For this month's blog I would like to share on my recent teaching visit to Lome, Togo, a small country in Western Africa.
Here I collaborated with the organization Sol'Afrik, directed by Kossivi Sénagbé Afiadegnigban and their training program, Woedupe, a program initiated to cultivate and offer diverse trainings for Togolese dancers. In a two-week intensive process, I was able to offer my signature modern/contemporary technique class called "Dance your Frame", the "Tools for Choreography" and "Performance in Action".
In the technique class the dancers reported the class to be a very new experience then the other offerings and training they have received locally or from visiting guests in Lome, or in Western Africa. The technical warm up was found to be thorough and specific in attention to all body parts, and the main point of reflection for the dancers was the new use of "center" for them. My technique class comes out of the training of the Erick Hawkins technique whereby all initiating movement is rooted in use of the pelvic and primarily the center. Somehow this was a revelation for the dancers, while they without a doubt have a strong use of their center in African and African Contemporary Dance this was a new experience they found deeply helpful in organizing their movement and finding integration throughout the body.
The Tools for Choreography class offered a daily new experimentation in movement creation the first week of the program, offering detailed processes to get out of their heads and habits. We explored creative ways to share weight and create lifts within a group, how we can use words or pictures to inspire a movement, and detailed use of time, dynamics, space, sensation, emotion and much more. The dancers appreciated most how the studies started out so simple but after an intricate and cumulative process that kept evolving the movement, the dancers landed in a completely new place and one that resulted in a very fresh movement creation, out of their habits. For many their favorite class was graphing time and dynamics, which they found to expand the potential and clarity of movement interpretation, the use of stream of consciousness, and finding connection to emotions and movement creation.
The lab class focus is to integrate all the technique class explorations and phrases, the dancers’ choreographic studies, and a whole lot of other ideas thrown in my me into a culminating performance. The intention in pulling all of the movement together is also so the dancers can reach towards the movements mastery, and experience a different choreographic process and work on performance skills. This class always creates more connection, team work, and excitement as we lead to final day/performance. The dances theme always emerges organically in these trainings, and is reveled over time and becomes quite clear. In this case the title emerged to be "Epurer" in French or "The Clearing" in English. A dance that presented it's self as a process, about struggle, a path, a contradiction, a challenge, a revitalization, a society, a community, helping, rescuing, collaborating, resisting, accepting, and feelings! All combined to clear, to begin again, to land in a place that would be somewhere else, and something different and something new.
We were grateful to have separate visits from the American and French Embassy's in Togo watching final rehearsals leading up to the performance on Sept. 2 at Brin du Chocolate where all events took place. My experience in working with the dancers who had varying ages and experiences and language capacities was a challenge but one that I am used to, and do my best to rise each individual up to progress their skills, self-confidence and empower them as dancers and as humans! The dancers’ experiences of all these ideas was so new, but what touched me the most was their intense hunger to learn, to understand the movement. While we worked very hard and intensely in this period our sessions were all filled with laughter, play, and connection. At our celebratory post show dinner, they recounted their appreciation of my teaching, approach and patience. I am grateful for this experience, for their warmth and openness and allowing and accepting me to challenge them.
Outside of the dance studio trainings while in Lome, I was able to experience an African dance class for myself, watching a local dance company rehearse, with a little jumping in to dance with them as well! Visits to the bustling market, beach, cafes, restaurants, live music, and daily adventures of food, rides on the moto, and more! It was an exciting, exhausting, challenging, and beautiful experience that I will hold in my heart forever. I could not be more aware of how lucky I am to travel the world and share in these unique cultural learning experiences, these two-week processes are always so rich, deep, and profound. The hardest part is departing each country knowing we will likely never meet again, while I am now used to this hardship, what makes it easier is the perspective of knowing a piece of me and lives in side them and a piece of them lives inside me. And that the legacy of these trainings will ripple into their world and hopefully impact others.