Buchi Emecheta, 72

Buchi Emecheta, Nigerian Novelist, Dies at 72
by William Grimes, The New York Times, February 10, 2017

William Onyeabor, 70

William Onyeabor, Reclusive African Electro-Funk Pioneer, Dies at 70
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, January 19, 2017

Malick Sidibé, 80

Malick Sidibé, Photographer Known for Social Reportage in Mali, Dies at 80
by William Grimes, The New York Times, April 15, 2016

Congrats in order for novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wins US National Book Critics Circle award
by Allison Flood, The Guardian, March 14, 2014

Music, banned by Islamic militants, is central to Malian culture

The Day the Music Died in Mali
by Sujatha Fernandes, The New York Times, May 19, 2013

Meet Sidiki Conde, star of "You Don't Need Feet to Dance"

Sidiki Conde shares skills and hope with kids (Photo by Alan Govenar)

On Friday, March 22, meet the director and star of

You Don't Need Feet to Dance,

a documentary by Alan Govenar (The Beat Hotel)

on the life and work of drummer-dancer Sidiki Conde.

Conde and Govenar will be in attendance
at the opening night screening

at New York's Quad Cinema.

Showtimes for the week of March 22-28: 1pm and 7:30 pm

An intimate documentary about a man who overcomes his disability one day at a time in New York City, Alan Govenar's new film reveals the extraordinary life of African immigrant Sidiki Conde.

Sidiki was born in 1961, in Guinea, West Africa. At age fourteen, polio left him almost completely paralyzed. Sent to live with his grandfather in a village deep in the forest, Sidiki learned to manage his disability, building his upper-body strength so that he could walk on his hands. When faced with the dilemma of dancing in a coming of age ceremony, he reconstructed the traditional steps by dancing on his hands instead of his feet.

In time Sidiki ran away to Conakry, Guinea’s capital city, where he and his friends organized an orchestra of artists with disabilities recruited from the city’s streets. They toured the country, striving to change the perception of the disabled. In 1987, he became a member of the renowned dance company Merveilles D'Afrique, founded by Mohamed Komoko Sano. Sidiki became a soloist and served as rehearsal master, composing and directing the company’s repertoire. He also worked as a musician and arranger with Youssou N’Dour, Salifa Keita, Baba Maal and other popular musicians.

In 1998, Conde’s music brought him to the United States, and he founded the Tokounou All-Abilities Dance and Music Ensemble. In the United States, he has continued to perform and teach, instructing people of all abilities in schools, hospitals and universities, and served as artist in residence at a Bronx public school for children with multiple disabilities.

In You Don’t Need Feet to Dance, Sidiki balances his career as a performing artist with the almost insurmountable obstacles of life in New York City, from his fifth-floor walk-up apartment in the East village, down the stairs with his hands and navigating in his wheelchair through Manhattan onto buses and into the subway. Despite the challenges, Sidiki teaches workshops for disabled kids, busks on the street, rehearses with his musical group, bicycles with his hands, and prepares for a baby naming ceremony, where he plays djembe drums, sings, and dances on his hands.

Advance ticket sales: 777-FILM #636 or at movietickets.com.

Quad Cinema
34 West 13th Street (between 5th and 6th Avenues), Manhattan
(directions)

Collage of cultures in the work of Iona Rozeal Brown

Iona Rozeal Brown: Single Works With Myriad Influences
by Randy Kennedy, The New York Times, February 22, 2013

Simply beautiful: Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal

Ballaké Sissoko and Vincent Segal

performing Thursday, February 28, 8pm

at FIAF (Florence Gould Hall)

Vincent Segal and Balleké Sissoko

“...beautiful, nurturing, sublime....music that straddles the boundaries between classical and folk, Africa and Europe” -- SoundRoots

Ballaké Sissoko, a Malian griot who plays the 21-stringed kora harp-lute, and Vincent Segal, a classically trained French cellist, team up to present a memorable evening of world chamber music for the 21st century. Sissoko has worked with Taj Mahal, Toumani Diabaté, and Italian minimalist Ludovico Einaudi; Segal’s résumé ranges from the Opéra de Lyon to Sting and Elvis Costello. The two share a powerful link to tradition, and a longing to push tradition to its limits.

Co-presented with the World Music Institute

Information and tickets

FIAF (Florence Gould Hall)
55 East 59th Street (between Park and Madison Avenues), Manhattan
(map/directions)

"Music has always brought hope in Mali"

Malian Musicians Call for Peace
by James C. McKinley Jr., The New York Times, January 21, 2013

Choreographer Abdel Salaam: a force of nature

Abdel Salaam -- Forces of Nature Dance Theatre
Paul Winter.com, December 6, 2012

Screening of Trinh T. Minh-ha's "Naked Spaces"

Light Industry presents
Naked Spaces—Living Is Round
directed by Trinh T. Minh-ha (16mm, 1985, 135 mins)

Wednesday, February 8, 7pm

"Naked Spaces surveys the integration of ritual and work, the home and the world, culture and nature, in the traditional villages of six West African countries (Senegal, Mauritania, Togo, Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin). Over the course of its two-hour-plus running time, the film effortlessly attests to the rich variety of the region's indigenous architecture. Trinh documents adobe cities and stilt-set river towns, villages nestled in the rocks and settlements splayed out across the bush, turreted straw houses and domelike huts. Each dwelling has its own blend of environmental logic and irrational splendor—simultaneously, as Trinh puts it, 'a tool, a sanctuary, and a work of art.'

Fittingly, considering her subject matter, Trinh's images are as unpretentious as home movies—exhibiting the same gorgeous overexposures, casual jump cuts, and, at times, jarring incompletion. Just as some shots refuse to take possession of their subject, Trinh's narrative declines to generalize about the Other (nor does she present her film as a unified whole). Not only is her use of sound purposefully erratic, there are times in Naked Spaces when representation decomposes into isolated details and pure sensation. More than a mosaic of impressions, however, the film is nonlinear, decentered, and deliberately unsettling.

Like Reassemblage, Naked Spaces sets out to challenge and criticize—not to mention derange—the conventions of ethnographic film."

- J. Hoberman

Admission: $7, available at door

Seating is limited. First-come, first-served. Box office opens at 6:30.

Light Industry

155 Freeman Street, Brooklyn

(map/directions)

Talking with Jones on "Fela!" and theater

The Sunday Conversation: With Bill T. Jones
by Irene Lacher, Los Angeles Times, December 11, 2011

Oumou Sangare at Celebrate Brooklyn!

Oumou Sangare at Celebrate Brooklyn!
by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, July 31, 2011

Kidjo: Daughter of Independence

Daughter of Independence
by Angélique Kidjo, On The Ground, New York Times, August 13, 2010

The Batonga Foundation

Do ya wanna funk?

Orchestre Poly-Rythmo de Cotonou Plays Funk

by Jon Pareles, The New York Times, July 12, 2010