At MANCC, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar and Germaine Acogny, Artistic Directors of Urban Bush Women and Compagnie JANT-BI, respectively, worked on their evening-length dance work tentatively titled Scales of Memory. The new work will be performed by the entirety of both companies - 14 dancers - one comprised solely of women and the other an all-male ensemble. Zollar and Acogny are interested in representing the beauty and vastness of nature, exploring the complexities of love, as well as highlighting the visceral link between African-Americans and West Africans. During their MANCC residency, Jawole and Germaine honed in on three key words due to their research: memory, love and resistance. True to both choreographers' methodologies, the piece will also take the gender difference into account and delve into the chasms and similarities between the movement of dancers living in a Muslim country and one comprised mostly of Christians, of dancers who study both concert and vernacular dance forms. As both Zollar and Acogny work in a dialogic manner with the dancers, wherein specific personal and historical experiences are included in the work, the aformentioned factors are bound to be evident themes.
The collaboration was conceived as four phases of creative labs exploring the cultural landscape of Africa and the deep South as a way to examine shared African and African American experiences. The first phase occurred in December 2005 in Toubab Dialaw, Senegal, the second phase this past June here in Tallahassee at Florida State University through MANCC. The third will bring the collaborators back to Senegal in December 2007, and then back to Tallahassee in January 2008to finish the work before its premiere. Scales of Memory tours nationally throughout 2008, including performances at the prestigious "Next Wave Festival" at the Brooklyn Academy of the Arts and the Kennedy Center.
Zollar and Acogny, who began thinking about the idea of collaborating partly due to the feeling of syncronicity in their individual working processes, continued deepening the work and discovering creative nuances between each other and their company members here at MANCC.
Through visits to African American museums in Tallahassee and Jacksonville, nineteenth century plantations where slaves worked and lived, a “hanging” tree and a traditional African American church, as well as panel discussions by African American history scholars, Jawole and Germaine generated movement in reaction and honed the subject of the new work: love, resistance and memory.
Due to their research and further creative exploration in Tallahassee, a transition of the work’s title was made from The Beauty of Little Things to Scales of Memory.
COMMUNITY OUTCOMES
As devout leaders in their own communities, Zollar and Acogny were no different in Tallahassee; there was thorough involvement of our Tallahassee, FSU and FAMU communities for engagement and research purposes throughout the residency. Residents and students watched an improvisation by the UBW and JANT-BI dancers then followed it by participating in dialogue with the companies. JANT-BI also taught a traditional Senegalese dance class which was accompained by local Tallahassee drummers. Lastly audiences learned about emergent and diverse African choreographers through watching the film “Movement (R)evolution (www.movementrevolutionafrica.com) which was followed by a work-in-progress showing of UBW and JANT-BI’s choreographic research.
FSU faculty and staff also had the opportunity to watch a photo shoot, captured in the Department of Dance’s “Nancy Smith Fichter Dance Theatre” shot by professional photographer and project collaborator, Antoine Tempe.
Professors and researchers of African and African American studies from FSU, FAMU, John G. Riley House & Museum and the Tallahassee African Sister Coalition, participated in a panel discussion with UBW and JANT-BI at the Goodwood Museum and Gardens, adding significant research to Zollar and Acogny’s palette and connecting fellow researchers to each other. Impressive to this event and all others throughout the residency was the consistent translation from English to French or vice versa by Catherine Denecy (a UBW dancer) for the French or Woloff-speaking dancers.
BIOGRAPHIES
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Artistic Director of UBW
Germaine Acogny, Artistic Director of JANT-BI
Jawole Willa Jo Zollar (Artistic Director of UBW)
Born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar trained with Joseph Stevenson, a student of the legendary Katherine Dunham. Zollar holds a BA in dance from the University of Missouri at Kansas City and an MFA in dance from Florida State University.
In 1980, she moved to New York City to study with Dianne McIntyre at Sounds in Motion. She founded Urban Bush Women in 1984. In addition to repertory for UBW, Zollar has created works for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, Ballet Arizona, Philadanco, University of Maryland, University of Florida, Dayton Contemporary Dance Company and others.
She has been a guest teacher and speaker at Mankato State University (1993-94), UCLA (1995-96), Ohio State University (1996), and the Abramowitz Memorial Lecturer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (1998). She was named Alumna of the Year by the University of Missouri (1993) and Florida State University (1997).
Zollar is the Nancy Smith Fichter tenured professor in the Dance Department of Florida State University. She was prominently featured in the PBS Documentary “Free to Dance”, which chronicles the African American influence on modern dance. In June 2002, Zollar was awarded an honorary doctorate from Columbia College in Chicago. Most recently, she was awarded a 2006 New York Dance and Performance Award, A BESSIE, for her work as choreographer/creator of "Walking With Pearl . . . Southern Diaries," a dance inspired by African American choreographer, educator and social activist, Pearl Primus.
Germaine Acogny (Artistic Director of JANT-BI)
She was born in Benin, grew up in Senegal, and is widely considered the mother of contemporary African dance. In 1968, she began experimenting in her small studio in Dakar with new movements, based on traditional dances from West Africa . Inspired by western contemporary dance, she has created her own unique technique.
As the director of Mudra Afrique in Dakar (1977 - 1982), a school for the Performing Arts created by Maurice Béjart and the Senegalese President Senghor, she began to teach and perform across all 5 continents, becoming a formidable Ambassador of African dance and culture. In 1995 she returned to Senegal . Together with her German husband Helmut Vogt, she has built up an International Centre for Traditional and Contemporary African dances in Toubab Dialaw, a small fishing village south of Dakar . The “Ecole des Sables” is a meeting point for dancers coming from Africa and all over the world, and a place of education that guides them towards a contemporary African dance, without losing their roots. Between 1997 and 2001, Germaine Acogny was the artistic director of the Contemporary African Dance Competition and Choreographic Meeting in conjunction with AFAA/Afrique en Créations in Paris .
Germaine Acogny continues to dance herself. Her latest solo “Tchourai” is currently touring successfully. Kota Yamazaki is a first-rate dancer and choreographer of contemporary dance in Japan . Kota started learning Butoh in Tokyo with the great master Akira Kasai in 1977. He also studied ballet and contemporary dance and quickly developed his own style of dancing. A critic once said “Yamazaki himself is a style”. He worked with Daniel Larrieu in France and was finalist at the choreographic competition in Bagnolet in France in 1994. His first company Rosy Co, toured in Asia, Europe and United States . Yamazaki constantly strives to go beyond the limits and notable features of his dancing are the speed, the precision, and the power of movement. In 2002, he founded a new company “Kota Yamazaki¹s Fluid HugHug Co”, creating pieces like Meronna , Fish for Ellen and Night on the grass .
COLLABORATORS
Naoko Nagata, costumer
Antoine Tempe, photographer
UBW Company Members
Nora Chipaumire, dancer
Bennalldra Williams, dancer
Marjani Forte, dancer
Christine King, tour manager
Love Muwwakkil, dancer
Lela Jones, dancer
Paloma McGregor, dancer
Catherine Denecy, dancer
JANT-BI Company Members
Babacar Ba, dancer
Cire Beye, dancer
Mohamed Abdoulaye Kane, dancer
Ousmane Ndiaye, dancer
Tchebe Bertrand Saky, dancer
Assane Abib Sow, dancer
Pape Ibrahima Ndiaye Kaolack, dancer
