DanceAfrica D.C.

DANCEAFRICA D.C. Various venues Washington, D.C. June 2-8, 2003

Dancers pitched their bodies across the stage and young musicians pounded out age-old rhythms at DanceAfrica D.C., which abounded with images of the African and African American experience. The festival of master classes, school performances, and an African marketplace culminated in gala performances June 7-8. The evenings' fare, led by festival creator and African American dance community leader Chuck Davis, featured dance from throughout the African diaspora. Artistically, both evenings were very strong, with only a few unpolished moments, which were outweighed by the dancers' zealousness.

D.C.'s Coyaba Dance Theater, led by Sylvia Soumah, performed dance from Guinea, Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso. Often highlighting the overlap between music and dance in African culture, even the youngest dancers moved adeptly between the two--at one point simultaneously playing the drums around which they danced. The company looked fantastic in upbeat work, but had trouble maintaining energy in low-key sections.

Assane Konte's Kankouran West African Dance Company, also from D.C., featured dancers ranging in ability, which resulted in a sometimes uneven presentation. The strongest led the large groups well and, as a whole, their power war rants a larger stage. Also noteworthy: The' group's drummers played expansive rhythms that could knock down walls.

Nego Gato, representing the African presence in Bahia, Brazil, closed each evening and continued the theme of musician and dancer as one. Any moment a dancer was not ingeniously twisting through the gymnastic inversions of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian martial art, or dancing the deceptively simple samba, he or she had a drumstick or a tambourine in hand.

Other artists traded drums for powerful poetry as accompaniment. Reggie Glass and Marc Bamuthi brought the African oral tradition, the importance of the spoken word, to today's modern dance. Their work could fit just as well into a dam poetry night as it did on the festival bill. Glass, poet Yaowl Glover, and percussionist Sam Turner (all part of Native Tongue Dance Collective) illustrated with dance and text the frustrating plight of today's African American man. GLASS, A SEAMLESS MOVER, SLID HIMSELF ALONG THE STAGE'S BACK WALL, THEN, AS THE PIECE'S INTENSITY GREW, HURLED ROCKS, THEN HIMSELF, AT THE WALL.

Bamuthi used his Adidas sneakers to lap out the story of receiving his first pair of tap shoes in 1984 in New York City. It was a joyful event for the 9-year-old, but for his Haitian-born father the shoes represented a family losing its heritage. Bamuthi's opening, a spastic tangle of dance and poetry, was jarring, but as he became more involved in his tale, the words and movement fused.

Gesel Mason Performance Projects and Dance Place's adolescent Step Team filled out the festival. Mason performs modern dance solos augmented by hip-hop and capoeira. The Step Team follows the African American fraternity tradition of stepping, using the body and voice to create complex rhythms. Despite obvious stylistic differences, Mason and the teens shared one quality: attitude.

Mason began the show's second half with an overly sincere entrance to the strains of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. Uninspired, she threw herself to the floor, shouting for something different. What she girl was rap with a hard-driving bass beat, and what she gave was a jamming solo that climaxed in a bandstand with her back arched and her feet dangling above her bead. The Step Team's precocious youngsters, who build all their own choreography, followed with a perfectly synchronized performance.

Davis, the charismatic, solid tie through each evening, brought both to a close with his mantra: "Peace, love, and respect for everybody." That spirit was palpable at DanceAfrica D.C.