Response to Blog Comments 2

Thanks for the feedback, Kiera. I agree that it would be interesting to really delve into the affinity connections that students might have for Mande dance and the nature of those affinity connections. I am going to try to set up a few fairly informal interviews with members of my Mande family in the next coming weeks to get a perspective on the class other than my own. I'm also really trying to delve deeper into the issues surrounding transmitting/portraying a culture through a formal class. It definitely feels like we're learning about a mixture of Brown, Mande, and American culture just because of the format of the class, the way students react to it, etc etc. Thanks for the helpful suggestions!

Critical Review - "Where's 'One'?": Musical Encounters of the Ensemble Kind by Gage Averill

Gage Averill's essay focuses on the epistemology of world music ensembles and their pedagogical value. The world music ensemble, as it was first started by Mantle Hood, was supposed to teach students a "mastery of the musical idiom akin to a second language." (p.96). This moved ethnomusicology's focus on comparative studies toward more in-depth explorations of single musical cultures, and toward ultimately teaching students to become "bimusical". However, over the years there has been a shift away from seeing the world music ensemble as a place to learn a second musical language to a place where an "authentic" culture is reproduced.

Averill criticizes this "meticulously imitative nature of most world music ensembles" and questions whether merely reproducing another musical culture (in most cases, just one aspect of it) is an "adequate rationale for ensemble praxis" (p.100). He dubs this "musical transvetism" and "ethno-drag" to "caricature the "transcendentally homeless" Westerner who finds a spiritual home and belongingness--even a new personality--in a musical tradition not his or her own." (p.100). As an alternative to mimesis (since seeing the world through the eyes of the culture is not enough, he argues), Gage proposes a "dialogical approach to intercultural studies" that "privileges the space of the encounter rather than the mastery of codes." (p.101). This would allow students to gain an understanding of both cultural difference and commonality by engaging in "dialogue and collision with musical and cultural codes other than their "first-language" codes." (p.101).

Gage also criticizes ethnomusicology ensembles for taking themselves too seriously. "Did promoting the notion of aesthetic density and complexity of world music traditions require that they be staged with Vatican-like solemnity" and with "all of the stale conventions of Western European decontextualized, entertainment-oriented, concert music"? he asks (p.102). When Gage started his Trinidadian steelband, he wanted it to be "fun and celebratory, respectful towards its source culture, provocative and productive of intercultural dialogue but not derivative."(p.103). Having fun, both for the performers and the audience (if such distinctions must be made) is a very important component of any world music ensemble--otherwise, "we may be in danger of erecting our own performative museums for the display of quaint, timeless, well-preserved, and exotic sounds for passive and complacent consumption" he writes (p.108).

Since "for audiences largely unschooled in the genres being performed, the student ensemble becomes a principle vehicles for transmission of cultural diversity" (p.100), ethnomusicologists must accept their role as agents of musical globalization and strive for something beyond just representation and imitation with their world music ensembles. Even with all of his criticism, Averill still believes that world music ensembles are an important part of ethnomusicology. He concludes:

"My solution--which is temporary and partial at best--is to replace mimesis with a self-conscious distantiation; to involve student ensembles in the discourse about cultural representation; to use our rehearsals and performances as platforms for raising questions; to reimagine our musical performances as spaces of dialogic encounter; to problematize the very nature and existence of these ensembles; and to use ensembles to provoke, disrupt, and challenge complacency. [. . .] It should not require, I hasten to add, that we make playing music any less fun or less thrilling." (p.109)

Averill, Gage. "Where's 'One'?": Musical Encounters of the Ensemble Kind. Performing Ethnomusicology : Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles. Ewing, NJ, USA: University of California Press, 2004.

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/brown/Doc?id=10068592&ppg=26

Critical Review - Subject, Object, and the Ethnomusicology Ensemble by Ricardo Trimillos

In his essay about "The Ethnomusicological "We" and Them"', Ricardo Trimillos writes about his experiences teaching world music ensembles and about the world music ensemble's role in American universities. He tries to dig deeper into issues such as the purpose of the world music ensemble and urges that universities be thoughtful when considering incorporating one into their curriculum. Proposing a variety of thought-provoking ideas, Trimillos writes: "The question "is the ensemble a good thing?" has been asked and answered in the affirmative. In my opinion, this question needs to be replaced by a more pressing query for the twenty-first century: what is the ensemble good for?" (p. 47) Though there are a variety of different reasons/rationales for these ensembles, including "concerns of multiculturalism, alternative modes of knowledge acquisition, cultural and ethnic advocacy, aesthetic and artistic pluralism, and community outreach, to name a few" (p.25), Trimillos admits that he feels that " a principal pedagogical value is the presentation and valorization of alternative systems and approaches to creativity." (p.47). One of the main benefits of this, he argues, is that "the availability of culturally identified alternatives in the institution gives students choice and agency" in a university system that continues to "foreground the hegemonic" (p.48).

There are different ways that world music ensembles can be taught and run, and this can greatly affect the ensemble's outcome, for both student, teacher, and community. World music ensembles, Trimillos writes, originated as "study groups" with the explicit purpose of understanding the music of another culture, or in other words, "accessing the musical other" (Trimillos defends his constant use of "We", "Them", and "the Other" by arguing that "multiple personalities are unavoidable in the cross-cultural work we do.") (p.24, 27). In recent times, however, with more and more universities trying to do community outreach to improve their public image, performance has become an increasingly common function of these "study groups". While the original study groups "emphasized understanding rather than presentation in intent", many study groups today (or world music ensembles, as they are now more commonly called in the U.S.) focus on preparing students for performance, even when they have only been studying the tradition for a semester or two (p. 24). This sort of "Beginner's Concert", as Trimillos calls it, can generate mixed signals for both the student and the general public:

"On the one hand it suggests that the Other is simple. On the other it suggests that the nature of the American student or the Western academy enables a faster learning curve. Both raise uncomfortable images of musical ethnocentrism: notions of superiority, domestication of a foreign Other, or both." (p.44)

Also, performance often pressures teachers of world music ensembles to focus on the aesthetic value of a culture's music rather than its religious, political, or social values. In doing so, Trimillos writes, "We may be subjecting ourselves to (or perhaps be guilty of) an institutional "descriptive chauvinism" (Nussbaum 199: 118) in which we read another culture's music using the paradigm of our own culture, that is, the primary raison d'etre of music in the Western academy is aesthetic rather than religious, political, or economic." (p. 48) On the other hand, given Trimillos's belief that world music ensembles' function largely as alternative modes of knowledge acquisition and approaches to creativity, "Must the student be delivered to a culturally authentic aesthetic experience, or is a spontaneous, unmonitored affective experience equally valid?" (p.48).

Trimillos also notes the important role that the instructor plays in shaping a student's experience in a world music ensemble, not only in the instructor's teaching style but in his/her identity and appearance as well. He defines and describes the three major categories of world music ensemble instructor at American universities: the culture-bearer or indigenous artist, the ethnomusicologist, and the foreign practitioner.

The culture-bearer or indigenous artist as the study group teacher is often attributed with immediate authenticity regardless of his or her actual knowledge--as a cultural insider, he/she is expected to "culturally know". Even if he/she specialized in one particular instrument, "when he comes to the American university to teach, however, he becomes a resource for an entire tradition" (p.38). He is expected to "teach all aspects of the tradition, as well as serve as an icon for the totalized culture." (p.39).

The culture bearer's native appearance also lends credibility to his knowledge, and perceived authenticity to his performances. The non-native who looks native can also gain this sort of credibility, as Trimillos himself did as a Filipino often mistakenly identified as Japanese when he performed the Japanese koto.

The ethnomusicologist as world music ensemble instructor must earn his authority through field work and academic degrees. Trimillos writes:

"Because he cannot embody the cultural credibility of the native teacher, he must establish his credibility in other ways. One strategy is to emphasize older repertory and recognized aspects of "tradition", a problematic notion. Innovation and the performance of newer compositions tend to be secondary. In this strategy, the teacher presents what he has learned rather than extends the repertory through composing or expanding the musical style through innovation, both of which are options for the native teacher." (p. 43)

It is also more difficult for the non-native instructor to "perform" the culture for the students in the way that a native instructor might, as this most often requires conscious code-switching, which is difficult to do without appearing "exploitative, condescending, or colonial." (p. 42). The non-native who attempts to perform another's culture also "confronts issues of entitlement and reception, as well as suspicions of "going native" or "playing ethnic"' (p.41). Because of this, Trimillos argues that "the most effective means for the outsider to bring understanding of these broader cultural aspects to the student is through discussion, taking advantage of the reflexivity of the academy." (p.42).

Trimillos also admits emphasizing tradition and cultural practices that have been replaced in modern times in order to give students a more alternative, different experience:

"In retrospect I realize that my construction of Japanese traditionalism was selective and biased toward Otherness, that is, that which was different from the students' normal experience. For example, the class was conducted in seiza, with the students kneeling on the floor, even though in Japan today koto lessons frequently occur with the students seated in chairs and the instruments raised on stands." (p. 34)

Even though focusing on tradition can aid in forging a more unique, alternative classroom experience, there have been many critiques of doing so. Trimillos cites Brian Singleton, who "critiques this predisposition [towards tradition], claiming that "tradition . . . is a powerful ruling weapon on which colonialism depends, on which the post-colonial world feeds, but which is ultimately a fabrication, and which blocks the formation and emergence of new narratives." (1997: 95). " (p. 43) He also cites the philosopher Martha Nussbaum, who presents five rules that characterize "good teaching of non-Western cultures" (p.49). These include the fact that "real cultures" are plural, not single, that they have "varied domains of thought and activity", and that they have a present as well as a past. As Trimillos admits, however, these rules (which seem pretty reasonable to me) are often ignored. The question remains: is this a "deliberate strategy or an instance of benign neglect?" (p.49).

Despite the conflicting messages that world music ensembles/study groups often send, Trimillos doesn't rescind his belief that ultimately, they are useful cultural learning tools in the academic setting. For one, he concludes, "The study group distills a culture's notion of how to be in the world, through defining representations within a particular "order of things"'. At the same time, "It represents a place in society where assumptions are questioned and critiqued." (p.48).


Trimillos, Ricardo. Subject, Object, and the Enthomusicology Ensemble: The Ethnomusicological "We" and "Them". Performing Ethnomusicology : Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles. Ewing, NJ, USA: University of California Press, 2004. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/brown/Doc?id=10068592&ppg=26

Critical Review - The Invention of "African Rhythm" by Kofi Agawu

In this article, Kofi Agawu argues that the notion of "African rhythm" is "an invention, a construction, a fiction, a myth, ultimately a lie" perpetuated by both Western and African scholars alike (p. 383). The main point of Agawu's argument is not to convince the reader that African music and African rhythm are not one and the same, although he points out that they are not, but to show how the domination of "intellectual space defined by Euro-American traditions of ordering knowledge" leads to misrepresentation and essentialization (p.383). For one, the very idea of "Africa", he argues, is itself a construction of European discourse, since it seems ridiculous to lump 400 million people spread across 42 countries speaking some thousand languages into one pan-African category. He also notes an "ongoing resistance to knowing about Africa" that helps to perpetuate the stereotypes people hold of it. "Why should we bother to learn the strange and often unpronounceable names of people in remote places practicing weird customs when we can simply invoke the all-purpose "Africa"?" he challenges (p.384).

When I first read this, I immediately scribbled on the side of the page that the "Mande class serves to counteract this". After all, we are learning about a specific region of Africa, one that I previously knew nothing about (though this is probably because I too invoked the all-purpose "Africa" out of ignorance). However, I wonder if, when serving as the only class one will ever take on Africa, the class might have an essentializing effect, as it portrays things stereotypically "African" such as drumming and dancing, with little mention of other African musical/cultural traditions unrelated to either drumming or dancing. Perhaps the class just serves to reproduce the "metonymic fallacy--the part representing the whole" that Agawu criticizes (p.385).

Agawu also questions the emphasis that many ethnomusicologists put on difference rather than sameness. "When did we last encourage our students to go and do fieldwork not in order to come back and paint the picture of a different Africa but of an Africa that, after all the necessary adjustments have been made, is the "same" as the West?" (p. 390). Although I understand his worry that difference is easily exoticized and used to create oversimplified binaries of "us" versus "them", especially in Africa, I feel that he is oversimplifying reality. At least from the ethnomusicologists we have read in class, I feel that many of them do focus on both "sameness" and "difference", although I suppose it depends on what standard you use for comparison (same as who? different from what?). Perhaps the study of diaspora encourages a focus on both, as one is comparing/contrasting a culture to both its homeland and its hostland, allowing for a less dualistic approach (similar to what we talked about in class today the idea that liminality or hybridity can help escape binaries).

In the end, Agawu goes even further to challenge the field of ethnomusicology as a whole--why not, instead of just relying on "native" perspectives and emic viewpoints to solidify Western, specifically non-native theories, as ethnomusicology tends to do (as manifested in the transcription of musics which aren't usually transcribed, such as djembe drumming, and in interpreting such music in Western terms, while claiming insights as to why people make the music just from talking to them) instead rely on "a direct empowerment of post-colonial African subjects so that they can represent themselves." (p.395). Though this seems like a nice idea, is it realistic? I don't mean to say that other cultures cannot represent themselves, but is it possible, in a Western-knowledge dominated world, to represent oneself on one's own terms? Or in other words, is it possible to engage in a dialogue with the dominant culture without assuming the dominant culture's language (is it wrong of me to assume that there must be a dominant culture as well)? Or does a culture, in order to be able to represent themselves on their own terms, have no choice but to keep to themselves?

Agawu, Kofi. The Invention of "African Rhythm". Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 48, No. 3, Music Anthropologies and Music Histories. (Autumn, 1995), pp. 380-395.

Critical Review - "Teaching What Cannot Be Taught" by Ted Solís

In his introduction to the book Performing Ethnomusicology: Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles, Ted Solís talks about the obstacles that ethnomusicologists face when putting their research to practice through a so-called "World Music Ensemble". The typical world music group is a challenge, he concedes, because it is an "experience ensemble": "students here embrace a second (cultural) childhood, akin to the sort of entirely new musical experience most musicians underwent as children with their first piano lessons or sixth-grade band" (p. 7). On the other hand, groups like choir, orchestra, and concert band can be thought of as "realization ensembles", for "students enroll in them not primarily for mind-opening cultural experiences, but rather to realize preexisting musical skills" (p.6).

The high turnover rate and consistently beginner-level students of world music ensembles would perhaps not pose as much of a challenge if the director did not feel pressured by the expectations of musical academia to put on a public performance every semester. As Solis writes,

Our difficulties are compounded by the fact that as directors we do it all: we are obliged to represent all the instrumental, vocal, and choreographic abilities required within a complex, multitasking performance ensemble. Western university orchestra conductors, on the other hand, are not required to teach, for example, flutter tonguing or the col legno technique; students have already learned such things and can consult with their studioteachers about difficult score passages. (p.6)

Performance challenges the relationships between the performers' cultures and the culture they are performing, as well as the audience's preexisting beliefs about both. Solis quotes David Locke's wise words that "Performances of world music by born-in-the-tradition musicians reinforce comfortable categories, but anomalous presentations of the other by nonothers confound expectations." (p.12)

Though sometimes accused of essentializing a culture, Solis argues that "As ethnomusicologists, we embrace a trope that challenges orientalism and facile essentializations of multifaceted and fluid cultural systems." (p.10) He admits, nonetheless, that "both experience and simple logic teach us that without at least some encapsulization and abstraction we cannot transmit cultural information. Furthermore, no "pure, unadulterated essences," untouched by human hands, can be conveyed or are even possible." (p.10)

He also claims that "music studies, unlike less performative modes of cross-cultural inquiry, encourage nondominant relationships." (p.10) Perhaps by directly experiencing how difficult and complex another culture is, students can begin to overcome the so-called "Western superiority complex" that sometimes arises when we try to analyze another culture without really understanding it or without trying to see it through its people's own eyes. Similar to learning a whole new language, learning the music of another culture forces one to confront the limits of one's own knowledge and fluency, as one must relearn how to "speak" and even think before one can understand and effectively communicate in the foreign tongue. The humbling effect of struggling with a language or music puts a damper on the urge to jump to conclusions about a culture and its practices ("No linguist would dare take a tape of an unknown language and try to analyze it.", Solis quotes Leonard B. Meyer on page 4). Accordingly, while earlier ethnomusicological study focused largely on product, during the last thirty years or so emphasis has increasingly turned its attention to person ("teacher as text", p. 3) and process.

The effects of ethnomusicology are not limited to the "receiving culture", however; it can also have an effect on the culture or music being studied. The prestige of ethnomusicological activity can sometimes affect the tradition itself. As Solis writes, "Netsky and Witzleben both attest to heightened interest in, and greater approval of, klezmer and Chinese orchestral musics once they were presented to members of the heritage community in academic contexts."(p.13). Ethnomusicologists, then, play a much larger role than just presenting or reproducing a foreign culture in an academic setting--they are, in effect, "interpreters, creators, re-creators, and molders of those cultures in the academic world." (p.11).

Another interesting thing that Solis points out is that "Many ethnomusicologists so strongly identify with their chosen cultures through extended fieldwork, ethnicity, acquired language facility, and shared musical and other deep experiences that they resemble "halfies," Abu-Lughod's term for "people whose national or cultural identity is mixed by virtue of migration, overseas education, or parentage" (1991: 137). " (p.11). In a way, this could imply that ethnomusicologists themselves are a sort of "diaspora people", to use the term loosely, or at least possess a sort of "diaspora consciousness" that is created through affinity rather than heritage. Separated from the culture that they have perhaps come to identify with due to widespread expectations/preconceptions about identity and culture, and subjected to the superculture of the academic world in which they must function but don't quite fit, ethnomusicologists as a whole could function as a sort of diaspora, albeit a backwards sort of one. I'd like to look more into this analogy if possible, and see if some ethnomusicologists really could be called a "diaspora people", or if I am using the term too loosely.


Solis, Ted. Performing Ethnomusicology : Teaching and Representation in World Music Ensembles. Ewing, NJ, USA: University of California Press, 2004. http://site.ebrary.com/lib/brown/Doc?id=10068592&ppg=26

Critical Review - Mande Music by Eric Charry

In Chapters 7 and 8 of his book Mande Music, Eric Charry writes about the process of studying and writing about music in Africa. Being a foreigner had specific advantages for Charry--because he posed no threat as a competitor to local musicians, had money to give them, and could help bring them abroad, he was able to learn musical traditions that are often kept within a particular family or social class. He was also able to learn the music at a faster pace than a normal student, because he had equipment that allowed him to record his lessons so he could master them at home. However, he acknowledges that "the time one spends learning the music of a foreign culture (both abroad and at home) rarely approaches the time spent by those who are recognized as being good at it in those foreign societies, almost never for those considered masters. [...] we may delude ourselves into thinking that our ways of learning are more effective, reinforced by local approval of our musical competence, the possible motives for which are usually not critically assessed." (p. 333).

Charry also stresses the importance of "keep[ing] track of who is doing the talking, including questioning the sources of their knowledge and their motives, and also one's own motives and critical reactions." (p.331). There is a long line of non-Africans of varying motivations and agendas who have criticized African artists for not being African enough, as well as a long line of non-Africans who have questioned the motivation of these non-African critics. Though Africans themselves have responded to these concerns, "the voices of those who might object to the packaging and export of their traditions have been underrepresented." (p.331). This is also due to the fact that most traditional musicians "have had little access or interest in thorough Western-style education. Therefore those who write about the music do it from a distance, and those who play the music do not write about it." (p.352).

Particularly among the Mande, "there are strong social expectations about who may play music, who should go through a university education, and what fields are respectable scholarly pursuits." (p.352) Because of this, "Literature about African music history lags behind that of other areas of the world [...] fueling notions that African music is timeless and static." (p. 6). However, as Charry argues, African music is anything but static. He uses the guitar as an example of "Mandenka values of change, marked by a tenacious respect for meaningful old traditions." (p.351). Initially imported from abroad, the guitar has been used by jelis, the traditional oral historians of Mande society, not just to "modernize" their traditions, so to speak, but as a "major force for expanding the language of that tradition and moving it into an international arena." (p.351).

Though sometimes it seems as if modernity and tradition in Africa are mutually exclusive, Charry points out that, as in other parts of the world,"Traditional and modern worldviews complement each other, meld together, and also remain distinct in late twentieth century western Africa." (p.27). Charry wisely writes, "Though these terms [modern vs. traditional] can conjure up outdated binary either/or ways of looking at the world, they can also provide valuable frames of reference for the very real possibility of nonexclusive dualities, with people drawing elements from here and there while forging multifarious ways of living in the world." (p.24)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Although I have chosen to focus mainly on Mande dancing and drumming for this project, as that is what we are being taught the most about in my Mande class, there are a variety of other musical traditions in West Africa, which Charry divides into four distinct spheres:

1. music related to hunters societies and their legendary hunter heroes, sung to the accompaniment of the simbi, a seven-stringed calabash (gourd) harp.

2. music of the jelis (called jeliya) played on the bala (xylophone), koni (lute), and kora (harp), which is associated with rulers, warriors, traders, and other patrons

3. drumming related to various life-cycle, agricultural, and recreational events played on the jembe (struck with the bare hands) and dundun (struck with a stick) in Mali and Guinea or the tangtango (struck with one hand and one stick) in the Senegambia

4. modern urban electric groups (called orchestras), largely dominated by guitar-laying jelis, which draw from the other three spheres (Charry, 2-3)

Charry, Eric. Mande music : traditional and modern music of the Maninka and Mandinka of Western Africa. University of Chicago Press. 2000.

"African dance is the new yoga!" and other assumptions, misperceptions, and questions raised by the teaching of African dance in America

This is sort of a continuation of my Field Notes 2 post, but more about my experiences outside of the Mande dance class--at lectures and on the internet--that have affected the way I think about teaching West African dance in America.

* * *

Last Wednesday (April 2), I went to a lecture called "The Orientalism of Anti-orientalism", given by Leigh Jenco, a Postdoctoral Research Associate for the Political Theory Project at Brown. Although she explained a little bit about why anti-orientalism is often orientalist (the self-proclaimed anti-orientalists are often Europeans drawing on European methods to critique Orientalism, and thus are still primarily responding to Western concerns), most of her lecture (which turned out to be more of a class-like lecture/discussion) was focused on her own "anti-orientalist" approach, which she first warned everyone that she was still in the process of thinking through, and just wanted people's feedback.

The solution to Orientalism, at least in the university setting, she suggested, is to organize classes not by methodology (like philosophy, for example), but by region (like Africana studies). This shift from dividing classes between the "real" subjects and mere "case studies" would include a radical transformation in the way knowledge is gathered, as the classes would not specify beforehand the content of knowledge (or the nature of thinking, for that matter--though this could prove difficult). Thus, the classes might actually be about learning to think differently, rather than just learning to support the same sorts of ideas and knowledge through different examples.

As Jenco emphasized throughout the lecture, inhabitants of different parts of the world, both in the East and the West, think and have their own theories, so we should try to look at their culture through their own eyes, using their own methods of thinking and categorizing knowledge. It would be a dialectical relationship--not only building up a base of knowledge, but learning new things that can then be used to reflect on and critically think about the old. "You learn how to do things, you're not born with them", she avowed, giving away anti-essentialist leanings. In other words, just because you're born in the West doesn't mean you have to adhere to the Western ideas you have been taught. You can learn the intricacies of another culture (as she has learned the intricacies of Chinese culture as an American), but can you truly learn the intricacies of another way of thought?

This relates in many ways to the issues I have been thinking about lately regarding the Mande class. For one, am I an orientalist for taking the class, for wanting to know about this "other" culture? Am I merely perpetuating a cultural imperialism of sorts, by asserting my elite privileges of "worldliness"? And am I merely using this "other" culture for my own, Western purposes (to relieve myself of the stresses of the Western world and cultural restrictions)? Is learning a different culture's way of thought (and not just the culture) any less orientalist? There is so much we can learn from other cultures, it seems, and perhaps that they can learn from us, but the sticky issue lies in who is really benefiting most from the relationship--who holds the power over the cultural ideas being transmitted? The U.S., it seems, is very fond of the "traditional", the uncommercial, per se--that is, when they are outside of our own borders (for this view of the traditional often entails a certain image of pre-modernity and technological primativity that we are not willing to revert to in the name of cultural preservation). What connections might the continuing division between the developed and the developing world have to the U.S.'s desire for traditional goods and services (like African dance classes, for example)? These are really difficult questions to face, as they prod and poke at (a little too close for comfort) my own desires to learn about and experience cultures less tainted by the evils of modern society.

On a similar train of somewhat difficult-to-swallow (in that it is largely self-reflective) thought, I found an interesting blog called African.Dance.Drum.Life! that discusses the issue of race in the context of African dance, something that Michelle in her interview briefly discussed as it played out in her dancing experiences in both Mali and Boston. As Michelle discovered at her dance classes in Boston where she was told to "get to the back of the room", not everyone believes that non-Africans or non-African Americans should be able to participate in African dance. In a blog post entitled "A look at 'that guy' in Black dance", the author Malena, a 23 year old teacher and student of West African dance (who identifies as Part Black American, Part Nigerian) writes about 'that guy', the non-African or white dance participant who is just so dedicated to African dance: "he's the ultimate insider-outsider who is now becoming the face of African dance in America." According to Malena, her main problem with white people participating in African dance is the commercialization that comes with them--"African dance is the new yoga!" and "Aaah, the healing powers of mainstreamization" she writes with more than a tinge of sarcasm:

With classes springing up in cities big and small, the dance and drum that emerged several decades as a tool of Black empowerment has undoubtedly become a porous canvas where now all kinds of people use to ink out their expressions.

[...] These trends raise important questions about cultural ownership and also the marketing of African products.

Even more interesting are the comments and discussion that the post generated. Malena, in response to one person's comments, wrote:

I especially like your reference to these cultural trips folks take to Africa. To me, whites re-entering Africa for cultural digs relates an ironic failure of 20th century Pan-Africanists back-to-Africa movements. Instead of more and more blacks returning to Africa, we see a deluge of whites "coming home," and reaping benefits of an environment their ancestors helped to rip open and expose. This may sound a bit harsh, but I find it sad many non-whites, particularly blacks interested in Africa, simply lack the proper funds to travel to Africa. What ends up happening instead is a commercial re-colonizing of African art forms as they are used for the liberation of Western souls...

In addition, I'm personally alarmed by the mixed-racialized ethnic dance scenes primarily because i think people of color have fewer and fewer exclusive spaces where we can talk about and develop our people. Though I support inter-cultural/racial art participation, I worry this setting puts people of color in perpetual performative roles where we are constant bearers of culture. What besides co-option are non-"insider" artists going to bring to the table? Part of me asking this is for controversy's sake alone, but I think it's worth coming off as crude to find some real answers...

To which another commenter "Marcy" responded:

I come from a culture that isn't very open emotionally and what I've experienced in dance classes of African origin is something I've been starved for in my own upbringing. Would you deny me that based on the color of my skin?

And yet another commenter "Tigi" replied:

but to me, what's worse is having continental africans over here teaching drum and dance when in fact they aren't even musicians or dancers. often times, teaching false representations of rhythms and movements because they see it as a way to make a living. people gotta eat, but what is this doing to the true "keepers of the culture?"

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a girl in my "family" who took time off from Brown to live in Mali for 8 months. I asked her whether she had encountered or done any dance when she was there. To my surprise, she said, "Not really." She had taken a dance class twice during her stay there (as in, for two days only), and other than that, she really had not seen much dance in Mali. The fact that this surprised me, that I thought it weird that someone in Mali had not encountered any dance during an eight month stay there, made me realize my own potentially false assumptions about Mali. Because the Mande dance class focuses mostly on dance and how dance functions as part of the culture in Mali, I assumed that everyone there does dance--that dancing in Mali was as inescapable as eating hamburgers and pizza in America. Which is to say, certainly not everyone eats hamburgers and pizza in America. As the implications of this bad analogy suggest, I realized that maybe not everyone dances in Mali either.

This made me further question the knowledge I had gained thus far about dance in West Africa--to what extent, then, does dance really play a role in modern Mande culture? Does it more commonly take place in villages, or in the city? What is the range of participation in dance for different age groups, genders, etc.? How are those who don't participate in dance viewed by the community? Is it acceptable for women to play the accompanying Djembe drums (as far as I have seen, it isn't--are there any exceptions to this rule, though)?

As the blog commenter Tigi pointed out, we can't assume that all West Africans do dance or play the drums, just because they are from West Africa. Yet just from my own assumptions, perhaps rising out of the fact that my sole encounters with West African culture have been through dance, it seems that this image is often perpetuated in America, perhaps because of the essentializing view we often take of West Africa, or perhaps because of a strategic essentialism that many West Africans themselves take up just to make a living (or perhaps because the West Africans who choose to make a living by teaching their cultural heritage, real or perceived, are just more visible in America's superculture that has come to increasingly embrace a certain essentializing "multiculturalism").

Either way, I am curious to hear more about what other students' experiences have been who have been to Mali and who are now in my Mande dance class (I know there are quite a few). I am also interested in looking at the implications of viewing West African cultures as "healing" and as antidotes to the perceived evils of American culture. What lessons do people take away from learning about West African culture (in this case, through dance), and how do these lessons differ from the ones that are learned from other dance or yoga classes (just to delve a bit deeper into the blogger Malena's bitter remark that "African dance is the new yoga!")? Perhaps more specifically to my own research, what do students see as the outcome, either desired or actual, of the Mande dance class?

Field Notes 2 - A typical day in TSDA0330: Mande Dance, Music, and Culture

It's 4PM on a Tuesday or Thursday, and after taking off my socks and shoes, I join my family (an assigned group of about ten students who I spend all my class time with) on the dance floor. We sit in a lopsided circle waiting for class to begin, chatting or often just sitting in silence, as the dance floor fills up with other circles of families, laughing, talking, doing massage circles which we decide is a good idea so we do one too. I realize that I'm glad to have a set group of people to be with during class--in such a large class, it would be easy to become lost in the crowd--plus, it's nice to always have someone who can help you out when you have no clue how to move your body this way or that. It also breeds a sort of friendly competition between families--as Michelle once said, a sense of healthy competition can bring out the best in people (or at least motivate them to do their best).

After everyone is settled in, class starts with a warm-up led by one of the TAs. For a while we did the warm up exercises all facing the same direction, but with so many people it was always impossible to see or hear the TAs in the front of the room if you were more than three rows of people behind them (although as Michelle always says, just look at the person next to you!). Recently we have been doing the warm-up exercises in a large circle with smaller circles of people inside, which has made them feel much more communal.

After a long warm up of pliés, circumductions, and a variety of other stretches and strengthening exercises, we regroup with our families and make two thick lines of people against the room's two longest walls. Michelle then teaches us a dance step by demonstrating and breaking the moves down in the center of the room, and we practice on the sidelines, straining to see Michelle over other people's shoulders while trying to avoid the flailing arms of the people around you, trying not to hit them with your flailing arms either. After Michelle has demonstrated the step a few times, with anywhere from five to ten different movements in one step, the two drummers, who have just arrived with their Djembe and Joun-Joun, begin to play. With the rest of the families still lining the walls of the classroom, one family steps out onto the dance floor, at the end farthest from the drummers. The drummers then play a 'break', the signal for the dancers to start, and the ten or so students in that family, led by two TAs, stumble across the dance floor towards the drummers, a mix of people who have quickly perfected the move and others who are still struggling to figure out which way to turn, how to move their hips like that, when to jump, how to coordinate the seemingly unrelated hand and feet movements.

Though in any other situation, this behavior might be deemed "making a fool of oneself", in the supportive atmosphere of the class, everyone knows that the moves are hard, and that some people are quicker learners than others. Nonetheless, most people would prefer not to make a fool of themselves, so as one family moves down the dance floor towards the drummers, where they eventually stop and bow when the drummers play them the same signal that before told them to start, the people lined up against the wall watch and practice the moves in place. When all the families have had a turn to practice the move in the center of the room, Michelle teaches us another step and the process is repeated. Each class, we can usually manage to learn anywhere from one to four new moves, although some days we just review.

Eventually, we put the steps together to make a coherent dance. There is a specific order that we are supposed to do the moves in (although I don't know where this order comes from--it might just be arbitrarily made up by the teacher, or loosely based on tradition), but not a set number of times that we repeat them (the drummers decide when to stop and start the move, signaling us to switch moves with the specific drumming pattern called a break). As a family, we are expected to perform the dance in front of everyone once the class has learned it and to choreograph it (just by changing the shape that our group dances in a couple times throughout the piece). Our performance is then evaluated as a sort of test, based not just on our mastery of the moves but on how we work together as a group and interact and help each other out. Michelle once said something to the effect of: it's not just about doing your best, it's about how helping others to do their best too.

Yesterday's class was different than usual, because it was held outside on Lincoln Field since it was such a nice day out. Everyone felt a lot more self-conscious than usual--we had an impromptu audience watching us--whereas in the confines of the classroom, the only other people who can see you are doing the same potentially embarrassing things. I was able to grab my camera right before class ended, so even though these aren't quite typical examples of what the class is like, I will post them anyway.

Interview with Michelle, Mande Dance Professor

Here are a few (actually, more than a few) excerpts from my interview with Michelle Bach-Coulibaly, the professor of the Mande Dance, Music, and Culture class here at Brown. Michelle also leads the dance group New Works/World Traditions, which develops new dance theatre pieces rooted in Mande tradition. The interview took place on March 19th, 2008. My questions/comments are shown in bold.

How long have you been teaching the Mande class at Brown? How long has it been offered?

89? 1989.

And what was the process like of starting the class?

Well, when I auditioned to teach at Brown the man that was on my selection committee was George Bass who started Rites and Reason. He had known about my work previously because I had taught at Connecticut college, I was teaching at Trinity Conservatory, the theater, and I on occasion gave West African master classes. So they asked me just to teach a small version of that in my audition class, and I did. And apparently the students really really liked it. So when I did get hired I would on occasion do that. That wasn't what I was hired to do, I wasn't really interested in teaching that here because of my theater work that's what I wanted to do. Well anyway, I would on occasion give the West African master class and again, there was this overall amazing enthusiasm for it. So John Amy, who became chairman, wrote a grant with Chef over in music and a few other people in Africana studies to start a—just to do one of these one time deal courses on the dance music and culture of Africa and the Caribbean, a huge topic. And that was an amazing success. I mean, there were so many faculty people involved in that. Almost the whole Africana studies department, ethnomusicology, theater, American studies, you know, it was just this amazing, huge thing. And over 600 students signed up for the class—I mean it was really, we were like “wow”--we did not realize, you know, the impact that this line of study—But anyway, we just saw that this was big, this was really important. And so money was given for me to do extra sessions and I had been doing research over in Senegal at the time, so, I was given support to bring a Senegalese musician, and... But anyway, so it was a huge huge success. We organized through the cultural activities board a huge opening ceremony to sort of kick off the event to see what the interest was--we did it in alumni hall. Thousands of students showed up. You couldn't even stand in there. People were hanging out the windows--I brought Babatunde Olatunji and the Drums of Fire from Senegal. So anyway, it was just a major deal. So its sort of been going like that ever since. We eventually put it into the regular curriculum because of the great enthusiasm for it. So it just grew, you know, year after year, we kept getting the funding, thanks to support from people like John and Nancy Dunbar, and you know, people saw that this was a really important line of study.

So basically, with the support of John Amy and the dean, you know the dean who was... we were able to keep building another two courses. It used to be taught once every two years, and that was crazy because 400 people would show up and I'd be able to select 75 and now it's once every—it's a different course. There's two courses, one is contemporary Mande performance and the other is the one that we're doing now, which is the introductory level.

How did you first become interested in West African Dance?

That's a good story. Um, I was an undergraduate at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and they were associated with the Milwaukee ballet, so a lot of the people I studied with were sort of stodgy—I will have to say stodgy—ballet people, and I was being adjudicated, right, it's like a—okay, like our tests—but there's a board of people that are [makes face]—checking off, looking at you, scrutinizing, and one of the headings was about their weight, you know ballet is so obsessive about weight and everybody else was going “Oh, she's five pounds overweight, look at that ... [laughs] --- and there was this lady from Sierra Leone named Fern Caulker Bronson, she was on the adjudication panel, and she said, “What are you talking about? I loved how she used her weight.” You know, I mean her whole notion of weight and the body were completely different and I'm like, “You're so healthy! Let me follow you everywhere you go” because I'd been in the ballet world my whole life and it was pretty sick. You know where all my friends were anorexic, believe me, taking amphetamines, you know, doing all kinds of crazy things to stay, well, the ballerina—very sick notions of the body, and I just couldn't—I wasn't into that. Anyway, so I started taking class with her and really enjoying it and it was sort of my salve, it was my place that I would go to just celebrate my physicality and I would always come away feeling so good that—unlike ballet where you'd always be beating yourself up and going, “Oh I didn't do that—did you see I didn't do that pirouette very well and I fell out on my third pirouette and dadadah...” So it just started very gradually, and I eventually, you know I would do workshops all over wherever I traveled and I met—I was down in St. Louis doing workshops and I was working with one of Katherine Dunham's master drummers from Senegal and it was a very positive connection, and... So I went to Senegal with him, started studying over there, and then it just started every year I would just start going back, so for five years, er five different times I went and studied in Gambia and Senegal, and then basically the story is that any questions I would ask them about these dances they would all say, “Oh they're originally from Mali,” and I was like “Mmmmhh— maybe I better go to Mali.” You know and as my interest grew and sort of the research and really understanding what I was doing, I decided to go to Mali. So in 1990 I met Yaya Diallo who had written a book called the Healing Drum and he was Malian, he was from Sikasso, he was actually Minianka, and he and I talked and I said, “Okay Yaya, I really want to go, you know, Let's go together and I want to shoot a film and I want to you know just start my research.” And so I got a grant at [can't understand] from the University to go, I organized a cameraman from Panama to come with me, and you know there was a lot of organizing, and at the last minute Yaya pulled out of the deal. Because there was a war ensuing in the Northern region of Mali with the Tuareg at this time, and it was a very precarious political time. There were a lot of demonstrations out in the streets and so he decided not to go because he thought that he would get sort of pulled into the political brouhaha. Anyway, so I went to Mali and shot a film and that was it. My experience in Mali was so different from my experience in Senegal. The Malian people were so different.

What was different?

Well, I'll put it this way without going into too much detail. Every time I went to Senegal I was ripped off by my teachers. I would study with them for two weeks, you know we would go everywhere together, and sure enough every night before I left someone would come in and steal from me one way or the other. And so I just—you know I got pretty weary of all that—very weary, because they were really untrustworthy, and they would pretend to be your best friend. And it wasn't just once, it was five times, and I just thought, “what is my problem, you know why am I...” But the Malian people were just the opposite, just the opposite. They would rather die than lose their integrity or to steal. I mean I have some great stories about that that were so humbling...

Well I have taken a group of Brown students to Mali and one of my former students—actually I hadn't met him yet—he was a senior at Brown, and he was traveling through Mali doing his own research, he was traveling through West Africa, and he was traveling out into the bush and he had left his briefcase with all his money, his passports, everything, on top of a bush taxi. And I don't know if you've traveled in West Africa, but we're talking desolate. We're going 500 km in the middle of nowhere and he had left this briefcase and he didn't realize he had left it until he was like a whole day's journey out into like Dogon country. Well anyway, so it took him two days to get back. And, you know, he figured just like anybody “Alright, well that briefcase is gone, you know, I've lost everything”—because it takes you forever to go anywhere. So he comes back to the station that he was at and he sees this little man standing there with his briefcase and you know, walking up to him thinking alright I'm going to duke this guy out but it was two days later right, and this little man had sat there and didn't go home for two days protecting the briefcase. He had had his family bring him food there because he knew that this was an important bag and that someone would be needing it. Hadn't been home—he had slept there—now that tells you the difference between Malian people and the Sene—I mean my experience, you know, I can only talk about my experience. So I was like wow, this is amazing, this is unlike anywhere else I've ever been. So it was just like, you know, I fell in love with Mali, the Malian people, the integrity, the generosity, the—ughhh—it was just really great. So I just had to keep going back to get a dose of humanity, a dose of compassion. You know, the people, they were all like that. I remember walking down the street with my friends and seeing this woman in this beautiful boubou, you know, beautiful. And I just said, “Oh my gosh, that's so pretty.” Well she goes into her house, takes it off and gives it to me. I'm like, “I don't—I don't want your boubou.” And she goes “No no no, you really appreciate this and it's for you.” So I mean things like that were happening to me all the time and I'm like--I'm so like humbled by this amazing--way. Anyway, so I fell in love with the country and the people and the dances—actually the dances were incredibly complex— I mean, more complex than any ballet routine I've ever done—any. I mean, I just could not—I was just blown away by it. It was really so challenging.

What was it like learning from the teachers, and maybe how did being American affect your relationships?

Well, I never felt for one minute racialized in any way. Even though the kids run up to you and go “Tubabu, tubabu,” which means white person or European--it isn't specific to skin color, they just know you're a foreigner. But my teachers were amazing, they were very generous with me. There was none of this, you know when I had studied African dance in America there was all this racialized “Oh well white people can't learn these dances”. I mean it was really kinda harsh. And I'd go to classes in Boston and I'd be told get to the back of the room, and I'd be pushed. It was very dicey to be studying African dance in America. But the Malians were amazing—very willing to share anything they knew. And I have some footage that's wonderful where the director of the National Ballet introduced me in front of this big crowd of like 200 people, and he said to everyone, “I want you to look at this woman who has spent thousands of dollars to come here, to study our tradition, and you all are forsaking your tradition—you don't know what you have. And I want you to look at this example because”—at that time there weren't many Americans, there were a lot of French people, but Americans really hadn't—you know it hadn't really started like it is now. I mean Americans come all the time to study and do things. But it was a really important moment because I realized that Mali was in a really really—on the threshold of big big change and people had started to deconstruct their tradition and leave—you know a lot of the young artists were wanting to do hip hop, and they were wanting to do this, you know. So this was a call to attention to a lot of the young people to—know who you are. You know, you can go off and do other things but don't leave your tradition, because this is important enough—and the world is watching, the world knows that this is important. So, yeah, I was really honored by everyone. It was really—it was nothing but a great experience.

What were the traditions that they were talking about—where did they come from?

Now what do you mean by that?

Was it like family traditions, or just the general traditions...

Mande. Okay, if we look at the concept of Mande, it is both an emotional, spiritual, and historic connection that the glue is the great Malian empire, and people will signify Sunjata Keita as sort of the central figure in this. And what he was able to do, we're talking medieval times, the 1200s, and he was able to organize and to align the twelve major tribes of West Africa into one alliance, into an empire that was from the west coast of Senegal all the way up into Niger—really a very very large, large—down to Northern Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Southern Mauritania—I mean, it was a huge, huge area. But what basically gets acknowledged, or, you know, whether its fact or fiction—but, it was like the Camelot, it was really this time of great leadership, great accomplishment, unification of the people. And those precepts and those concepts from the Keita rule have really stuck with Malians. They really hang together, unlike many of the other partitioned Francophile and Anglophile countries. And they really—they have organisms, they have traditions built in, like the bantering relationships between families, where people can say to one another in benign insults, “Your family... eats monkey feet”. Do you know what I mean and it's all within this sort of insulting and joking and it relieves tension all the time. I mean you don't know—like if anybody in here, right—if this were in Mali, people would—pretty soon they'd go, “Eh, what's your name?” And you'd say Keita, and then I being a Coulibaly would say “Ah Keita you're my slave get down and go—” you know what I mean, it's sort of an acknowledged pact between clans and families. And pretty soon everybody would know everybody, they'd know something about where they were from, and people would be laughing, and insulting each other. But basically it's even deeper than that, not only is it sort of a catharsis and a pulling together of a people, its in the Keita and the Coulibaly clan, there really are deep bonds. Like if a Keita came to me, I would—I am beholden to the Keitas for what they did historically, so I would have to, without begrudging—I would have to do their bidding. Like let's say they needed two goats, I would have to go buy them two goats, I mean, people are truly beholden to each other through these traditions, through this lineage. That's one.

Well what was it like bringing back people from—you bring back drummers, right--from Mali—What was that like?

In 19—My first trip there, as I said I worked with Dji Diakite, who's one of the big patrons of Malian dance, both a scholar and a leader. I said, well you know I'm learning all of these amazing dances, they're so specific—they're so specific. I can't go back to America and try to teach these without the specific rhythms. And so I said, can you help me find a musician who you think is, you know, who I could bring back. Well, he found somebody that had been in one of his companies, who was sort of a mediocre—you know they weren't going to give me the name of someone that they really needed, right—so he was kind of a—a konkone player, and a new Djembe player, you know somebody that could help me—cause I was beginning in Malian dance too. So I brought back this guy named Abdoul Doumbia to work with me at Brown and then, little by little, a whole steady stream of Malian artists started coming. So now this is really the hub of Mande—Colorado, Abdoul's moved to Colorado and there's another artist, Djeneba Sako, who's in Colorado, but, it all started at Brown.

Do some of the Malians stay in the U.S.? Do any of them live here now?

[nods] There are probably close to twenty, twenty to thirty Malian artists who have stayed, married, become citizens, but who sojourn back to Mali and build schools and you know, they have used this experience in true Mande notion of the hero—you know they've gone off into the world, made money, made a name for themselves, brought honor to their family, and they come back and they—you know they're helping not only their families, but their communities.

What value do you see from the classes and from the interaction between cultures for Malians and Americans?

Well, it's sort of an egalitarian and, maybe not quite so, egalitarian exchange of ideas, resources, but basically--actually we're the ones that get the most out of it, because what we learn are life's bigger lessons, right. Americans, as culturally—very—again, these are generalizations, right, I mean when I say this I feel a little bad saying this because it's not always true...

What were you saying?

So what's happening right now is something very exciting. We have been able to build a school in Mali due to years and years of bringing students there. The school is almost finished, and what that school—it's mission is to create egalitarian exchanges between art, science, and entrepreneurial endeavors, where American students, European students, I mean students--anybody that calls me and wants to go, I set them up in mentorships, apprenticeships, with NGOs that are doing—like Save the Children, some people just went last semester to do volunteer work. We're now working with an NGO called the crisis of mothers which is to stop the exploitation of children who have been abandoned, it's just all very complex. We're working with an orphanage to bring focus to this plight of children. The issues of malaria infection—having had malaria three times and almost dying from it twice, and seeing that every thirty seconds a child dies in sub-Saharan West Africa from Malaria, I'm very committed at this time to using my art and my resources and all the artists to create theater that tours around Mali to look at the simplicity of using nets, Mosquito netting and proper nutrition to combat some of these infectious diseases. I'm not dealing with AIDS right now, there's another group that's dealing with that. But AIDS and Malaria do go hand in hand—you know if we're talking compromised immune systems. So, there is a lot of work going on. Over the years I have brought people there who have built 6 schools, one medical clinic, who have brought supplies, medical supplies, computers, educational supplies, you know I mean its really starting to happen now. And then also the door is open for Malian artists to come here. I've employed so many of them--I've had three Africanist Weekends, the festivals here, where Malian or I should say Mandinkan artists come and they're employed, you know it works both ways. So that's—but the real value is in the healing aspects of this art form—the music, and the community building, and—you know, what its about are the things that make societies and cultures function. You know, I just think it's—I'm always learning, I'm always, you know every time I go there I'm always—re-inspired by what I'm learning, I mean it's never ho-hum, there's just so much to learn and... So I hope to take as many students with me as possible every year to get people hooked—I mean you know there is a hook, right—once you go you have to keep going back-- And to really bring things that are necessary there. Mali is still the fifth poorest country in the world, it's one of the worst places in the world for women and children. In my own family—my husbands family—out of twelve children that were born, only nine survived. The infant mortality rate is very very high due to malaria. Economically, with something like malaria and AIDS that wipes out nations, it affects the economics—you know, they can't—they're always sick, they're always in this sort of—malaise--I mean I know I've been there. But being in America my treatments were very radical and efficacious, but I still keep getting it, so.

Do you think there's now a national movement in the U.S. surrounding African dance or West African dance?

Oh yeah, very big. Senegalese, Guinea, Mali, Burkina... there are practitioners in Mande dance in many big universities now, teaching... it's really exciting. And there are these big national festivals that happen all the time. One called Tamba Cunda, which is up in California, there's one up in New Hampshire. You know we used to have one, but I haven't done it for a couple years. Maybe I'll do it again, you know much more connected to the city, and Brown, and try to get RISD, Brown, Black Rep, try to get some other partners besides just the students at Brown.

Do a lot of students who take your class end up going to Mali with you?

You know, some. I mean right now we're on a very very high, potent initiative to take around 30 students to work this summer, to bring mosquito netting, to work with these NGOs, to work with Save the Children, Crisis of Mothers, Nothing but Nets—it's an American organization--and the orphanage to develop movement theater that addresses the issues of malaria. And we've been invited by the ministry of culture to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Biennale festival which is a big national, international festival in Kai. Yeah, so it's great. So we're trying to raise money, it's coming in at a little over $5000 dollars per student, we have to raise some money.

Wait is that New Works/World Traditions that's going?

Yup, New Works.

How is [New Works] different than the [Mande] class? Do you do the same type of dance?

New Works we develop new theater performances that are rooted in Mande tradition, I use concepts of Mande performance, ritual, the notion of healing, but the main idea in Mande performance is that performance is there to perform, to educate, to raise up both spiritual and intellectual pursuits, so, all of my pieces—and they were always like this, but I just found a house in Mande tradition—their first function is to educate, and to teach lessons about how to be a better person, how to be a better community person, how to take care of the nation, yourself and the nation. So our piece is about Malaria, it's called Bloodline, so we're developing—New Works develops new movement theater through image, through development of text. I have a lot of footage of children in different villages that I've gone to. I've shown a little bit to you guys—not much. But that's what we do, I mean we develop work for the concert stage, for tours, that addresses a lot of the issues that could help. You know, theater is that powerful powerful place that provokes conversation, involvement, social action. So that's what we do. You know I'm teaching you guys specific dances from specific regions that are social dances, that are ceremonial dances. Then we'll take some of that information and we will create around it—use those dances to, you know—they're sort of at the core. But it's really a very very big creative expression and I hope everybody will come see at the spring festival of dance what we're doing.