| .::diary |
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circles worth joining
philadelphia based dance
troupe kulu mele in guinea
.::clare croft
+ All images copyright Gabriel Bienczycki of Zebra Visual 2009 |
 
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Sometimes you have to go to the source. In this spirit, Philadelphia-based dance company Kulu Mele traveled to Conakry, Guinea, to learn the African ballet, Mali Sadio. Kulu Mele has performed dance and music from the African Diaspora for over forty years, but Mali Sadio marks the company’s first foray into a full-length African ballet, complete with dance, drama, and drums. The extensive project required the company’s full focus as they learned a tremendous amount of new material while soaking up Guinean culture. The fullness of the experience can been seen onstage at Philadelphia’s Freedom Theatre on May 8, when the company premieres Mali Sadio, but here is an excerpt from the online diary Dance Magazine writer Clare Croft kept on the company’s blog during the residency. |
December 3: The Best Middle of the Night Parking Lot Experience Ever
We arrived at the Conakry airport last night at 3:30 a.m. after a daylong layover in Morocco. We shuffled through the airport quickly, thanks to our host and unofficial Guinean ambassador, M’Bemba, the master drummer the company begins rehearsing with tomorrow. As we walked down the ramp to the parking lot, drumming greeted us. We circled around the drummers,
happy to be done with two days of travel. The |
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| planning was done; let the dancing begin. One-by-one the Kulu Mele dancers moved to the circle’s center, floating and stamping in the cool Guinea night. |
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December 4: Rehearsals Begin
They keep patting their heads: that’s how Guinean choreographer Yamoussa Soumah tells the American dancers to go back to the beginning. Through repetition and watching Les Ballet Africains (the National Ballet of Guinea) dancer Marie Touré, Kulu Mele learned the ballet’s first dance and opening village scene this morning. The ballet begins with a clattering
of drums and cowbells; the dancers huddle on the ground, bent at the waist from thirst. Their |
agony grows as a woman enters, pregnant and also desperate for water. The woman makes her way to the home of the hippopotamus, which she adores. With the hippopotamus, the woman gives birth, returning to the village with the new baby who brings a giant rainstorm. The villagers dance in celebration, performing the Mandiani. |
December 5: The Ballet Just Keeps Coming
RIP Mr. Hippo
The hippopotamus has died for the first time. The sacred hippo at the center of the Guinean ballet the company is learning met his end in rehearsal this morning. Choreographer Yamoussa Soumah taught the final sections of the ballet: the Ghumbé dance and the final story scene where the jealous husband (Ali Wilkie) shoots the hippopotamus who has, he thinks, stolen the affection of his wife (Ama Schley). Eddie Smallwood spent part of the rehearsal learning how to lumber like a hippopotamus. Watching the acting scene, dancer Angela Watson joked that a trip to the zoo for some hippopotamus watching might be needed.
But What Will They Wear?
In the afternoon, everyone headed to the Conakry market to look for fabric for the costumes. The market offered a wide selection of colorful batik material, one of the things for which Guinea is best known. The market also offered–as M’Bemba Bangourra, our guide on the trip said—“a real African experience.” |
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The dancers, costume designers, and artistic director Dorothy Wilkie battled their way through an unrelenting wall of people to get to a fabric shop, where the haggling over price resembled the attitude toward walking required in the market: sometimes you have to work really hard to get what you want. After deciding on a variety of fabrics, a bright gold for one section and orange for another, it was back into the streets. Everyone emerged from the market unscathed, drank a Fanta soda, and headed back to M’Bemba’s home for dinner. |
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December 8: Circles Worth Joining
A woman stamps her feet at the circle’s center. Her pumping elbows send the wide sleeves of her holiday best, a bright yellow traditional African dress, into motion. As she raises her knees, the ruffles of her long skirt swirl and undulate. The fabric’s fluidity coupled with her body’s speed and precision transforms her. She is no longer a dancer, but a whirlwind of fiery energy. |
Eight other women swarm towards her. I never see them leave their seats; all I see is their quick, grounded run toward the center dancer. They surround her, tilted slightly at the waist. Bent at the elbows, the women’s arms join the central dancer’s pumping motion. All are driven by the rapid firing of the djembe drum. The dancer is the group’s center of gravity. The dance and drum are the community’s center of gravity.
We ended the day at a dundunba, the community dance of strength. All over Conakry—all over Guinea—all over Africa |
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| people come together to gain strength from the dance, the drum, and each other. In my interviews with the Kulu Mele dancers over the last few days, many expressed happiness that the Africa they have found in Conakry is not the Africa they have learned about in the U.S. Poverty is very present here; but there is also an abundance of spirit and generosity. We hear that crime is a constant threat, but no one has fallen prey. Most of all, everywhere we go people drum and dance as a group, as a community. While much may be lost in cultural translation, there is always something so beautiful about watching scores of people form a circle and dance. |
December 9: Musicians Dance and Dancers Sing
As rehearsals unfold in the center of the third-floor studio, occasionally small groups gather
in the room’s corners. Often Guinean dancer Marie Touré sits amongst the Kulu Mele dancers. All of the women lean in toward Touré, learning the traditional songs that are part of Mali Saido. Where many Western art forms consider dance and music separate |
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entities, the groups of singers led by Touré serve as a reminder that such distinctions make no sense in many forms of the African and Asian Diasporas. There is no separation between music, drama, and dance: in Africa they are one. |
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December 11: Who’s the Ambassador
Kulu Mele fully inhabited the role of cultural ambassador last night, performing at the home of U.S. Ambassador Elizabeth Raspolic. The company musicians, including founder Baba Crowder on his newly purchased balafon, played the Yankadi and Macaru rhythms of the SuSu and Temne people. Kulu Mele elicited several rounds of applause from the invite-only crowd. The company shared the program with Les Marvee, a local dance and drum ensemble
composed of artists from Les Ballet Africans and Ballet Joliba, Guinea’s two foremost dance companies.
Most of the evening’s applause was spontaneous. But Eddie Smallwood and Ali Wilkie egged the audience into clapping along as they closed Kulu Mele’s portion of the program with a comedic hip-hop showdown. Talking about the popping and locking later, Kulu Mele drummer Omar Harrison commented, “Its right that we showed them hip hop. Hip hop’s our
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culture.” Kulu Mele’s program managed to represent a broad range of American investments in dance: honoring American dance’s African roots and showcasing a bit of the choreography that unfolds every afternoon and night in clubs and on sidewalks all over the U.S. |
Clare Croft is a freelance dance writer based in Austin, Texas, where she is a regular contributor to the Austin American-Statesman and Dance Magazine. |
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