Pushing traditional boundaries often yields unexpected results,
and in some cases, an extraordinary amount of success.
Over the last four years, West African dance company Salia ni
Seydou has been invited to perform in over 70 cities around the
world from Taipei to Paris and New York City. Their stop in Los
Angeles, lasting tonight through Feb. 8 at UCLA’s Freud
Playhouse, represents another opportunity to demonstrate to an
ever-expanding international audience their unique blend of
traditional African and contemporary dance styles.
Company co-directors Salia Sanou and Seydou Boro grew up in the
artistic climate of Burkina Faso, where Salia ni Seydou is now
based. Burkina Faso is a small nation near the Ivory Coast that
hosts the continent’s largest craft market as well as the
African equivalent of the Sundance Film Festival. In a country of
diverse cultural activity, dance is a part of everyday life.
Surprisingly, the two were working nine to five jobs when they
were recruited by French choreographer Mathilde Monnier for her
company in Montpellier. After spending several years at the
National Center of Choreography, where Monnier was artistic
director, the two felt compelled to make career changes.
“We decided to dedicate our lives to dance,” they
said through interpreter and tour director Suzanne Gosselin.
Salia ni Seydou, formed in 1997, has since won the Discovery
Prize for Dance from Radio France International and the Audience
Award for Best Production at Montreal’s International
Festival of New Dance. It was recently awarded the “Chevalier
des Arts et des Lettres” from the French government for its
outstanding contribution to French culture.
Some African audiences, however, were initially split in opinion
over the group’s move away from traditional cultural dances.
They called the hybridized style too western. But today in the
capital city, Ouagadougou, with the blessing of the Burkina Faso
government, Sanou and Boro are completing plans to open their own
choreographic center. There, artists will be free to interact and
experiment.
“Our goal is to explore how one can dance differently in
Africa,” Sanou told The New Yorker last year.
“Figninto,” the production coming to Los Angeles,
shows the striking physicality and emotional expression that has
won its creators critical acclaim. Translated from the Bambara
language as “blind man,” the work explores the lack of
communication between people and their inability to recognize the
value of those connections over the passage of time.
The piece has been seen in theaters in Africa, Europe and
eastern Canada, and just last month, in Florida’s West Palm
Beach. Not traditionally a hub for edgy, experimental dance, with
an audience composed mostly of retirees, the coastal American
community was a surprising stop on the company’s tour. Even
the presenter was not terribly optimistic.
“Before the first performance,” Gosselin said,
“the presenter says, “˜If they don’t like it,
that’s their problem.'”
But the talents of Sanou and Boro and the rest of their company
ultimately won the audience over.
“They gave them a standing ovation,” Gosselin
continued. “And all the presenter could say afterward was,
“˜I can’t believe it!'”