Compagnie Sylvain Zabli
hopes to create a new heritage that the street kids of the Ivory Coast
can cultivate as their own and "fight against the curse of the street
kids."
An intelligent, young Sidiki Outtaro of Compagnie Sylvain
Zabli
explains “What do they usually do with streets kids in the Ivory Coast?
Street kids always have some classic path. They place street kids in
the reintegration centers. In the centres they learn small crafts. But
in life masonry, mechanics and carpentry are not the only valuable
things. There are others, and dance is one of them.”
The very look of Heritage is that of youth in its costumes
and sharpness and playful movements.
Finally, the last production, Le Coq est Mort by
Compagnie Jant-Bi,
(Senegal/Germany), is an example of how
naturally and seamlessly traditional African movements can respond to
other cultures. In the creation process of “Le Coq est Mort”, Germaine
Acogny of
Compagnie Jant-Bi
invited Suzanne Linke to create a piece
for her students for the purpose of exploring these possibilities. Linke
is a choreographer described as one who “unites in her dance both the
historic German dance tradition and the development of contemporary
German dance theatre.”
Germaine Acogny explains, “Our mission is to bring up African
dancers, to save their traditions, their roots and to introduce them to
other cultures.”
“African dance is a constant dialogue with the cosmos, with
nature. It is an anchor to the earth and a bridge to the sky. So this
is the global context of African dance, the socio-cultural and national
context. So sand is a symbol for our school that is called “School of
Sand” and its energy and African dance were discovered by Suzanne Linke.”
Like
Compagnie Cie Salia
Ni Seydou,
the dancers in
Compagnie Jant-Bi use sand as a symbol of a return to
calmness, to the earth and to the heat of Africa. Linke also
compliments African movements with the use of other cultural themes,
such as business suits, briefcases and the music of Shostakavich. Her
work and Shostakavich are supported by the exquisite dancers whose
movements are as natural and vibrant as the sand that turns underneath
them.
Germaine Acogny of
Compagnie Jant-Bi is quoted thus: “We should advance everything that our ancestors
left to us so that young people can express with gestures their feelings
of today.” Acogny believes that part of this advancement requires
contact with other cultures in order to, “develop their own vocabulary
of gestures.”
Béatrice Kombé Gnapa of
Compagnie Tchétché
is quoted thus, “We do modern dance – modern
dance is the dance of today because we are people of today and it is a
pure traditional dance of our ancestors which we give another color.”
Copyright lyw
June 2005
