Sunday, July 30, 2006

Go for your dreams!



Today a the Kwakoefestival, (annual Afro Surinam festival with sports, food and music) I met Manolito, a guy I’ve known since kindergarten in Curacao. I haven’t seen him for more then ten years and after talking about our lives he asked me what I was doing.
When I told him I was working at a theatre, he was very surprised. He told me he remembered me as a very young guy drawing theatre curtains, theatre lightning, microphones and singers and dancers performing. He said ´You are realising your dreams´.

It was very touching to hear him say that, because I never realised that. I ´forgot´ about those dreams as a young boy. But I truly believe that at the end, what really make us happy is realising our dreams. And I think that as a young child, you can dream more freely, so to everyone go back to the dreams you had as a little child and realise them. You didn’t have those dreams just to have them. Dreaming is the way you can see everything you can become and realise in the future.
Thank you very much Mano and please do the same!

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

Modern dance from Africa

Last week I visited the program called Danse Afrique in the dance festival Julidans here in Amsterdam. During Dance Afrique we saw three performances by modern dance performers form Africa, whoa are touring Europe after winning an African modern dance concourse. The three pieces were very inspiring, beautifully danced and original.

The second piece we saw was called by the choreographer Andréya Ouamba from Senegal. She danced in it too. On stage there were a couple, seemingly living on the street in cartons. The dance was a kind of a battle between the man and the woman, with expressions of fear, loneliness, attraction and reclaiming own identities. The way they moved was very staccato, with short movements with strange bowing of arms and legs. I liked it very much. This was for me the best dance of the evening.

I also liked the group Mona- Mabu (Li Sangha company) from Congo a lot. They danced a choreography by Orchy Nzaba about daily life in the community, with a lot of familiar things like drinking beer together, playing and having small discussions. All of this danced in a nice rhythmical choreography by a group of five dancers. The group was completed with a storyteller who narrated and performed with the group.
It was nice to see professional dancers from Africa doing their modern dance, with a very own style. It was modern dance, but it wasn’t a copy of what you will see in Europe. And it was African, but it was not the traditional African dance we all know so good, and like a lot too. It was something new and beautiful, modern and African.