Kinani Contemporary Dance Festival took place in Maputo, Mozambique at numerous venues throughout the city.  It opened with a site specific performance in a train station and then followed to six nights of shows in large scale theatres to black box venues around the city of Maputo.  Companies came from near and far from Maputo to Madagascar and Swaziland to Japan.

During the day there were workshops and discussions as well as informational dialogues between artists, producers, managers, and designers.  The Festival was well organized and attended by locals and internationals.

I interviewed Gaby Saranouffi at the KINANI Contemporary Dance Festival in Maputo, Mozambique in November 2011.  Gaby’s new solo “MOI” speaks on women, sexuality, strength, abuse, aggression, and beauty.  Her embodied narrative moves in and around a small set of lights- reframing and framing her  female body, within the Malagasy cultural context.  In this interview she articulates the process of creating this solo and the societal narratives that she draws upon from both a personal and a political place.

Saranouffi is also the founder of I’ Trotra Contemporary Dance Festival in Madagascar.  This festival brings together dancers from all over Madagascar and internationally for workshops dance as well as performances.  See http://itrotra.alter-forum.net/

This blog features Women Choreographers THAT ROCK: Juliette Omollo (Kenya), Mamela Nyamza (South Africa), Nelisiwe Xaba (South Africa), Fatou Cisse (Senegal), Nadia Beugre (Ivory Coast), Kettly Noel (Mali/Haiti), Julie Iarisoa (Madagascar).

These interviews are primarily shot during the Danse L’Afrique Danse in Bamako, Mali 2010. Kettly Noel was the festival director and hosted numerous companies from all over the African continent and invited guests from all over the globe. She also performed a work she had created previously and you can see excerpts of this duet along with her comments in a short interview on women in this video. Nelisiwe Xaba is a phenomenal choreographer/performance artist. I like to call her a visual artist because she takes such care of her costumes and props and space. She speaks on women and dance and the struggles around this and her choreographic work speaks on immigration, race, slavery, exoticism, the gaze of the African as exotic/primitive. Her work is crafted clearly and look for an upcoming video where I interview her about her work in depth. Also Nelisiwe and Kettly have a duet that will be touring the USA next year so look for that. Nadia Beugre performed at the opening of the festival a new solo she has crafted and her entrance through the audience as she crawled over us singing took us by surprise and made us laugh. Her strength and agility and presence are powerful in her solo along with the costume of plastic bottles she wears. This interview speaks on some of her themes in this solo. Mamela Nyamza performed at the Festival in Mali and also spoke on the panel while at the Festival. I captured a few moments of her dialogue and her solo with pointe shoes, red laundry being hung, and rhythmic spinal undulations in distress. Julie Iarasoa I spoke with following her winning a cash prize for her work from PUMA Creative. She presented a work with all male dancers from Madagascar who drew from hip hop and contemporary movements sporting white wigs and dresses.

I spoke with Juliette Omollo in Nairobi Kenya as she organized the Dance Forum Nairobi with her colleagues at the Go Down Center. This small festival featured the work of Kenyan based choreographers and International choreographers, as well as training programs for young Kenyan dancers. I caught up with Fatou Cisse in Senegal where she had just returned with touring with Compagnie 1ere Temps and organizing Atelier Aex Corps training workshop for dancers based in and around Senegal.

All these women inspire. They are amazing choreographers, teachers, directors, and leaders in their communities and internationally.

(Special Thanks to Kristen Jeppsen-Groves for her editing supremeness)

Submitted by Esther Baker-Tarpaga

Choreographer and dancer, Hind Benali, discusses women’s issues and dance in Morocco. This clip is a section of a larger trace that highlights females choreographers from countries throughout Africa. This interview took place during the Action Danse Festival (November-December 2010).

Hind Benali, Choreographer, Director of l’Association Fleur d’Orange, and Action Danse Festival director discusses Action Danse 2010, held in Meknes, Casablanca, and Rabat, Morocco. In the video there are features of the work of Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project, Sashar Zarif Dance Theatre, Momar Ndiaye & Bamba Diagne, Cie Metiss’age, and A’kadda. In addition there is footage from the student workshops in Meknes and Casablanca.

Excerpts from Danse l’Afrique danse! festival held in Bamako, Mali 2010. Featured in this video are excerpts from works by Gregory Maqoma, Kubilai Khan Investigations, Radhouane El Meddeb, and Seydou Boro.

Mozambique based Choreographer Horacio Macuacua speaks on “Orobroy, stop!” while in Bamako, Mali for Danse l’Afrique Danse 2010. Horacio is one of the winners of “Danse l’Afrique danse” competition and is currently on tour with this piece throughout numerous African countries. I am a big fan of his work and I look forward to seeing more of his poignant choreography in the future. This year I met numerous phenomenal dancers and choreographers from Mozambique so I hope to check out their festival later next year.

Nigerian-based choreographer, teacher, and performer Adedeyo Liadi speaks and performs in Nairobi, Kenya as part of the Festival for Solos and Duets organized by Dance Forum-Nairobi.

Opiyo Okach- Director of Gaara Dance Projects speaks on his new research and choreography: Territories in Transgression. This video highlights his reflections on the development of this project and dance images from his new work “Border Border Express.”

Interview and dance footage with Kenyan choreographer Opiyo Okach, Artistic Director of Gaara Dance Projects. Opiyo Okach reflects on his project Shift Centre and contemporary dance.

Our meetings with Opiyo took place at the Go Down Arts Center in Nairobi, Kenya where he was an artist in residence for many years. We could see his influence with the next generation of choreographers who were organizing a festival of Solos and Duets at the time we were there; footage excerpts from Dance Forum-Nairobi Festival of Solos and Duets 2010.

Opiyo Okach also influenced the creation of this blog. The impetus for this blog project is from my ten years experience as a cross-cultural choreographer in Africa and North America and the work of African-based choreographers such as Opiyo Okach, who in 2006 said, “The danger that recurs today is that the 
centre should be situated in one place; a place that holds monopoly of truth, a place that proscribes right or wrong, a place that determines good from bad…
Shift…centre… is not just a statement on the aesthetics of space, it is also about political and social reality.”- Okach, Gaara Dance, Kenya.

Interview with Fernando Anuagn’a solo “Journey to the Future” presented at Danse l’Afrique danse! 2010. His interview is part of BT Dance Project’s Shifting Centers: Dance and Technology in and outside of Africa which highlights current contemporary African dance work throughout various countries in Africa.