Dance
Africa dances
Deirdre McMahon
his autumn Sadler's Wells Theatre has launched its first ever African dance sea- son. In October the Alvin Ailey company, one of the first all-black dance companies in America, pays a rare visit to Britain with a week in Bradford.
Compared to America, black dance in Britain is still in its infancy. Yet the very potency and richness of black American dance, which contributed to popular cul- ture (tap and jazz), modern dance (Kather- ine Dunham and Ailey) and classical ballet (Arthur Mitchell's Dance Theatre of Har- lem), raises the level of expectations in Britain.
Like South Asian dance which I re- viewed last week, African dance in Britain is going through the problems of an ethnic dance form emerging from the margin into the mainstream. It also has more fun- damental identity problems than South Asian dance. What is African dance? Is it West African? East African? Southern African? North African? How has it evolved in Britain whose black community largely comes from the Caribbean?
The two British companies appearing at Sadler's Wells attempt to provide various answers to these questions. Adzido was founded in 1984 by George Dzikunu, who has carried out research in Africa. Adzido programmes present a variety of Zulu, Ghanaian and Ugandan dances. But the very traditional emphasis of Adzido has led to criticisms that it is not relevant to black dancers working in Britain today. At the other end of the scale there is the Leeds- based Phoenix Dance Company whose recent development has been instructive.
Phoenix started out as an all-male group but has since made a radical change of
course. In a recent issue of the Independent
the company's director noted that Phoenix's image had become stereotyped in 'urban dance machismo', immersed in jazz and reggae music. The irony of this was that it conformed to the image embraced by certain arts and political organisations of black dance as a minority, ethnic art. Phoenix was canny enough to realise that this image would continue to marginalise it. The company is now recruit- ing white and Asian dancers and has commissioned works from mainstream choreographers like Michael Clarke and Aletta Collins.
At first glance Les Ballets Africains, the African Ballet of the Republic of Guinea, looks rather old-fashioned. It was founded in 1952 when Guinea was still under French rule and since Guinea has main- tained strong links with France the French influence is still quite marked. Ever since the Ballets Russes (and even before that) the French have had a great appetite for theatrical exotica. At times the picture of Africa presented by Les Ballets Africains seems to have been filtered through a French lens. The backcloth is like one of Douanier Rousseau's junglescapes. The women have a glamorous Josephine Baker-ish look. Some of the movements, for example those barrelling turns the men perform, seem to owe more to ballet than to traditional African dance.
Some ethnic scholars argue that since many African dances were intended to be danced by the whole community and not to be looked at, what we see on stage is merely a reconstruction, a theatrical arte- fact divorced from its original context. This argument is fairly irrelevant to a company like Les Ballets Africains which is not in the business of scholarly recreations. A lot of African and Asian dance simply cannot be exported in its original form. Comprom- ises have to be made when these dances are given a theatrical presentation. In many African dances the floor patterns are rather simple to European and American eyes and the constant repetition of gestures and movements can make the dancing look monotonous. Some of this is evident in the programme but the great strength of this company lies in the performers. In his
book Africa Dances, written in 1935, Geof- frey Gorer observed that West Africans
'dance with a precision, a verve, an ing- enuity that no other race can show; the smallest group has its own ballet, distinct in costume, in movement, in tempo from any other'. The dancers of Les Ballets Afri- cains have a beauty and energy which illuminate the stage. It is a superb company performance.
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