My DanceAfrica wish list

Abdel R. Salaam, Artistic Director
of BAM's annual DanceAfrica fest,
presents Remembrance, Reconciliation, Renewal,
honoring the centennial of Nelson Mandela's birth
and the work of "freedom fighters past and present."
The season focuses on South Africa's
traditional and contemporary dance.
Below: Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre, founded in 1995,
under the leadership of artistic director Jay Pather
and resident choreographer Simphiwe Magazi

He said it himself. Several times. It's hard to choose.

Why do we have to?

Abdel R. Salaam--Chuck Davis's successor as artistic director of DanceAfrica--went to South Africa and fell in love. He auditioned several dozen dance troupes, knowing he could select only one for his festival. One. At most, two. He watched and watched. And enjoyed. And agonized.

Then he chose one (Durban's Siwela Sonke Dance Theatre). And then he combined a large number of dancers from four different companies into a supergroup, what became Ingoma KwaZulu-Natal Dance Company, made up of performers from:

Champions Dance Crew, which specializes in isipantsula, an energetic street style of movement that first emerged during the apartheid era; Kangaroo, a traditional Zulu ensemble based in Durban; the all-female Tswana Group, trained in Setswana, Pedi, Venda, and Xhosa styles; and Amatsheketshe, another all-female troupe that specializes in the traditional Zulu styles of Ushiyameni, Umkhomaas, and Umzani. -- from DanceAfrica 2018 publicity

And with thoughts of Mandela's birth centennial and mindful of continued struggles both there and here in his own homeland, Salaam began to create a way to introduce a range of South African artistry to his loving and loyal DanceAfrica audience for the 2018 season.

The head swims to think of Salaam's responsibility. And to think the next thought--which is that, since Baba Chuck gave Salaam his wholehearted blessing, telling him to make DanceAfrica his own, it might be time to do exactly that. What's the next level for this annual tradition at BAM--one which, given Brooklyn's struggles around gentrification and cultural displacement--is more significant than ever?

While Salaam is meticulous about thanking DanceAfrica supporters like Bloomberg and ConEd from the stage, I'm going to throw out a challenge to BAM and to funders to help DanceAfrica do more than entertain. It's time to make it an institution that thoroughly illuminates and educates year-round, not just for a single holiday weekend.

DanceAfrica 2018, which continues today and tomorrow, is entertaining and rousing as all get out, designed to be so, with everything from thrilling movement and acrobatics to breathtaking stage design. You can't beat it for that. Salaam inherited a jewel and, wonderfully, brings his own broad interests to it.

I can say that I saw much--and it was quite a range, stylistically, all presented with painstaking skill and openhearted verve--but I can't say much about what it all meant. I can't distinguish between the styles noted in the above description of Ingoma's component groups. I have a woefully imperfect understanding of the theatrical narrative presented in Siwela Sonke's Umsuka (choreographed by Neli Rushualang), despite what's written in the program notes' one-sentence description. And--like Salaam in his way--I want more.

I'd like Salaam to have the opportunity and the wherewithal to break DanceAfrica out of its box and build it further. Why, after four decades, is it not yet an institution that can bring companies--from traditional to hip hop and beyond--throughout the year? Why can he not open a permanent DanceAfrica building of studios at the ready to nurture African and African-diasporan dancemakers and new generations of excellent performers? Why can't young Black artists making searching, powerful work here in New York City and the states not have venues to find common ground with colleagues from the continent? Why can we not have year-round DanceAfrica residencies and retreats and networking and commissions and awards?

Why can we not have as many and as much as we want and need? And why, in particular, can't we learn--through adequate opportunities to see and document work--what we most need to know to truly give Africa's artists their due?

I want this. For myself. But also for Salaam and all the artists and audiences DanceAfrica has touched.

Dance Africa continues with 3pm matinees today and tomorrow, Memorial Day. For information on the season and related events and ticketing, click here.

BAM Gilman Opera House
Peter Jay Sharp Building
30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn
(map/directions)

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"Eclipse": Forces of Nature celebrates 35th Anniversary

Above and below:
Scenes from Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross
by Abdel R. Salaam for Forces of Nature
(photos: Erin Baiano)

For its 35th anniversary season, Forces of Nature has gone all out with Eclipse: Visions of the Crescent and the Cross, choreographed and designed by the company's visionary artistic director, Abdel R. Salaam. Presented last evening at Aaron Davis Hall, this bustling ensemble work traces a narrative of interaction and intermingling between people of Christian and Islamic faiths from the Crusades through the Civil Rights/Black Nationalist years and up to the present day. Even that other visionary, Nostradamus, makes an appearance.

That sounds like a lot, I'm sure, and it is. But Salaam balances his fertile imagination with a strict editor's eye. And any didacticism keeps its proper place--in the program notes--as two hours of dance theater simply breeze by.

Were it not for its provocative subject matter, Eclipse, in excerpts or as a whole, would be absolutely Broadway-ready. Salaam has it all--abstract, stylistic battle scenes crafted like cut crystal; idyllic, lyrical entwinement between once shy, now rapturous lovers; energetic villagers breaking out their best Celtic, Mediterranean or West African moves and much, much more. Each scene, with further development, could work as a standalone piece or a self-contained number ready to be neatly, helpfully dropped into someone else's musical. There's old-school entertainment throughout for any audience that wants it, and Salaam's opening night audience digged it the most. Eclipse is best approached with a relaxed attitude of anything goes/what's next?/bring it!

Salaam is a man for every season, every mood and every dance technique--from modern to ballet, from step dance to flamenco to hip hop--with an equally eclectic, and quite wonderful, ear for music. He meets each opportunity to create characters and tell stories with panache--for instance, turning the competition between "The Cross" (Jeffrey Freeze) and "The Crescent" (Nathan Trice) into a boxing match that, ultimately, neither wins, though, from the look of Trice's stance and form, I'd give him the clear advantage in any rematch.

A work this demanding and ambitious calls for a lot from its dancers, and Salaam is blessed with a disciplined and ardent ensemble with notable work from Trice, Petra Duskova (as a Crusader's widow) and Jason Herbert (as her Muslim suitor).

See the repeat of Eclipse tonight at 7pm. For Program B, tomorrow evening at 7pm, the company presents classic repertory--Terrestrial Wombs, Fallen Idols, B’Flowin B’Smoove, The Word Made Flesh and Lamban Plus!

Get information and tickets for Forces of Nature here.

Aaron Davis Hall
on campus of The City College of New York
between West 133 and 135 Streets, Convent Avenue, Manhattan

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Building futures: a fresh DanceAfrica for BAM

Armand Celestin (center)
takes a journey in Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures,
the 2016 season of BAM's DanceAfrica.
(photo: Richard Termine)

The extraordinary Moussa Sonko
of Senegal's Les Ballets de la Renaissance Africaine "WAAtO SiiTA"
(photo: Richard Termine)

The charming Chuck Davis has stepped out of his role as Artistic Director of DanceAfrica--that torch now passed to Forces of Nature's Abdel R. Salaam, a former, and impressive, Davis dancer. But let's just call this change a further expansion of leadership rather than a replacement. DanceAfrica, now celebrating its 39th season at BAM, functions as an engine built to generate leadership in all directions--from its mighty corps of elders to the youthful minds and talents it nourishes, instructs and inspires. It's a village, and that village includes you, too, sitting out in the seats of Gilman Opera House, clapping, cheering or tearing up as you always do.

There was quite a lot of that last evening at the opening of this year's spectacular Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures. There was Baba Chuck and the always nattily-dressed Baba Salaam to greet; generous supporters to thank; nine young Scripps scholarship winners to honor; and one lucky dance artist--DC-native Kwame Opare--to congratulate as first recipient of the new Chuck Davis Emerging Choreographer Fellowship. Opare's award will allow him to continue and deepen his relationship with the National Ballet of Ghana, creating "new work that explores West African dance technique and aesthetics on the contemporary stage."

DanceAfrica welcomed a new Artistic Director this season,
veteran choreographer Abdel R. Salaam.
Much-loved Baba Chuck Davis (below) will stay connected
to DanceAfrica's community as Artistic Director Emeritus.
(photo: Richard Termine)

Under Salaam, DanceAfrica will pursue its own imaginative expansion, newly emphasizing a unity of African tradition and African innovation. The latter is dramatically represented, this season, by Salaam's own work, A Question of Beauty, with its visual grandeur and passion for ousting demons of Black self-hatred, and Marie Agnes Gomis' Who Are We?, which situates rigorous contemporary movement and traditional Senegalese dance within an imperiled environment. Her handsome, Dakar-based Compagnie Tenane dances that piece amid a gleaming and confining field of one-gallon plastic water bottles. 

Baidy Ba and Marie Agnes Gomis
of Compagnie Tenane in Who Are We?
(photo: Richard Termine)

Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures crackles with fresh energy and--at nearly 2-1/2 hours--benefits from a lightly-applied narrative through line that connects its companies and pieces. Central to this scheme is young Armand Celestin who takes an Alice-like step through an opening in space and time. Celestin's "looking glass" is inspired by Salaam's visits to Gorée Island's Door of No Return, the portal to the ocean that carried so many enslaved Africans west to the Americas. Lagging behind your typical bustling, photo-snapping tourist group, the boy becomes fascinated by this door, passes through and encounters all manner of dancers, musicians and wise elders. In many ways, Celestin stands for all of us in the house: DanceAfrica creates space and opportunities for us to appreciate African concerns--from environmental integrity to personal integrity--and African values.

But messaging isn't all. The stagecraft of Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures--sets, lighting, costuming--has hit an all-time high for sophistication and pleasure. And we thrill to the vibrant performances of Dakar's Les Ballets de la Renaissance Africaine “WATTO SiiTA”--in particular, its leader, choreographer and charismatic chief dancer, Moussa Sonko. I don't know about young Celestin, but--damn--I definitely want to be Sonko when I grow up.

Senegal: Doors of Ancient Futures concludes on May 30 with performances today at 2pm and 7:30pm, Sunday at 3pm and Monday at 3pm. For information and tickets, click here.

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