At Harlem Stage, e-Moves celebrates contemporary dance artists of Africa and diaspora

Nubian Néné, one of the pop-up performers
for this season's e-moves festival of dance at Harlem Stage
(photo: Alain Wong)

Omari Mizrahi on the move for e-moves
at Harlem Stage
(photo: Robert Bader)

OMG! How to decide what shows to see this season? There's an abundance of worthwhile--indeed, downright exciting--dance productions around the city. I know the struggle well! So, please don't start throwing things when I urge you to get to yet another one: Monique Martin's e-Moves dance festival at Harlem Stage, running only through this weekend.

Martin's focus for this season is on Africa-based or Africa-diasporan artists exploring contemporary dance, as opposed to more-expected folkloric work from the continent. She has chosen Zimbabwe-born Nora Chipaumire, Lacina Coulibaly (Burkina Faso) and Ousmane Wiles/Omari Mizrahi (Senegal). Each evening also highlights dances by women choreographers in pop-up performances curated by Adesola Osakalumi. Viewers will see new, commissioned works as well as pieces re-imagined for the unique (and uniquely beautiful) space at Harlem Stage.

Chipaumire has reset her famous solo, Dark Swan (2007), on Shamar Watt, a man. Years ago, I saw the choreographer dance it; quite recently, I was fortunate to see Watt show it in a tiny corner of Chelsea's Rubin Museum where I sat perhaps not more than a foot away from him. Both artists are electrifying. But the visual intensity of this iteration for Harlem Stage is enhanced by the meeting of the brooding darkness of the space and the stark, handheld light trained on Watt and his white shirt. Dark Swan re-purposes a Russian ballet archetype as a symbol and expression of resistance, paying tribute to the determination of Africa's women.

Coulibaly adapted to the loss of his partner, Ibrahim Zongo--due to visa issues--for this world premiere of his duet, Sen Koro la (The Rite of Initiates). He adapted so beautifully, in fact, that when the audience was later informed that the "solo" we had watched was meant to be a duet, some of us gasped in surprise. I can't say that I saw much of Coulibaly's stated intention to promote "the humanity and culture of Africa, compelling the audience to appreciate its great diversity and immense cultural wealth," and I doubt this particular audience was in need of that sort of prompting. But we were treated to a solo of poetic sensitivity around timing (inhabiting the lush, flowing music but finding its own inquiry, thoughtfulness and response within it) and its own validity as a work of art. I do look forward to seeing Zongo some day, though--and, of course, much more of what Coulibaly has to offer.

A group of performers, billed as Les Ballet Afrik and led by Wiles (who dances as Omari Mizrahi), brought the house down with the celebratory Sila Djiguba (A Path to Hope). Here, music and moves of West Africa, AfroBeat, House and Vogue styles seamlessly and joyfully intersect. The young dancers making their unforgettable debut as a troupe alongside Wiles were Craig D Washington, Eva Moore, Milerka Rodriguez, Shireen Rahimi, Algin Ford, Yuhee Yang, Yuki Sukezane. I also enjoyed the masterful "pop-up" performance by Nubian Néné (of A Lady in the House Dance Company) in her solo, S T A N C E, another tribute to the self-determination and courage of women of the Black diaspora.

e-Moves continues tonight, Friday and Saturday with all performances at 7:30pm. For information and tickets, click here.

Harlem Stage
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Idrissa Ouedraogo, 64

Idrissa Ouedraogo, Lauded African Filmmaker, Dies at 64
by Neil Genzlinger, The New York Times, February 23, 2018

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Africa is contemporary: Tarpaga's night at Harlem Stage

Scene from Declassified Memory Fragment at Harlem Stage Gatehouse
(photos above and below: Marc Millman)

Director/choreographer Olivier Tarpaga (foreground)
performs in Declassified Memory Fragment

Only one night to see Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project at Harlem Stage Gatehouse? How is that acceptable?

If Olivier Tarpaga's Declassified Memory Fragment (2015) had a longer run, he and his all-male cast of notable dancers and musicians would be such an edifying, exhilarating treat for New York's contemporary dance fans--and everyone else. Tarpaga--whose company is based in both Burkino Faso and Philadephia--seems tired of being labeled "contemporary" as if dance made in and exported from Africa in recent years needed a special designation distinct from the folkloric, tribal work with which we, in the States, are much more familiar.

In a post-show Q&A with choreographer and filmmaker Gabri Christa, Tarpaga declared, "It's important to to know: Africa is contemporary." In other words, Get with it, New York! We're here! With Nora Chipaumire, Faustin Linyekula, Dorothée Munyaneza and the Senegalese Mother of It All, Germaine Acogny, gracing our stages and museums in recent weeks, we're getting a right schooling in this subject this season. As Christa noted, so much of this art is "based in African tradition but also free of it."

The hour-long Declassified Memory Fragment, presented in partnership between Harlem Stage and 651 Arts, has a real-world political context--intrigue and upheaval in Burkino Faso, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe--that Tarpaga began to relate during the Q&A. It's a knotty history, and I suspect I was not the only one finding it tricky to focus on and follow. But suffice to say, for now, the dance takes off from the idea that power grabs and secrecy destabilize both democracies and human relationships. Tarpaga's stagecraft does the better job of illustrating the latter--personal rifts and reconnections--through dazzling vocalization and prop work and, in particular, unusually intimate, symbolic duets. What two competitors sharing and tangling a single slim suit jacket can do and signify is amazing.

Mystery and laughable absurdity dance cheek to cheek in this work. A third dancing partner--beauty--is in the warm, twangy, bluesy music and the poetry of the work's visual graces. It's worth noting, too, that in its design and its masterful execution by dancers Ousséni Dabaré, Aziz Dermé, Jérôme Kaboré and Adonis Nébié, Declassified Memory Fragment broadens any notion of what it means to be masculine, to be African and masculine, and to dance as an African man. And it does so in a matter-of-fact way that we can't help but see, absorb and, if we will, admire.

Music: Olivier Tarpaga in collaboration with musicians Flatié Dembelé, Boubacar Djiga and Daouda Guindo

Declassified Memory Fragment has closed. For information on future events at Harlem Stage Gatehouse, click here.

Harlem Stage Gatehouse
150 Convent Avenue, Manhattan
(map/directions)

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Leila Alaoui, 33

Leila Alaoui, Photographer Wounded in Burkina Faso Siege, Dies at 33
by Dan Bilefsky, The New York Times, January 19, 2016

Souleymane Badolo's "Benon" premieres at Danspace Project

Souleymane Badolo
(photo by Peggy Jarrell Kaplan)

In a manner of speaking, Benon, the new hour-long duet from Souleymane Badolo at Danspace Project, has a foot in one world and another foot entirely elsewhere. Yes, Badolo, originally from the West African nation of Burkina Faso, flourishes at an intersection of strong cultural tradition and searching innovation. He has done so for a few decades within his own choreography as well as the work of Nora Chipaumire, Reggie Wilson and other artists. But what I'm thinking about now has nothing to do with what's age-old and what's contemporary but rather the crucial difference between what's extraordinary and what's merely ordinary.

The title of the piece alludes to the harvest celebrations of Badolo's homeland. But the piece begins not with displays of abundance and communal joy but with the ominous sight and grating sound of discarded commercial plastic. Crates crammed with empty spring water bottles occupy polar corners of the space. Scrunched-up lengths of plastic trash bags form a vest-like mesh around Badolo's bare torso, and he clutches a stack of plastic cups in his arms. Charmaine Warren wears a full, flowing hooded cape of translucent plastic with a trailing skirt made of black trash bags, a costume of surprising regal beauty. She wears it well. With Warren firmly attached to his back and following his every move, Badolo gravely treads the space, dropping or tossing cups onto the floor.

This, then, is our harvest, our plenitude. The thought arises: "You will reap what you sow." Badolo has turned the idea of harvest upside down and ventures into the realm of the prophetic, the extraordinary.

Warren's extended solo work in this duet is indeed extraordinary, her severe manner and gaze perfectly recalling Symbolist portraiture. From the placement of her feet to the raptor-like expanse and dry, decisive swirls of her arms, she brings focus and grandeur and a compelling weirdness to each movement in the space and each moment. And the returning Badolo, donning braces of blond straw that extend from his back like a body halo, seems ready to set a new, solemn phase of action and meaning in motion.

But as the work continues, the spell breaks. Once broken, there's no return. Badolo appears to move farther from his purpose and farther from the extraordinary into a regrettably ordinary plane.

Why walk up and stare into an audience member's eyes, as Badolo does, twice? Those stares should pack more power than they do here. The gesture recalls the way a ritual dancer, possessed of a god or spirit, might transmit the energy of that ethereal being to the gathered assembly. But here the jump of electricity from dancer to watcher goes missing. We don't feel it. We don't learn from it. We merely wonder, Why did he do that? What does it serve?

Overall, the presence and contributions of saxophonist Jeff Hudgins do not appear to be well defined. Why layer his bleats and honks over recordings of Burkinabé songs? Why, as the dance moves into its later passages, have him drift into the space and around the dancers? He is not dancing, nor is he adding anything to the dancing. This maneuver, in itself not especially fresh, reveals no significance unique or essential to Badolo's project.

Benon's initially tight coil loosens, and--rather than presenting a definitive ending--the end dancing becomes engulfed by darkness in a way that suggests an artist's resignation rather than choice.

Lighting: Carol Mullins
Costumes: Omotayo Wunmi Olaiya
Set design and construction: Tony Turner

Benon concludes tonight at 8pm. For program and ticket information, click here.

Danspace Project

131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue), Manhattan

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Get a sneak peek at new work by Souleymane Badolo

Souleymane Badolo
(photo by Vaughn Brown)

Bessie Award-winning dancer-choreographer Souleymane Badolo will hold an Open Studio/Work-in-Process showing of his upcoming dance work, BENON, a new piece inspired by the Burkinabé tradition of dancing to celebrate the harvest. In BENON, which roughly translates to "harvest," Badolo explores the essential nature of food, sharing, and giving thanks. This new work premieres at Danspace Project, February 13–15, 2014.

Where: Building 110: LMCC's Arts Center at Governors Island

When: Monday, November 4, (2pm–4pm)

Free and open to the public, RSVP required

Info: www.lmcc.net/calendar/event/open_studios_-_souleymane_badolo/

RSVP: http://www.tfaforms.com/303316

Souleymane “Solo” Badolo is a choreographer and dancer originating from Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. In 1993, Badolo founded the Burkina Faso-based troupe, Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dances with western contemporary dance. He has choreographed for Company Phoénix de Yaoundé (Cameroon), Cie Gabero de Niamey Company (Nigeria), and The National Ballet of Burkina Faso, among others. Souleymane developed a dance program at The Center of Dance, Music and Theatre in Rome that focused on the fusion of theatre and dance in contemporary performance and participated in a trans-African program initiative that set up creative collaborations for dancers from multiple African countries. He and Kongo Ba Téria are featured in the widely-screened documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa which documents the continent’s emergent experimental dance scene.

Body images

Looking at the World's Tattoos
by Abigail Tucker, Smithsonian.com, October 2010

Lost and found at Danspace

Hello, out there! Yes, it's me again, wearing my dance blogger hat and getting pushy with you.

Today, I'm pointing you in the direction of Danspace Project and hoping you'll get there tonight or tomorrow night for the latest offering in the Platforms 2010: i get lost series, curated by Ralph Lemon.

i get lost: An Evening of Solos presents two 30-minute works by Judith Sánchez Ruíz (And They Forgot to Love) and Souleymane Badolo (Yaado), and if you crave the chance to spend time with singular, compelling performers, you'll want to make tracks.

Also, watching Sánchez Ruíz and Badolo last night, I came away with a much clearer idea of what Judy Hussie-Taylor (Danspace's Executive Director) intends to do with her Platforms initiative. From what I've seen thus far (David Zambrano, Sánchez Ruíz and Badolo, even the recent screening of Maya Deren's raw footage of voudon dancing in Haiti), it's evident that Lemon and Hussie-Taylor want to open out the way we look at mediated dancing, dance presented in a concert space or via media. Platforms proposes a shift of the paradigm that demands and privileges well-made, finished product--every detail of it stamped and controlled and often blown up to impress funders, presenters and a dazzlement-craving market.

But there's no flashback to Judson in this. Yes, we can have glamour, glitter, the drama of real human context and humanity in its splendid diversity. But we can also, in the instance of Sánchez Ruíz and Badolo, have soloists who don't seek to dominate the space--and, as a performance venue, St. Mark's sanctuary is, oddly, both intimate and formidable--but, rather, seek to draw you into the luminous physical and mental sectors that they occupy. They experiment with ways to make us look more closely, see more and see it more sharply.

A work of art is an invitation to a conversation. A conversation can start anywhere and go anywhere--live, unscripted, responsive in the moment. I understand that more now through i get lost. Badolo's solo, Yaado, underscores these truths by starting out with the dancer standing before us, in utmost simplicity and dignity, saying "Je suis Souleymane Badolo..." If someone introduces himself to you, unless there's something wrong, you're going to step into that space he's offering, open up and respond in kind. Can we get that that's what could/should be going on when we encounter a work of art?

Both solos here remind me of that (sometimes annoying) question: Would you rather be right or happy? As I see it, neither choreographer has put forth a piece meant to be earthshaking or satisfying in that mind-fattening way that makes dance critics snap their pens and notebooks closed and declare that it has met all the right requirements for being good. i get lost--as I see it--is not about being right but about being willingly and happily engaged in sharing something interesting in conversation. There's no need to be right--to snap a statement and tuck it away.

Now, let's see if critics can get that.

The conversation continues. Click here.