Searching Beyond Babel: Landscaped Identities in The Marrabenta Solos and A Story at 120 mph

Anna B. Scott
Editor
Posted: March 5, 2011 7:54 AM 

Panaí-bra Gabriel Canda, Michel Kouakou and Daudet Grazai are siumlataneously subjects of mass experimentation and hallucination. Born on the continent called "Africa," raised in countries that no longer exist, having citizenships in states indentured to foreign ideals and global banks, these three dance artists mobilize their reality through the phrase, through the weight of their memories landing on the floor. Exacting an 'experimental' dance at a level terrifying to consider in its brutal honesty, their work last night at Highways Performance Space in Los Angeles, California was at once disconcerting and engaging while consistently elegant.

Conundrum.

 

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Friday night, March 5th found the LA experimental dance scene curiously full of options for well-produced evenings of work. Bootleg Dance Festival opened for its first night, Eiko & Koma continued their run at the REDCAT, Heidi Duckler's Collage Dance opened a work that had been in development for a number of years, and Highways hosted an evening of Afro-Europea experimental dance. No, a night of African modern dance. No, a night of contemporary dance from post-colonial Africa. No, a night of performance work from a Moçambique national and from two Côte D'Ivorians. No, a night experimentation by European subjects born in Africa. No a night of...

 This review teeters in the same precarious space as the work it attempts to assess. Opening the night with his back to the audience recounting what felt would be a lovely tale of his village life in "Africa," Canda could have lain a trap for our Western minds, lulling us into a space where our expectations of hot rhythms and excessive exertion on deep, dark skin were heightened, awaiting fulfillment. Instead, we were breezily treated to an encounter with the conundrum of his life traversing several major transitions in the territory in which he was born.

A Portuguese citizen in an ultra-marine state a birth, a "tribal" member, a descendent of a Marrabenta musician, a citizen a newly independent and communist Moçambique, a student studying in Portugal, a member of a democratic state, a subject to a black body...the permutations were endless, baseless, absurd. Absurd. A man in a Portuguese fisherman's hat was laying on the floor holding an electric guitar. A pink chair sat upstage, anchoring the center. Absurd. We laughed at first. Then, we squirmed. Next, we froze: he was speaking in English.

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Not only was he speaking in translation, but he was dancing in translation. With each new proclamation for a new "identity," Canda laid a percussive phrase with his feet, marking not only time, but the space of his "me-ness." The man with the guitar was standing now, looking like a lean, older Roberto Sifuentes. We wanted, I want, I need, music, he is talking about music making music and that guy with the guitar looks menacing, is not musical. I gave up, Panaí-bra continued to build the phrase, his steps echoing across the stage, when suddenly the guitar sprang to life, into Marrabenta.

The piece was an extract of a larger work, and according to Canda, a significant element, an iron chair he constructed from recycling cans and assorted detrious, was missing, as were a few other components of the secret costume. He was happy to send me an image of the chair. Stay tuned for that link. With elements from his "tribal" tradition, his father's contemporary "Marrabenta tradition, Fado, and a nice jab at "African Dance," Cando begins to name, then shed bodies, seeking a new corporeality: Numan? new man? neume man? A group of notes sung as one, danced as one, Time and Space" "The Marrabenta Solos" challenged us to find the chord in the cacophony of nation building and release the contraction known as identity politics.

 

 

A Story at 120 mph was a slicker and sleeker production, but it gave the effect of needing a much larger stage than the one Highways provides. A piece for three dancers Michel Kouakou's and Daudet Grazai's piece experiments with rate, time and distance. An extended journey to balance the equation of the multi-national artist, the piece had several moments where it felt very self-referential.

It also veered towards excessive post-modern styling for the sake of the styling and not necessarily to imbue the piece with gravity (something necessary to consider when objects are traveling a great distance at a certain rate in a given time). Shaking hands and bouncing crouched bodies feel rather culturally specific to me. What is a Ivorian pedestrian movement? How would it look deconstructed?

But this was perhaps the problem of the piece, the desire to create it, the fact that one of the performers was not there and was replaced by Nerissa Castilleja who, though a strong dancer, felt too lanky for the speed of the choreography: these dancers are post-national bodies. They reside in an anti-aesthetic seeking, experimenting with the modalities of contemporary dance making on a global stage. The work began in 2008 and has been worked in two week stints. According to Grazai, it continues as an exploration; they are looking for something but they know they have not found it.

He is right. They might have experimented with the piece as a duet between Grazai and Kouakou since Nadia Begre was not there. I suspect, even if she had been there, she would have been the hanging chad suggested by the choreogrpahy. Grazai and Kouakou have know each other since they were 14 and it shows in their dancing. They are capable of perfectly matching each other's speed and center of gravity. Their sudden bursts of partnering were absolutely stealthy and captivating.

Castilleja had her work cut out for her and she was delivering, but next to the synchronization of the piece's choreographers her character's role began to feel not just pointless, but intrusive. The entire audience was audibly dismayed when she spoke first, returning tot he phrase that paunched the entire piece. She spoke for a while as she struggled against a white wall, making her way over to the the two men who were doing ridiculous post-modern leg crossing citations. Eventually, as it was with the rest of the piece, they settled into a moment where you could feel something exceptional trying to break free. Grazai began to speak in his home language, but while in a partial backbend looking up at Castilleja, while Kouakou danced behind her. They quickly returned to an incredible passage, grabbing hip after hip after hip, in a spiraling triangle, seeking the footlight down stage left.

But it was tiring, which I guess it should have been since we were going at 120 mph. And it was long. But they were exploring time. And there were no drums, though allusions to the intricacies of traditional body placement abounded. This was a landscape of terror and struggle and shifting sands. There is no ironic twist or statement here just yet. Perhaps there will never be one. Who knows fully the process of taking on not just a spoken language, but a body language? This not just a stage with black ballerinas flawlessly executing the craft. This was/is/will be something else. Terrain, Identity, Nation these are all concepts that these two pieces indicate we must relinquish if we are to understand what we are becoming.

Go see tonight's show.