- Title: Senegal's urban dancers immortalised in entrancing documentary film
- Date: 5th July 2019
- Summary: DAKAR, SENEGAL (RECENT - JUNE 26, 2019) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (French) LIBERIAN KRUMP DANCER BASED IN SENEGAL, PIERRE CLAVER BELLEKA 'DEXTER', SAYING: "I want to show that we can make a change, that through my dancing I can carry messages just like any influential politician, I can reveal things, change mentalities, I can earn a living, bring money in, I can create jobs an
- Embargoed: 19th July 2019 12:50
- Keywords: Krum Afro Pop Break Dancing Sabar Hi Hop Battles traditional dance Senegal
- Location: DAKAR, SENEGAL
- City: DAKAR, SENEGAL
- Country: Senegal
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment,Music
- Reuters ID: LVA006AMI4SPJ
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: 'The Call of Dance', or 'L'Appel a la Danse' in the original French, is a celebration of dance in Senegal. It is a visually arresting documentary film on the country's vibrant dance scene and the first in a series that will look at dance across the world. It zooms in on Dakar's urban dance passing through the traditional rhythms, sounds and socio-cultural moments of Senegalese life.
It is currently touring in Europe where it was shown in France, Spain and the Netherlands and is about to hit screens in Germany. It also briefly returned to Senegal for a viewing in Dakar and Ziginchor early this year.
With the exception of two set pieces choreographed by dancer and artistic director, Diane Fardoun, who grew up in Senegal, all the dance moments in the documentary are spontaneous be they hip hop battles, initiation ceremonies or traditional Senegalese wrestlers preparing for a fight on the beach.
The artist collective behind the film which took 4 years to make are Fardoun, Durosoy and the cameraman Hugo Bembi. The music was composed by Julien Villa who created a near continuous electronic track out of hours of music and street sounds from the shoots.
Durosoy, whose passion for urban dancing drove his search for the intimate portraits of dancers and musicians in the film, says the documentary is not an exhaustive repertory of all the dances in Senegal. He describes it as an encounter with the people of Senegal who presented the team with their lives, their challenges and their fight.
"We wanted to show that precise moment when human beings, dancers shift into a different world, when they can't resist entering into movement. Be it through joy, because of a party, tradition, the group, competition. So we wanted to capture those moments that call to dance, those moments when people go beyond themselves and reach an almost trance like state," Durosoy said.
'Pi' Amadou Lamine Sow, is a Senegalese Afro Pop dancer who features in the film dancing alongside one of his idols, Papa Sangone Vieira. He is amongst the younger street dancers in the documentary.
Sow came up from the streets Dakar where urban dance is constantly evolving. Afro Pop moves are usually danced to Afrobeat music but draws from hip hop, capoeira and an African martial art known as 'ndekett'.
"Afro-pop dance is about roots as well as opening. When we say talk about roots it means really delving inside traditional dance which is pure to us (Senegal), and opening up to the world, to other dance styles which are everywhere, like hip hop, capoeira, salsa, other world dances which create this patchwork, this dance collage," Sow said.
Senegal's Afro Pop was first envisioned in 2014 by Dakar's Papa Sangone Vieira who drew on the quick-paced, trance-like Sabar dances performed by women in street celebrations of weddings, baptisms and other manifestations of joy to the sound of the Sabar drum beats led by traditional 'griots' - the traditional travelling poets of West Africa.
Sow, started as a hip hop dancer in 2011. He turned to Afro Pop when he saw Vieira on television mixing Sabar with B-boying and hip hop.
"Often when you dance sabar it is not well perceived, it is seen as dance for women, parents don't accept it and at the time I was a hip hop dancer, just hip hop. One day I was watching a show on TV and I see this guy (Papa Sangone Vieira) dancing sabar, the dance seen as bad and I had the same opinion about it. I see him dance Sabar and mix it with b-boying and all and I was fascinated, at how he did it, how it was beautiful to watch and how it was well co-ordinated. That's what got to me, I was fascinated with this dance, that's why I decided to become an afro-pop dancer," he said.
Vieira, a respected mentor in the urban dancing community of Dakar, died in an accident last year before the film came out.
Another dancer in the film is Pierre Claver Belleka, known as Dexter.
Dexter, a Liberian Krumper who settled in Senegal, is a professional dancer who still competes in hip hop and street dance battles around the world.
Krump is more expressive than Afro Pop and draws less from traditional sounds. It originated in the United States in the 90s and is an acronym of Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise.
Dexter says it was born out of the American ghettos and allowed young people to stay out of gangs by expressing their frustration through intense and exaggerated dance moves to music. Krump appears in music videos including Madonna's 'Hung Up' and Missy Elliott's 'I'm Really Hot'.
Today Dexter dances in two companies including Art-Track and La Mer Noire, the first Senegalese street dance company. He has also featured in a video on recycling by the fashion chain H&M featuring singer MIA, an art video on orphan gangs in Dakar by British film maker Christopher Michael Tew and a creative performance video set to music by Dinah Washington and Max Richter by Hugo Bembi who shot 'L'Appel a la Danse'.
Dexter, who describes himself as a timid Liberian and grew up in his country of birth as well as Ivory Coast and the Central African Republic in times of conflict, says Krump allowed him to express the anger and violence that he absorbed as a child.
"I want to show that we can make a change, that through my dancing I can carry messages as high as a politician, I can reveal things, change mentalities, I can earn a living, bring money in, I can create jobs and so on. There are many things to do with dance and for me I can show African society that there are possibilities with art and I use my body as a vehicle for change," Dexter said.
Although he tours in dance shows around Europe he doesn't want to leave his adoptive country behind making regular appearances in Senegal. But he worries that dancers are not properly recognised receiving little support and are badly remunerated.
He says it's harder for dancers than artists in other creative industries like music or fashion which receive more financial support and sponsorship and are better commercialised. Both Sow and Dexter worry that talent will either wither or leave Senegal unless dancers can make a living out if.
EU-funded projects like Sunu Street, led by Khadia Toure who is also featured in the documentary, set up urban dance incubators in Dakar in 2015 and 2016 which helped a number of artists like Sow and Dexter grow to the professional level.
But Sow said they only lasted for two months over two years and are not enough to keep the momentum going. Sow wants to set up his own dance academy through the dance workshop 'A free kanam' (a combination of 'Free' in English and 'Face' in Wolof) with a regular follow up and support so that talented dancers coming up don't have to struggle as hard has he did.
"Often it feels like we work for nothing. We will work as hard as a dancer in Europe but we will be less paid, they will earn 200 euros, we will earn 40 euros, so the difference is huge and motivation dies with time. I think it's mainly that, to feel that often working for nothing plays down the job, so we lose the will to continue," said Dexter.
"I would really like to go further with the Afreekanam company, go on stage, create, which we are doing now, and try to perform everywhere. Then I would really like to create my own structure, like a dance school or work on projects like Sunu Street, academy projects, why not a dance academy because, for example my fight, what I've been through, the people who come next, I hope they don't go through that, I hope that get better conditions to improve their dancing," said Sow.
Both Dexter and Sow are professional dancers today. Sow is a member of the Senegal National Ballet as well as an Afro Pop street dancer and is choreographing a new piece through Afreekanam. He also teaches Sabar at Dakar's Blaise Senghor Cultural Centre. He wants to set up a dance academy.
For most people "it is hard to live off dance in Senegal" said Sow, "you need ambition, be strong, solid and try to find opportunities outside". But he is determined he can create the space inside Senegal to hold on to the country's vast pool of talent and passion.
'L'Appel a la Danse', a Screen Skin production, was directed by Diane Fardoun, shot by Hugo Bembi, researched by Pierre Durosoy with music composed by Julien Villa.
(Christophe Van Der Perre/Yvonne Bell) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2019. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None