KZ ZL* ä Ê äE äi u'K ä äE äE* iu · hcnnw rnwukgwtu cppÉgu cxcpv swg fgu itqwrgu fg...

!

The Montreal artist had hoped to take the powerful, live-percussion-driven Mozongi (Return) to Congo way back when she created it 20 years ago. But it wasn’t till this recent revival that the Paris-born, Brazzaville-trained choreographer was able to make it happen. “See the time it takes to realize our dreams?” the Canadian dance icon says to the Straight with a laugh, speaking over the phone before Mozongi travels to Vancouver. “I hadn’t been back since 1988. I took my time to take it back to Congo. I wanted to use that distance to really give myself time to see that training of where I grew up and learned to dance.

!

!!

!$%&'()*"(+*,-./+&)&0"1)*(-!/'+*--&!2)3!4)3+5*6+5!%'*17!1)*(-&7!%&+.!)(&+77!,8-!7/-(,&5.!,+!/-&%+&.!8-&!'*,&'(),-!/),,-&*79!!:8+,+!;!<-='*!>)?'@,-!!!It took Zab Maboungou 30 years and work across three continents before she was finally able to bring her dance back to the Republic of the Congo, the place where she first fell in love with her art form.

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

*)('&$% (+*,

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

0&)/+&.-+*, )2&-+*-/'-*(1)

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

&-*(1)*17'%+5!3+5*6)43!)

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

5.&,(/-78-,7+7&()+.&%7&

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

+!,

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

*)('&$% "(+*,&8-.+&%&/-

+,+:8 ; '<-=

aZkoottIlbayllainffin

inlleffetsirffir

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

0&)/+&.-+*, " )2&-+*-/'-*(1)9*7&-,,/)-,)('&*,'&

-!,@')?>*'

raey03uognuobaMbaabecnadrheginrbotel.mroffotrarheh itwevolin

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

&-*(1)*17'%+5!3+5*6)43!)

ehrtssorcakrowdnasrhetfoiclbupeRhetotkca

.

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

5.&,(/-78-,7+7&()+.&%7&

heseroffoebstneintnoceegnoChe hewhecalphet,o

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

+!,

sawheheserhe

!

!!

!! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

! ! ! !!

! ! ! !!

!

!

contemporary dancer, I saw it in her eyes.” Maboungou is clearly creating in the here and now, developing dance that is exciting and new, even as she draws on the rich, diverse movement traditions of the land she left so long ago. “In the studio, I have to be able to be open and respond with the real people. I’m not just projecting a dance that I have in my head,” she explains. “You’re really working with the person, and that is already a very contemporary approach. What I do doesn’t rest on traditional repertoire.”!

!

!

!"#"$%&!30!4+*,&-)?!(8+&-+6&)/8-&!2)3!4)3+5*6+59!:8+,+!;!<-='*!>)?'@,-!!

“For me, dance has to be fully live and I want to take away the idea of recorded music,” she says, adding that this is still a new concept for Canadian dance audiences and artists. “I was challenged on this: ‘This is music, this is not dance.’ For 30 years it’s been a fight, and then there’s calling it contemporary dance on top of that!” Maboungou says she tells her musicians they’re just as much a part of the work as the dancers, a fact audiences will hear, see, and feel when Mozongi comes here. As for her dancers, the choreographer draws them from across the spectrum of contemporary, hip-hop, and African backgrounds. “They don’t come from the same tradition, so you can see the challenge for me,” says Maboungou, who trains her troupe in her own technique. “When people audition with me, I look for a sense of music, rhythm, articulating gestures in space. With one

Les Prix de la danse de Montréal innovent et s’ouvrent à ladiversité20 novembre 2015 | Caroline Montpetit | Actualités culturelles

Photo: Annik MH De Carufel Le DevoirLa danseuse Zab Maboungou (à droite), de la compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, a reçu le Prix de la diversité culturelle en danse, remis pourla première fois par le Conseil des arts de Montréal.

« La diversité ne tue pas, elle fait des enfants », disait jeudi la danseuse Zab Maboungou, de la compagnieDanse Nyata Nyata, au moment de recevoir le Prix de la diversité culturelle en danse, remis pour la premièrefois par le Conseil des arts de Montréal. La « chorégraphe, penseuse, chercheuse et interprète » a faitréférence à son propre parcours entre Paris, le Congo et Montréal.

Cinq prix étaient en effet remis à l’hôtel de ville de Montréal pour récompenser des artisans du monde de ladanse. Le Grand Prix de la danse a pour sa part été remis à Alain Platel, fondateur des ballets C de la B, poursouligner son « énorme influence sur l’art chorégraphique actuel et la persistante actualité de son travail ».

Autre nouveauté cette année, le prix Découverte, parrainé par l’Agora de la danse et Tangente, a été attribuéà Aurélie Pedron. Celle-ci s’est engagée auprès de jeunes marginaux, et son projet intitulé Entre permet uneparticipation du public.

C’est Mélanie Demers qui a quant à elle remporté le Prix du Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec pour lameilleure oeuvre chorégraphique avec son spectacle Would. Au moment de recevoir ce prix, Mélanie Demersa fait valoir l’aspect « confidentiel » de cette oeuvre, qui a été vue par 379 spectateurs, malgré la qualité dela pièce et tout le travail qui y a été investi.

C’est Lucie Vigneault qui a reçu le Prix de l’interprète de l’année, remis par le Regroupement québécois de ladanse et la Caisse de la culture.

Les Prix de la danse de Montréal ont été créés en 2011 à l’initiative de la chorégraphe Marie Chouinard.

e dixrPLes téirsevdi

Me dse anda l

ovenninéalrton

envrs’ouuvrettoven

alà ten

2015 ermbev20 no | Car

ttintpeoMneiloCar | itualAc

selltureulcsté

rufCaDeH Mnnik A: toPhoungoboaMb ZausensedaaLConseler apois freièmrepla

ue pé ne tiversit« La d diversit

irvoDeeLl erufgniempacolade), itedro(àu ungo

l.aontréMedrts as edil Conse

es enfant das, elle fait tue p

leçu rea, taNyataNyanseDagnie

s t ts » anseuse Za d lieud jtsaii, d

elleculturersitédiveladePrix le

e lou, doung Mababanseuse Z

urpomis re, nsedan e

eniaga compe l

ue pé ne tiversit La d diversit,atayNatayNesnDa

dlonseie Car ls pfoiropréférence à son p

net nietaéix prq Cinix Prd naGreL.esnda

ner son soulig « énorme influence sur l’

Autre nouveauté cette année,

es enfant das, elle fait t due prioveceredtnemomua,

. Laréale Monts des art «re Paris, le Carcours entre prop

villedel teôhl’àismert efffepaasrupoaesndaladeix

art ch rme influence sur l’ ’art chorégraphique actuel et la persistante actualité de son travail

écouverte, le prix DAutre nouveauté cette année,

s t ts anseuse Za d lieud jtsaii, ducétisrevidaledxirPel

« enseuse, chercheuse ethe, pchorégrapréal. Monto etongre Paris, le C

cérrupol aétrnoMdevillePlainAlaàismertéét rpa

art chorégraphique actuel et la persistante actualité de son travail

Agora de la danse et Tangente, parrainé par l’écouverte,

e lou, doung Mababanseuse Zsimer,esnadneellerutlurèterp inte, chercheuse et t int

snatisrasderesnpemoctsllebasderutedanofl,tePla

art chorégraphique actuel et la persistante actualité de son travail

Agora de la danse et Tangente,

eniaga compe lerèimerpalruop

erèt » a fait

ladedenomdurupo,BladeC ts

art chorégraphique actuel et la persistante actualité de son travail ».

a été attribuéAgora de la danse et Tangente,

Autre nouveauté cette année,elle-ci s’ron. Cà Aurélie Pedblicpuduntioipaticrpa

emeDienlaéMt seC’re chorégeure oeuvllmei

ectaspaloir l’ va faittravail le tout et pièce la

écouverte, le prix DAutre nouveauté cette année,ée aupag engestelle-ci s’

.blic

merlleeàt naquai qusrec son spue avqhirapre chorég

« ielentconfid » e oeuvte cet dinvesti.été a y qui travail

Agora de la danse et Tangente, parrainé par l’écouverte,inauxeunes marge jrès d

il esnCoduix Prletérpome aclectec son sp lduWo u moment. A

ue pé v a étuire, qe oeuv

année,interprète de l’

Agora de la danse et Tangente,ulé it intetroj son p, etinaux En

dusettrlesdet etsrasde, Mélxrir ce poie recev du momentgeurs, malatectar 379 spue p

remis par le Regroupement québécois de la

a été attribuéAgora de la danse et Tangente,etrEn uneermet p

larupocbeéuQduemerse Dani, Mél

eé dtiuala qré lg


est Lucie Vigneault qui a reçu le Prix de l’C’

deesisCalat eesnda

anse da de l dxriLes P

interprète de l’est Lucie Vigneault qui a reçu le Prix de l’

.erltuuclade

é créés en 2011 à l ét ontréale Montanse d

remis par le Regroupement québécois de laannée,interprète de l’

e dviatitni’ié créés en 2011 à l


e Che Marirapa chorége le d


.nardhouie C

ZAB MABOUNGOU/COMPAGNIE DANSE NYATA NYATA

Chorégraphe et philosophe en mouvement perpétuel28 mars 2015 | André Lavoie - Collaborateur | Danse

Photo: Kevin CalixteMozongi, une chorégraphie créée en 1997, revue et augmentée (en matière de danseurs) en février 2014 à la Société des artstechnologiques

Ses racines sont à la fois congolaises et françaises, mais c’est à Montréal que Zab Maboungou a choisid’entrer dans la danse, et ce, depuis 25 ans. La Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata (qui signifie « piétinepiétine » en lingala, la langue la plus courante en République démocratique du Congo) est d’ailleurs bienimplantée au coeur de « la République socialiste du Plateau », souligne en riant la directrice et chorégraphe.

Son enthousiasme se révèle contagieux, et elle le transmet avec aisance à ses élèves et à ses danseurs, fortede sa passion pour son art, de ses nombreux voyages sur tous les continents et d’une enfance passée « dansun milieu révolutionnaire, avec un père qui questionnait tout, porté par la volonté de transformer la culture,d’où que l’on soit ». Ajoutez à cela des études en philosophie (« Quand je pense, je me sens en mouvement,et quand je bouge, je me sens en train de penser ») et vous avez une artiste aux influences multiples, ayantpour devise « Là où je suis, je contribue ».

Pour bien illustrer cet enracinement et tout le chemin parcouru depuis 25 ans, Zab Maboungou a revisitéMozongi, une chorégraphie créée en 1997, revue et augmentée (en matière de danseurs) en février 2014, àla Société des arts technologiques. Cette reprise, chaleureusement accueillie, n’a pas échappé au Conseil desarts de Montréal, qui a fait de cet événement, et par ricochet de cet anniversaire important pour la

COU/UNGOBOAMB ZA

raphegréCho 2015 s28 mar | André

ANYYAE NSDAE GNIPAMCO

pheoslot phi erapheeiavoL - uraterrabolllCo | Da

TAAANYYATAAA

meuven mo ephesenDa

tuerpént peme

ltue

lixteCavin eK: toPhoe ciaphégrrohe cn, uginozMo

giqueslotechno

la à sont racines Ses

gmen aue etuev, r799 1éée enre c

rançaises,fet congolaises ois f

euse de danèri matenée (tgmen

Montréal à est c’ais mrançaises,

ica So à l410 2erir fév en)sreu

Maboungou Zab que Montréal

st aré desét

choisia Maboungou

la à sont racines Ses sndalasndaretrned’

piétine » en lingala,de coeur au plantée im

Son enthousiasme se révèle contagieux,de sa passion pour son art,un milieu révolutionnaire,

itosnol’’oequùod’’o ». A

rançaises,fet congolaises ois fsna52ispude,ect e,es

la langue la plus courante en République démocratique du Congo) est d’de « socialiste République la

et elle le transmet avec aisance à ses élèves et à ses danseurs,Son enthousiasme se révèle contagieux, de ses nombreux voyages sur tous les continents et d’de sa passion pour son art,

avec un père qui questionnait tout,un milieu révolutionnaire,udes éta d à celezoutj. A

Montréal à est c’ais mrançaises,esnaDiegnpamCoaL.

la langue la plus courante en République démocratique du Congo) est d’Plateaudu socialiste », soul

et elle le transmet avec aisance à ses élèves et à ses danseurs, de ses nombreux voyages sur tous les continents et d’

porté par la volonté de transformer la culture, avec un père qui questionnait tout,e (hiosoplhies en p « Quand

Maboungou Zab que Montréal ieifignsi (qutaNyataNya

la langue la plus courante en République démocratique du Congo) est d’ce etrirectia d lantne en rigi

et elle le transmet avec aisance à ses élèves et à ses danseurs,une enfance passée de ses nombreux voyages sur tous les continents et d’

porté par la volonté de transformer la culture,e meense, je p juandd j sens en mouvement

choisia Maboungou etinpié«ie

ailleurs bien la langue la plus courante en République démocratique du Congo) est d’he.rap chorégce et

forte et elle le transmet avec aisance à ses élèves et à ses danseurs,une enfance passée « snda

porté par la volonté de transformer la culture,,ns en mouvement t,

e meouge, je b juand qett qjeùoàL«evisderupo

cet illustrer bien Pour iongMoz , une chorég

technologiques.arts des Société la qui a fait de cet événement,arts de Montréal,

e me e prain dsens en t.»eibutrnocje,isusje

tout et ent enracinemcet e créée en 1997, revhirap

reprise,Cette technologiques. qui a fait de cet événement,

ensere p » une avezvous et )

depuis parcouru in chemle en matée (ment augue ete créée en 1997, rev

ent chaleureusemreprise, et par ricochet de cet anniversaire important pour la qui a fait de cet événement,

luences infaux artiste une

Maboungou Zab ans,52depuis anseurs)e dère dien mat

échappé pas a n’accueillie, et par ricochet de cet anniversaire important pour la

ayantultiples,mluences

revisitéa Maboungou er 2014, àri en fév

desConseil au échappé et par ricochet de cet anniversaire important pour la

compagnie, l’un des finalistes de son 30e Grand Prix.

« On est toujours un peu surpris quand ça arrive », admet Zab Maboungou, forcée de s’arrêter un peu pourapprécier cette accolade. Être finaliste, elle le voit aussi comme une manière de saluer son statut de « vraieMontréalaise », ayant d’ailleurs déjà signé une chorégraphie intitulée Montréal by night. Ce qui ne l’empêchepas de croire que sa « montréalité » peut se faire entendre un peu partout sur la planète. « Je n’aime pas lesgens qui tombent dans la simplification du jet-set international : “ Plus je voyage, plus je m’informe et plus jedeviens intelligent ”. Ce n’est pas aussi simple que ça. Je crois que le local a une forte valeur, parce que toutce qui est local, c’est sincèrement humain, et si les gens s’intéressent les uns aux autres, ils auront toujoursdes transferts culturels à opérer. »

Dans son discours, l’expression « transferts culturels »revient souvent, l’opposant à « métissage », un termequ’elle qualifie de « sauce BBQ de bas étage » ! Elle s’offusque à l’idée que « mélanger les gens les rendraitmeilleurs, par principe ». Ce qui se cache derrière ce concept, « c’est de penser qu’il y a une pureté racialed’un côté et une autre pureté raciale de l’autre. Mais nous sommes la suite et la résultante de toutes sortesde mélanges ! Les Français ne voient pas leur héritage arabe, et les Américains ont du mal à voir lesinfluences africaines dans leur culture. » D’où l’importance, pour Zab Maboungou, de piétiner… dans la bonnedirection. « Nyata Nyata, c’est une manière très simple de dire que l’être humain se tient debout et que c’estun être marcheur. »

PERFORMANCES AND AWARDS AT VISIONSWRITTEN BY EMAR. POSTED IN COMMUNITY NEWS

CCoonnttaacctt SSttaaffff

CCuurrrreenntt IIssssuuee:: VVoolluummee 2244,, NNuummbbeerr 0077 ((RReelleeaasseedd AApprriill 33,, 22001144))

WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL 2014

COMMUNITY NEWS GOSPEL MINUTE CHURCH NEWS SPECIAL FEATURES POLLS ARCHIVES FACEBOOK TWITTER CONTACT

HOME NEWS ENTERTAINMENT COMMENTARIES SPORTS LIFE & STYLE CARIBBEAN & INTL. CARNIVAL

http://montrealcommunitycontact.com/community-news/938-performances-and-awards-a...

Performances and Awards at Visions - Montreal Community Contact | Serving Quebec's Black and Caribbean community for the past 20 years

Tweet

It was a celebration of those who deliver arts & culture and entertainment at the annual Vision Gala on Saturday,

January 25.

Highlight of the annual event staged at the Holiday Inn Downtown was the presentation of awards to recognize the

artistic achievements and contributions of community members in Montreal and others from across Canada.

Among this year’s honorees were Leo Wiltshire who received the Victor Philips Award, Letitia Brookes the Gloria

Mitchell-Aleong Award, Neville Brown the Clarence Bayne Community Service Award and Zab Maboungou recipient of

the Martin Luther King Jr. Award.

Throughout the evening, there were several scintillating performances by Wiltshire on the trumpets, Brookes’

monologue from For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf, and Maboungou’s Nyata

Nyata Dance Company with a special appearance of her son Elli Miller-Maboungou playing the drums.

This year marked the 28th staging of the grand event.

0LikeLike

SEARCH

POPULAR

Purchase Ad Space

Sampaloo’s dedication to his

sister

Driven by talent and

determination

Kelly Francis: “What is a minute

book and why does my business

need one?”

The 4th Wall

Performances and Awards at Visions - Montreal Community Contact | Serving Quebec's ... http://montrealcommunitycontact.com/community-news/938-performances-and-awards-a...


PERFORMANCES AND AWARDS AT VISIONSWRITTEN BY EMAR. POSTED IN COMMUNITY NEWS

CCoonnttaacctt SSttaaffff


WEDNESDAY, 16 APRIL 2014



http://montrealcommunitycontact.com/community-news/938-performances-and-awards-a...


MontréalACCUEIL SOCIÉTÉ MUSIQUE CINÉMA SCÈNE ARTS VISUELS LIVRES CHRONIQUES BLOGUES VOIR LA VIE RESTOS GASTRONOMIE CONCOURS

SOMMAIRE ACTUALITÉS SURVOLS, ENTREVUES ET CRITIQUES SPECTACLES ARTISTES SALLES

Changer

par PHILIPPE COUTURE

Commentaire

TweeterTweeter 4

0

Accueil › Scène › The meeting, Mozongi et Couscous comedy club : Sur scène pour le mois de l’histoire des Noirs

Février est le mois de l’histoire des Noirs et la scènemontréalaise y fait écho en faisant fi des clichés.Discussion avec le comédien Lindsay Owen Pierre, lachorégraphe Zab Maboungou et l’humoriste Uncle Fofi(Fares Mekideche).

Une discussion respectueuse entre Martin Luther King et Malcolm X surleurs divergences de points de vue dans la lutte contre la dominationraciale des Blancs? Ce n’est peut-être pas arrivé souvent dans la vraievie, mais c’est ce qu’invente la pièce The meeting, présentement àl’affiche du centre Segal avec Lindsay Owen Pierre dans le rôle deMalcolm X. À la SAT, les tambours donnnent le rythme de lachorégraphie Mozongi, de Zab Maboungou, en reprise pour deux soirsseulement. Pendant ce temps au cabaret du Mile-End, Uncle Fofi vousinvite à un nouveau rendez-vous humoristique et musical au Couscouscomedy club: une soirée sous le signe de la culture haïtienne avec,notamment, l’humoriste Réginald.

The meeting, Mozongi et Couscous comedy clubSur scène pour le mois de l’histoiredes Noirs

+

18RecommanderRecommander

13 FÉVRIER 2014

The meeting, Mozongi et Couscous comedy club : Sur scène pour ... http://voir.ca/scene/2014/02/13/ithe-meetingi-imozongii-et-icousco...

http://voir.ca/scene/2014/02/13/ithe-meetingi-imozongii-et-icouscous-comedy-clubi-sur-scene-pour-le-mois-de-lhistoire-des-noirs/

***

Mozongi: au rythme du tambour avec Zab Maboungou

The meeting, Mozongi et Couscous comedy club : Sur scène pour ... http://voir.ca/scene/2014/02/13/ithe-meetingi-imozongii-et-icousco...

h

Pour célébrer le 25e anniversaire de Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, lachorégraphe reprend Mozongi, une pièce créée en 1997 et entièrement portée par le rythme destambours africains. «Les tambours ont un rôle fondamental dans les cultures africaines, expliqueZab Maboungou, et la notion de rythme m’interpelle particulièrement – j’explore le rythme dans lecorps, dans le temps, que j’essaie de mettre en scène. Il s’agit de retracer le passage du temps àtravers le langage corporel. J’associe souvent la mémoire du corps avec la notion de dimension :le corps a une dimension et s’agite dans l’espace et dans le temps de manière singulière – c’estaussi la raison pour laquelle je choisis des interprètes aux profils très variés. La manière dont cescorps sont formés, pour moi, est un indicateur de la manière dont ils portent leur mémoire. C’estce que j’essaie de faire agir sur scène. Une exploration de la singularité de chaque corps et de sapropre mémoire.»

On a souvent dit du travail de Zab Maboungou qu’il fusionnait les traditions africaines et la dansecontemporaine, dans un certain «métissage». Baratin, nous dit la chorégraphe, à qui on a posé laquestion dans le sillon de son inscription dans les célébrations du mois de l’histoire des Noirs. «Jepréfère aborder mon travail sous l’angle d’un déplacement continuel des schémas culturels, sousl’angle de la mouvance, même si pour moi la modernité creuse continuellement dans l’ancestral,et beaucoup plus qu’on ne le croit. Le baratin à propos du métissage est toujours inadéquat en cequi me concerne, je trouve que c’est à côté de la question. Je ne fais pas de métissage entre ladanse contemporaine et danse africaine parce que, pour ce faire, il faudrait opposer les deux et ladanse africaine d’aujourd’hui est aussi contemporaine que la danse occidentale. Métis, ça veutdire mélange de ce qui n’est pas usuellement mélangeable. Il n’en est rien en ce qui concernemon travail, où tout se fait de façon organique.»

Mozongi est présenté à la SAT les 13 et 14 février

By Victor Swoboda, Special to the Gazette February 9, 2014

VideoVideo :: ChoreographerChoreographer ZabZab MaboungouMaboungou presentspresents MozongiMozongi

Choreographer Zab Maboungou's dance presentation ofMozongi relies on the gestures and rhythms of CentralAfrica for the Montreal dance company Nyata Nyata's25th anniversary. The title Mozongi translates to Return,"how we persist, we comeback, we dance" saysMaboungou.Seventeen years after it was first staged, Mozongi is finally getting the right treatment. Mozongi is the work that choreographerZab Maboungou is reviving to celebrate the 25th anniversary of her Montreal dance company, Nyata Nyata. Variously stagedwith three, four or five dancers since its première in 1997, Mozongi will be presented for the first time next week with sevendancers, just as Maboungou originallyenvisioned it.

So what took her so long?

“I never managed to reach the original conception for seven dancers because the piece was too hard. People had too much of ahard time, so they kept quitting,” said Maboungou after a recent rehearsal of Mozongi in the same St-Laurent Blvd. studio thathas served her company since its founding in 1987.

Overlooking the studio during all those years is a slightlybattered basketball hoop with a ragged net. A generation of dancers’children has grown up taking aim at that hoop after their dancer-parents finished rehearsing and left the studio free for play.

27

Video: Zab Maboungou dancing to the beat of a differentdrum

Choreographer’s Mozongi relies on gestures and rhythms of Central Africa

Nyata Nyata’s studios with their bare brick walls and creaky wooden floors have also attracteda wealth of dancers from biglocal companies who sought a friendly space for some extra rehearsing. Nyata Nyata’s studios are the kind where dancers loveto sweat.

The latest staging of Mozongi could be Maboungou’s fullest expression of her profound knowledge of native African rhythmsand ritual gestures. My Western-trained ear quickly got lost trying to pin down the rhythms played during the rehearsal bydrummer Adama Daou. Although specific rhythms were repeated over long stretches and became recognizable, there was noway to make conventional Western sense of them.

“You can’t figure out African rhythms using Western knowledge,” said Maboungou, who was born in Brazzaville, Congo, andgrew up in France. Her choreography, she insisted, would never use that rhythmic mainstay of Western dance, the eight-count.Recognizing and appreciating the differences among rhythms from specific regions of Africa is not so easy for the uninitiated.Not only are regional rhythms different, so are the drums used to make them.

“African drummers can’t just go from one drum to another,” Maboungou said. “Adama is a West African drumming on CentralAfrican drums, which is rare.”

For half an hour as the dancers rehearsed, Daou beat his twin drums in an impressivedisplay of muscle control. But toMaboungou and the dancers, the accompanimentsounded perfunctory rather than alive. For a vibrant, living beat, the dancerslooked to Mozongi’s second drummer, Maboungou’s son Elli Miller-Maboungou, who was absent that day. Zab said that helearned African rhythms from her, apparently between rounds of playing basketball under the hoop that he pushed his mother toinstall.

“Even though I’m not a drummer, I know the rhythms,” she related. “People in Africa can’t believe that Elli has been raisedhere and learned here. I have master drummers coming from Africa and France and the Caribbean. He learned all these rhythmswith a strong Central African base.”

Moving to shifting, unusual rhythms was undoubtedly a challenge for the seven dancers in Mozongi and likely a strong reasonwhy some dancers in the past gave up on the work. All of the latest cast members except two are first-time performerswithNyata Nyata. Remarkably, only one is from Africa — South African Mafa Makhubalo. His training, moreover, was not intraditionalAfrican dance but in contemporary.

“I still have to work with him,” Maboungou said. “I’m destroying what he knows. I’m constantly destroying what we’resupposed to know. It’s about displacing what you know, putting it in another context.”

Two of the dancers are Toronto-based — Gabriella Parson of the Caribbean dance troupe Ballet Creole, and Jennifer Morse,who has studied the dances of Madagascar. The other dancers come from Montreal — Raphaëlle Perreault, Mithra Rabel, well-known choreographer George Stamos who performed with Nyata Nyata in Montreal by Night, and Karla Etienne, a veteranNyata Nyata member who was in Mozongi’s original cast.

“When we had only three dancers, we had more space to move,” Etienne recalled. “Now Zab has really increased the numberof our gestures and we’re more immobile. There are far more details. With only three, it was easy to navigate — one goes right,the other goes left. With seven moving, we have to work to avoid congestion.”

Maboungou — an eagle-eyed ballet mistress— stopped the rehearsal a few times to explain what she wanted. It was notenough for the dancers simply to slap the floor with their foot during one long sequence, she told them. The slapping had toresound in a specific way.

“What’s important is the physical sound and how you retain the sound. They’ve had a hard time with that.”

Dancers’ backs had to be arched. When a hand was raised, the elbow had to be in line with the floor. To Maboungou’s mind,each gesture was a phrase in a dialogue with the space around it.


“That’s my African training. The power of gesture is African, even Asian, much more than Western. It’s not just about thedancer and their beautiful line. It’s about what you are doing to open the space. If you’re not opening space, it doesn’t matterhow beautiful you are.”

Maboungou recalled that in her early years in Montreal, local dancers thought her way of moving was strange, even crazy.“After all these years and the work I’ve done, they’re more aware of the form I’m presenting.”

Educating the public will take stillmore time. “Many don’t know the African tradition. People see drums and think they know,but they’re far from understanding the depth and wealth of that tradition.”

Mozongi, Thursday and Friday, at 8 p.m. in SAT , 1201 St-Laurent Blvd. Tickets, $48.50. Call 514-844-2033.

From left, George Stamos, Gabriella Parson and MafaMakhubalo of Montreal dance company Nyata Nyatarehearse Mozongi by company choreographer ZabMaboungou.Photograph by: Marie-France Coallier, The Gazette


© 2014 Regroupement québécois de la danse. Conditions d'utilisation.Agence Web : Pixel Circus

Le 23 janvier 2014

ZZaabb MMaabboouunnggoouu àà ll''hhoonnnneeuurr!!Ce samedi 25 janvier, la chorégraphe et interprète Zab Maboungou recevra le prestigieux Dr Martin Luther King Jr.Achievement Award, un prix que lui décerne le Black Theatre Workshop pour sa contribution considérable audéveloppement des arts du spectacle et de la culture noire.C'est avec admiration et un profond respect que le Regroupement québécois de la danse salue Zab Maboungou, uneartiste à la feuille de route impressionnante! Saviez-vous, par exemple, qu'elle a développé une technique inédite dumouvement, appelée lokéto? Qu'elle est l'auteure du livre Heya! Poétique, historique et didactique de la danse africaine?Qu'elle a créé un programme de formation professionnelle en danse africaine à Montréal? Qu'elle est aussi professeurede philosophie? Vraiment, Zab Maboungou est une femme d'engagement, de passion et de vision!

Alors que la Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata célèbre ses 25 ans dʼ our souhaiter àsa directrice artistique de continuer encore longtemps à "mettre en scène les êtres et leur temps par delà les histoires et

ʼénergie.

Crédit : Pierre Manning

L'Actualité de la danse http://www.quebecdanse.org/actualite/nouvelle/zab-maboungou-a-...

1 sur 1 14-04-08 21:32

Arts et cultureZab Maboungou récolte le tempo

Le mardi 5 novembre 2013

« Les rythmes, ce sont les codes du corps, les codes du temps. Les rythmes passent par laterre. C'est un langage. » L'étude des rythmes, Zab Maboungou en a fait l'objet de sa vie. Lachorégraphe et danseuse célèbre les 25 ans de sa troupe Nyata Nyata en se confiant àpropos de son parcours créatif au Canada. En septembre, l'artiste d'origine franco-congolaise recevait le prix Charles-Biddle qui salue la

Zab Maboungou récolte le tempo | Médium large | ICI Radio-Cana... http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/medium_large/2011-2012/chro...

http://ici.radio-canada.ca/emissions/medium_large/2011-2012/chronique.asp?idChronique=319033

contribution culturelle et artistique d'une personne ayant immigré au Québec. Les 13 et 14 février, Zab Maboungou présentera une nouvelle version de son spectacleMozongi créé il y a 15 ans.

Zab Maboungou

Nigercultures | Zab Maboungou http://www.nigercultures.net/en/file.person.zab-maboungou.17830...

http://www.nigercultures.net/en/file.person.zab-maboungou.17830.html

Zab Maboungou is the first African choreographer and dancer to receive grants from the Canada Arts Counciland le Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec and is a leader in her field in both creation and teaching. The 2003?AfriCan Conference: The Business of Dance? in Toronto recognised her role as a pioneer of African dance inCanada. Thanks to an important arts development program from the Canadian government (Heritage Canada),she inaugurated a special program in the study and teaching of African dance.

Born in Paris to a French mother and a Congolese father, Zab Maboungou grew up in Brazzaville inpost-independence Republic of Congo. When she was very young, she took her first steps in Central Africanrhythms and dance. She went on to study the dances, rhythms and musical forms of Mali, Ivory Coast, theSenegal-Gambia region, Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. She worked with different traditional dance and balletensembles in Europe and America (Fua Dia Kongo in San Francisco, Malaki Ma Kongo in New York and BalletLokolé in Paris) while she was conducting research alongside great drum masters (Babatunde Olatundgi -Nigeria) and dance masters (Lucky Zebila - Congo).During this very active period, Ms Maboungou gained awareness of the extraordinary wealth of African traditionsin this sphere, in particular the art of rhythm. Since then, she has never stopped exploring every aspect of therhythmic art. Her first, solo works (Réverdanse in 1995, Incantation in 1997) revealed her exacting musical craft.This was soon recognised as a distinctive feature of her choreography. Critics took note of the power andrefinement of the body movement s and rhythms underlying her works.

Zab Maboungou is the first African choreographer and dancer to receive grants from the Canada Arts Counciland le Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec and is a leader in her field in both creation and teaching. The 2003?AfriCan Conference: The Business of Dance? in Toronto recognised her role as a pioneer of African dance inCanada. Thanks to an important arts development program from the Canadian government (Heritage Canada),she inaugurated a special program in the study and teaching of African dance.

Born in Paris to a French mother and a Congolese father, Zab Maboungou grew up in Brazzaville inpost-independence Republic of Congo. When she was very young, she took her first steps in Central Africanrhythms and dance. She went on to study the dances, rhythms and musical forms of Mali, Ivory Coast, theSenegal-Gambia region, Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. She worked with different traditional dance and balletensembles in Europe and America (Fua Dia Kongo in San Francisco, Malaki Ma Kongo in New York and BalletLokolé in Paris) while she was conducting research alongside great drum masters (Babatunde Olatundgi -Nigeria) and dance masters (Lucky Zebila - Congo).During this very active period, Ms Maboungou gained awareness of the extraordinary wealth of African traditionsin this sphere, in particular the art of rhythm. Since then, she has never stopped exploring every aspect of therhythmic art. Her first, solo works (Réverdanse in 1995, Incantation in 1997) revealed her exacting musical craft.This was soon recognised as a distinctive feature of her choreography. Critics took note of the power andrefinement of the body movement s and rhythms underlying her works.

Her artistic theory and practice express her comprehensive understanding of the art of dance, on stage and off.In Zab Maboungou?s choreography or ?poetics?, texts become rhythm and dance converses and creates. Bodylanguage combines with trajectories in a space expanding and contracting to the beat of powerful drums. Afterthese solo works, the group works (Mozongi in 1997, Lwáza in 2005) are further proof of her distinctive voice andoutlook.

The choreographer is also a writer and lecturer. Her book, ?Heya?Danse! Historique, poétique et didactique de ladanse africaine? expresses her commitment to allying art and knowledge and vice-versa. In 1999, she received a?Great Homage? from the Minister of Culture of Cameroon for her ?talent, creativity and all her efforts to developand promote theatrical art?.

Zab Maboungou is also a philosophy professor (she has received an honour in this field for the quality of herwork and her commitment, in January 2007, at Montmorency College in Laval). Her dance art is enriched by thestrength of her thinking and vision in the philosophical and cultural spheres in which she has become arecognised authority.

With this international reputation in arts, research and teaching, her work as a performer, writer and lecturer hasmade a significant contribution to theory and debates about art and cultural diversity. Her expertise is sought inmany places: universities and dance teaching centres, in Africa, Canada, the US, Europe and Asia.

As a member of MASA (Market for African Performing Arts) international artistic committee from 1995 to 2002,she conducted choreography internships for young, upcoming talent and choreography seminars for African andWorld dance agents and promoters.

In July 2007, Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata celebrated their 20th anniversary. Thesecelebrations were commemorated, in October 2007, by a premiere presentation of Décompte, an original solowork, at L?Agora de la Dance, followed by a performance at the Nuova Danza festival in Italy.Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata will take Décompte to the Dance Canada Festival in June 2008and to Togo in October. The work will also be presented on tour, through the City of Montreal cultural network.Her group work Lwáza (6 performers) just came back from tour in Mexico City in 2008.Biography supplied by the person concerned

French

Reconnue comme une pionnière de la danse africaine au Canada, un hommage qui lui est rendu en 2003 à Toronto, lors de laConférence «AfriCan : The Business of Dance», Zab Maboungou est la première chorégraphe et danseuse africaine à recevoirles bourses du Conseil des Arts du Canada et du Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec et est un chef de file de la création etde la formation dans son domaine. Elle inaugure, grâce à un important programme de développement des arts dugouvernement Canadien (Patrimoine Canadien), un programme spécial d?étude et de formation en danse africaine.



Née à Paris, d?une mère française et d?un père congolais, Zab Maboungou grandit dans un Congo Brazzavillepost-indépendantiste où elle s?initie très tôt aux rythmes et danses d?Afrique Centrale. Elle étudiera par la suite les danses,rythmes et musiques du Mali, de la Côte d?Ivoire, de la Sénégambie, de la Guinée, du Nigeria et du Zimbabwe. Elle se joint àdiverses formations et ballets traditionnels en Europe et en Amérique (Fua Dia Kongo à San Francisco, Malaki Ma Kongo àNew York et Ballet Lokolé à Paris) tout en poursuivant ses recherches auprès de grands maîtres du tambour (BabatundeOlatundgi - Nigeria) et de la danse (Lucky Zebila - Congo).C?est au cours de cette période très active que la danseuse prend conscience de l?incroyable richesse des traditionsafricaines dans ce domaine, tout particulièrement en ce qui constitue l?art des rythmes. Elle n?aura de cesse dès lors d?enexplorer les multiples dimensions. Les premières ?uvres, des solos (Réverdanse en 1995, Incantation en 1997) révèlent laminutie du travail musical, lequel s?impose d?emblée comme étant inhérent au travail chorégraphique. La critique note à lafois la puissance et le raffinement des gestes et des rythmes qui les portent.

Ses idées et sa pratique artistiques traduisent sa compréhension globale de l'art de la danse, sur scène et hors de la scène.Dans les chorégraphies ou « poétiques » de Zab Maboungou, le texte est rythme et la danse converse et formule. La gestuelleépouse des trajectoires dans un espace qui se dilate et se contracte sous la puissance des tambours. Après les solos, lespièces de groupe (Mozongi en 1997, Lwáza en 2005) viennent confirmer ce propos désormais reconnaissable entre tous.

La chorégraphe est aussi écrivaine et conférencière et son livre « Heya?Danse! Historique, poétique et didactique de la danseafricaine » témoigne de sa volonté d?associer l?art au savoir et inversement.En 1999, Elle reçoit un « Grand Hommage » du Ministre de la Culture du Cameroun pour son « talent, sa créativité et tous lesefforts déployés pour que rayonne l?art théâtral».

Également professeure de philosophie, (elle reçoit un hommage à ce titre, pour la qualité de son travail et de sonengagement, en janvier 2007, au collège Montmorency de Laval), Zab Maboungou joint à son art de la danse la force de saréflexion et de sa vision dans les domaines de la philosophie et de la culture dont elle est aujourd?hui un porte-parolereconnu.

Ayant acquis une renommée internationale dans les domaines des arts, de la recherche et de la formation, ses interventionscomme interprète, écrivaine ou conférencière contribuent à enrichir le discours et les débats sur l'art et la diversitéculturelle. On la sollicite sur tous les fronts : dans les universités et les centres de formations en danse, en Afrique, auCanada, aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et en Asie.

Membre du Comité artistique international du MASA (Marché des Arts du Spectacle Africain) de 1995 à 2002, elle a dirigé àAbidjan, en Côte d?Ivoire les stages en chorégraphie pour la jeune relève ainsi que les séminaires chorégraphiques pour lesdiffuseurs et agents en danse d?Afrique et du monde.

En juillet 2007, Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata célébrait son 20ème anniversaire. Ces célébrations furenthonorées, au mois d?octobre dernier, d?une présentation en première de Décompte, une ?uvre originale en solo, à l?Agorade la Danse, puis en Italie, au festival Nuova Danza.Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata sera, avec Décompte, au Festival Danse Canada au mois de juin 2008. Lapièce sera également présentée, en tournée, au sein du réseau culturel de la ville de Montréal.Lwáza, sa pièce de groupe (6 artistes) était en 2008 en tournée à Mexico (Mexique).

(file.event.zab-maboungou.5040.html)

Zab MaboungouWednesday 01 june 2005



Née à Paris, d?une mère française et d?un père congolais, Zab Maboungou grandit dans un Congo Brazzavillepost-indépendantiste où elle s?initie très tôt aux rythmes et danses d?Afrique Centrale. Elle étudiera par la suite les danses,rythmes et musiques du Mali, de la Côte d?Ivoire, de la Sénégambie, de la Guinée, du Nigeria et du Zimbabwe. Elle se joint àdiverses formations et ballets traditionnels en Europe et en Amérique (Fua Dia Kongo à San Francisco, Malaki Ma Kongo àNew York et Ballet Lokolé à Paris) tout en poursuivant ses recherches auprès de grands maîtres du tambour (BabatundeOlatundgi - Nigeria) et de la danse (Lucky Zebila - Congo).C?est au cours de cette période très active que la danseuse prend conscience de l?incroyable richesse des traditionsafricaines dans ce domaine, tout particulièrement en ce qui constitue l?art des rythmes. Elle n?aura de cesse dès lors d?enexplorer les multiples dimensions. Les premières ?uvres, des solos (Réverdanse en 1995, Incantation en 1997) révèlent laminutie du travail musical, lequel s?impose d?emblée comme étant inhérent au travail chorégraphique. La critique note à lafois la puissance et le raffinement des gestes et des rythmes qui les portent.

Ses idées et sa pratique artistiques traduisent sa compréhension globale de l'art de la danse, sur scène et hors de la scène.Dans les chorégraphies ou « poétiques » de Zab Maboungou, le texte est rythme et la danse converse et formule. La gestuelleépouse des trajectoires dans un espace qui se dilate et se contracte sous la puissance des tambours. Après les solos, lespièces de groupe (Mozongi en 1997, Lwáza en 2005) viennent confirmer ce propos désormais reconnaissable entre tous.

La chorégraphe est aussi écrivaine et conférencière et son livre « Heya?Danse! Historique, poétique et didactique de la danseafricaine » témoigne de sa volonté d?associer l?art au savoir et inversement.En 1999, Elle reçoit un « Grand Hommage » du Ministre de la Culture du Cameroun pour son « talent, sa créativité et tous lesefforts déployés pour que rayonne l?art théâtral».

Également professeure de philosophie, (elle reçoit un hommage à ce titre, pour la qualité de son travail et de sonengagement, en janvier 2007, au collège Montmorency de Laval), Zab Maboungou joint à son art de la danse la force de saréflexion et de sa vision dans les domaines de la philosophie et de la culture dont elle est aujourd?hui un porte-parolereconnu.

Ayant acquis une renommée internationale dans les domaines des arts, de la recherche et de la formation, ses interventionscomme interprète, écrivaine ou conférencière contribuent à enrichir le discours et les débats sur l'art et la diversitéculturelle. On la sollicite sur tous les fronts : dans les universités et les centres de formations en danse, en Afrique, auCanada, aux Etats-Unis, en Europe et en Asie.

Membre du Comité artistique international du MASA (Marché des Arts du Spectacle Africain) de 1995 à 2002, elle a dirigé àAbidjan, en Côte d?Ivoire les stages en chorégraphie pour la jeune relève ainsi que les séminaires chorégraphiques pour lesdiffuseurs et agents en danse d?Afrique et du monde.

En juillet 2007, Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata célébrait son 20ème anniversaire. Ces célébrations furenthonorées, au mois d?octobre dernier, d?une présentation en première de Décompte, une ?uvre originale en solo, à l?Agorade la Danse, puis en Italie, au festival Nuova Danza.Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata sera, avec Décompte, au Festival Danse Canada au mois de juin 2008. Lapièce sera également présentée, en tournée, au sein du réseau culturel de la ville de Montréal.Lwáza, sa pièce de groupe (6 artistes) était en 2008 en tournée à Mexico (Mexique).

(file.event.zab-maboungou.5040.html)

Zab MaboungouWednesday 01 june 2005



BAC hosts the first installment in the series, which will feature Zab Maboungou. Born inParis and raised in Congo-Brazzaville, Maboungou studied traditional African dance fromMali, Ivory Coast, Guinea, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe, and has danced with Congoleseballets in Europe and North America. She founded Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata in1987 to perform her choreographic dance works, which have been presented acrossNorth America and internationally. Based in Montreal since 1981, Maboungou’s work asa dancer, choreographer, instructor, and author is dedicated to the development andpromotion of African dance in Canada and abroad.

An evening with Zab Maboungou culminates a weeklong residency at BAC duringwhich Maboungou will develop a new solo work for Chipaumire. On the evening ofOctober 24, Chipaumire’s performance of the work will be followed by a conversationwith the artists and audience, moderated by dance writer and historian Dr. CharmaineWarren.

The residency concludes with an intensive workshop for emerging dance artists led byMaboungou on Friday and Saturday, October 25 and 26.

Ticket Information

An evening with Zab Maboungou will be presented on Thursday, October 24 at 7PMat Baryshnikov Arts Center’s Studio 4A, located at 450 W. 37th Street between 9th and

10th Avenues.

Admission is free. Reservations are required and will be available beginningThursday, October 10. Tickets may be reserved online or by phone: BACNYC.ORG /866 811 4111.

About the Artists

Zab Maboungou, who is of French and Congolese origin, is the artistic director of ZabMaboungou / Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, founded in 1987 and based in Montreal,Quebec. Maboungou began developing her craft in early childhood through contact withtraditional dance and music groups in Congo-Brazzaville. She has worked with Africandance masters including Lucky Zébila (Congo/France) and Babatunde Olatundji(Nigeria/USA). As a performer and choreographer, she has integrated a variety oftraditional and “trad-modern” forms from Central, West, and East Africa. Maboungou’smore than twenty solo and ensemble works—which include Réverdanse (1995),Incantation (1997), Gestes Dé/libérés (2009), and Montréal by Night (2010)—have beenpresented on stages worldwide, including Canada, the United States, Korea, Italy,Germany, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Senegal, and Mexico. Her original dance technique,called LOKETO, draws on the rhythmic foundations of African dances and musicalforms. Considered a dance pioneer in Canada, Maboungou has received honors at theInternational Association of Blacks in Dance Annual Conference in Toronto (1993, 2011),and received the 2013 Charles Biddle award for immigrants who have contributed toQuebec's cultural and artistic development on the national or international level. In 2014,she will receive the Dr. Martin Luther King Junior Achievement Award in recognition ofher body of work, bestowed by Montreal’s Black Theatre Workshop. Maboungou hasalso made an important contribution to dance in Africa. From 1995-2002, by invitation ofThe Minister of Culture of Ivory Coast, she was a guest artist at MASA, a festivalsupporting the creation and production of African performing arts. In 1997, she co-directed and facilitated the first large-scale Pan African French language choreographic

workshop. She received tributes from The Ministry of Culture of Cameroon in 1997 and2010. Also in 2010, Maboungou was honored during Kriye Bode’s 5th AnnualColloquium on Haitian Dance & Drum at Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater.Maboungou is a professor of philosophy at Collège Montmorency in Laval, Quebec. Sheis the author of several articles on dance and the book HEYA: an historic, poetic anddidactic treatise of African dance (2005). She is a sought-after public speaker at culturalinstitutions and universities. Her speaking engagements have included the keynoteaddress at Harvard University African Affairs Committee’s conference African DanceDiaspora: A symposium on Embodied knowledge.

Nora Chipaumire has studied dance in many parts of the world including Africa(Senegal, Burkina Faso, Kenya, and South Africa), Cuba, Jamaica and the UnitedStates. A graduate of the University of Zimbabwe's School of Law, Chipaumire holds anM.A. in Dance and M.F.A. in Choreography and Performance from Mills College (CA).Chipaumire is a 2012 Alpert Award in the Arts recipient and 2011 United States ArtistFord Fellow. She is also a two-time New York Dance and Performance (aka "Bessie")Awardee: in 2008 for her dance-theater work, Chimurenga, and in 2007 for her body ofwork with Urban Bush Women, where she was a featured performer for six years (2003-2008) and Associate Artistic Director (2007-2008). She is the recipient of the 2009AFROPOP Real Life Award for her choreography in the film Nora. She has also beenawarded the 2007 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award from WesleyanUniversity Center for the Arts, and a MANCC Choreographic Fellowship in 2007-2008.Her work has been supported by the MAP Fund, the Jerome Foundation, NYFAB.U.I.L.D., National Dance Project, NYSCA, The Joyce Theater Foundation with supportfrom the Rockefeller Foundation’s Cultural Innovation Fund, and the NationalEndowment for the Arts. Chipaumire’s work Miriam received its world premiere at theTBA Festival in Portland before its New York premiere at BAM Fisher in the 2012 NextWave Festival. Recent works include The Last Heifer (2012), commissioned byDanspace Project for Platform 2012, Parallels; Visible (2011), commissioned by HarlemStage and created in collaboration with Jawole Willa Jo Zollar; Kimya (2011), a work forJokajok!, a female ensemble based in Kenya; I Ka Nye (You Look Good) (2010), createdand performed with choreographer Souleymane Badolo and musician Obo Addy;Silence/Dreams (2010), created and performed with Fred Bendongue; and lions will roar,swans will fly, angels will wrestle heaven, rains will break, gukurahundi (2009), createdand performed with Thomas Mapfumo. She is featured in several films, including DarkSwan (dir. Laurie Coyle, 2011); the award-winning Nora (dir. Alla Kovgan & DavidHinton, 2008); and the documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa (a story of an art formin four acts) (dir. Joan Frosch & Alla Kovgan, 2006). Chipaumire has been an adjunctfaculty member at Arizona State University-Tempe, Bennington College, the University ofMinnesota-Minneapolis, and Barnard College.

Charmaine Warren, Ph.D., is on faculty at Ailey/Fordham, The Ailey School, and NYU’sTisch School of the Arts. She holds a B.A. in dance and English, a Masters Degree inDance Research, Reconstruction and Choreography, and Ph.D. in History from HowardUniversity where she taught for eight years. She lectures and teaches movementnationally and internationally. Astanga-based yoga remains an integral part of all hermovement classes. After performing for many years with major New York dancecompanies, Dr. Warren joined david rousseve/REALITY with whom she performed forover a decade. Dr. Warren currently writes on dance for Dance Magazine and TheAmsterdam News, sits on various dance committees and is a dance consultant.

About Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC)

BAC is the realization of a long-held vision by artistic director Mikhail Baryshnikov whosought to build an arts center in Manhattan that would serve as a gathering place forartists from all disciplines. BAC’s opening in 2005 heralded the launch of this mission,establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from around

establishing a thriving creative laboratory and performance space for artists from aroundthe world. BAC’s activities encompass a robust residency program augmented by arange of professional services, including commissions of new work, as well as thepresentation of performances by artists at varying stages of their careers. In tandem withits commitment to supporting artists, BAC is dedicated to building audiences for the artsby presenting contemporary, innovative work at affordable ticket prices. For moreinformation, please visit www.bacnyc.org.

Baryshnikov Arts Center is grateful for the support of its generous individual andinstitutional annual fund donors in 2013.

The AG Foundation, Arison Arts Foundation, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Lisa Rinehart,Bloomberg, Tina and Jeffrey Bolton Family Fund, Catherine Brennan, Clyde Brownstone,Capezio Ballet Makers Dance Foundation, Citizens of Humanity, Frank and MoniqueCordasco, The Irene Diamond Fund, Richard and Jennie DeScherer, Joseph and DianaDiMenna, James H. Duffy, Ehrenkranz Family Foundation, The Enoch Foundation,Barbara Fleischman, Sandra Foschi, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Slavka B.Glaser, Louise Guenther, Agnes Gund, Roger and Joan Hooker, Huong Hoang, TheHoward Gilman Foundation, Danny Kaye and Sylvia Fine Kaye Foundation, Donald M.Kendall, Kent-Lucas Foundation, Jarrett and Maritess Lilien, Jane Lipton, The AndrewW. Mellon Foundation, Mertz Gilmore Foundation, Aidan Mooney, National Endowmentfor the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with CityCouncil, New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor AndrewCuomo and the New York State Legislature, Steven and Michèle Pesner, PrincessGrace Foundation-USA, The Jerome Robbins Foundation, Fan Fox and Leslie R.Samuels Foundation, Dorothy Scheuer, The Shubert Foundation, Christina Sterner, TheThompson Family Foundation, Jennifer Tipton, and Suzanne Weil.

Press Contact: Kristen Miles / [email protected] / 646 731 3221

Facebook social plugin

Add a comment...

Comment using...

THE ART OF AFRICAN DANCE IN HER BEINGON 19 NOVEMBER 2012. POSTED IN LIFE & STYLE

ZZaabb MMaabboouunnggoouu

EEggbbeerrtt GGaayyee

In dancing circles and in the circle of dance, Zab Maboungou is legend.

In the art-form, her talent is matched only by her passion, so when we speak about dance, she takes the listener into a

world where rhythm and moves are the driving forces upon which everything else hinges.

Zab is a dancer, choreographer, musician, author and teacher, and African dance is her world.

It’s been 25 years since she chose to plant her feet on the hallowed ground of Montreal, a city she says that has given

her “space to move.” In so doing, she founded Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata as a way to create,

sustain and share the art of African dance with those around her.

Zab is also an author and philosopher. She has been teaching Western Philosophy at College Montmorency since

around 1982, and is quite adept at putting dance, African dance, in its proper context, locally and internationally.

“African dance has formed the basis for a universal culture,” she told the Montreal Community CONTACT at a recent sit




http://www.montrealcommunitycontact.com/life-style/286-the-art-of-african-dance-in-he...

down in her studios on St. Laurent Street in the heart of the Plateau Montreal.

“So much of what we see around us at the clubs, at parties in street dance

comes from the rhythms of Africa.”

She smiles mischievously when she says: “the power of the (African) rhythm has

contaminated the world.”

That’s why she positioned her company as a cultural bridge to bring together

people interested in the dance.

“At Nyata Nyata, we’re dealing with art… the art of dancing, and that concerns

everyone.”

In the quarter century that she has planted herself onto Montreal’s diverse and

dynamic cultural landscape, Maboungou’s footprint is indelible. In addition to

the thousands of students who have learnt or experienced the art of African

dance under her tutelage, her expertise and knowledge of the art-form have

enlightened the keepers of culture in this city and across Canada.

She is the first African choreographer and dancer to receive grants from the

Canada Arts Council and le Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec, and in 2003

she inaugurated a special program in the study and teaching of African dance in

Quebec with funding from Heritage Canada.

But it is as a dancer/choreographer that Maboungou announced herself to Montreal and Canada, garnering critical

acclaim for her solo works, Reverdanse and Incarnation in the mid 1990s, two pieces that underlined her mastery of the

art of rhythm and body movement.

She remained prolific in her creativity during the past decade with several masterpiece productions for Nyata Nyata

that included Lwáza in 2005 and Montréal by Night in 2010.

The road to becoming Canada’s foremost authority on African dance began in Brazzaville, Congo, where Maboungou

moved as a child with her dad (she was born in Paris).

She began dancing as a child.

“In Africa dance is an intrinsic part of society; it is educational, spiritual and therapeutic… it’s what people do,” she says.

“So I grew up in the midst of dance.”

“Also, I had a lot of questions in my (formative years) following the early passing of my mother and found the answers

in dance.”

Although her career path took her back to Paris where she earned a graduate degree in philosophy, her passion resided

in dance and rhythm.

Through extensive study and training Maboungou mastered the dances, rhythms and musical forms of Mali, Ivory

Coast, and the Senegal-Gambia region, Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. And consolidated her skills by learning from the

great drum-master of Nigeria Babatunde Olatundgi and Congo’s dance icon Lucky Zebila.

Her book, “Heya…Danse! Historique, poétique et didactique de la danse africaine” stands as a foremost source of

information which she says should serve as a foundation for more research.

Today, her expertise in the art-form of dance and rhythm makes her a sought-after authority at conferences, seminars

and other forums on the subjects and regularly taking her across Canada, the U.S., Africa and Europe.

down in her studios on St. Laurent Street in the heart of the Plateau Montreal.

“So much of what we see around us at the clubs, at parties in street dance

comes from the rhythms of Africa.”

She smiles mischievously when she says: “the power of the (African) rhythm has

contaminated the world.”

That’s why she positioned her company as a cultural bridge to bring together

people interested in the dance.

“At Nyata Nyata, we’re dealing with art… the art of dancing, and that concerns

everyone.”

In the quarter century that she has planted herself onto Montreal’s diverse and

dynamic cultural landscape, Maboungou’s footprint is indelible. In addition to

the thousands of students who have learnt or experienced the art of African

dance under her tutelage, her expertise and knowledge of the art-form have

enlightened the keepers of culture in this city and across Canada.

She is the first African choreographer and dancer to receive grants from the

Canada Arts Council and le Conseil des Arts et Lettres du Québec, and in 2003

she inaugurated a special program in the study and teaching of African dance in

Quebec with funding from Heritage Canada.

But it is as a dancer/choreographer that Maboungou announced herself to Montreal and Canada, garnering critical

acclaim for her solo works, Reverdanse and Incarnation in the mid 1990s, two pieces that underlined her mastery of the

art of rhythm and body movement.

She remained prolific in her creativity during the past decade with several masterpiece productions for Nyata Nyata

that included Lwáza in 2005 and Montréal by Night in 2010.

The road to becoming Canada’s foremost authority on African dance began in Brazzaville, Congo, where Maboungou

moved as a child with her dad (she was born in Paris).

She began dancing as a child.

“In Africa dance is an intrinsic part of society; it is educational, spiritual and therapeutic… it’s what people do,” she says.

“So I grew up in the midst of dance.”

“Also, I had a lot of questions in my (formative years) following the early passing of my mother and found the answers

in dance.”

Although her career path took her back to Paris where she earned a graduate degree in philosophy, her passion resided

in dance and rhythm.

Through extensive study and training Maboungou mastered the dances, rhythms and musical forms of Mali, Ivory

Coast, and the Senegal-Gambia region, Guinea, Nigeria and Zimbabwe. And consolidated her skills by learning from the

great drum-master of Nigeria Babatunde Olatundgi and Congo’s dance icon Lucky Zebila.

Her book, “Heya…Danse! Historique, poétique et didactique de la danse africaine” stands as a foremost source of

information which she says should serve as a foundation for more research.

Today, her expertise in the art-form of dance and rhythm makes her a sought-after authority at conferences, seminars

and other forums on the subjects and regularly taking her across Canada, the U.S., Africa and Europe.

TweetTweet

And as Maboungou continues to cement her place on the cultural stomping grounds of Montreal, her primary concern

is to ensure continuity and growth of Nyata Nyata. To that end, she is working to acquire permanent space for the

company in the area.

“This is where we have been for the past 25 years and we’ve become a part of this neighbourhood, a place from which

she will continue the conversation and spread the doctrine of African dance.”

0LikeLike

The Art of African dance in her being - Montreal Community Contact | Serving Quebec's Black and Caribbean community for the past 20 years

HOME INTERVIEWS DCD HOME EXHIBITIONS

Zab Maboungou, choreographer and performer, founded Zab Maboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata in 1986 for the creation andpromotion of her work in a local, national and international context. This prolific artist is active on many fronts: as a choreographer,performer, music composer, author, and teacher of philosophy and dance, she works to develop and promote African dance in Quebec,across Canada and abroad.

In 1995, Maboungou presented the premiere of her solo Reverdance at New York's Lincoln Center. In 1996, the same piece was aresounding success at the Pan-African music festival (FESPAM) in Brazzaville, in the Congo. Her solo work Incantation was presented in anumber of Canadian cities by the CanDance network, including Vancouver, Montreal, Toronto and Halifax, in 1997. The same work had itsAmerican premiere at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., in February 1998, and its Asian premiereat the Pusan ans Taegu International Dance Festival in South Korea in April 1998. It was also programmed during the FestivalInternational de nouvelle danse à Montreal, and at Cameroon's Rencontres théâtrales internationales in 1999, as well as the Italian festival“Nuovo Danza” in November 2000. In May 2001, the piece travelled to Germany. Mozongi, a work for four dancers and two musicians,toured from 1997 to 2001, and was presented at Montreal's Place des Arts in January 2001.



Zab Maboungou - November 2012 http://www.dcd.ca/exhibitions/enterdancing/maboungou1.html

Maboungou has been teaching the technique “Rhythms and Movement” in Montreal for twenty-five years. She has developed a unique styleand teaching method called “the rhythmic of breathing” that she describes in her book Heya… Dance !: an historic, poetic and didactictreatise of African dance. This method has led to a technique involving rhythm, posture and alignment which is named “lokéto”. Maboungouhas also taught Western philosophy at Laval's Collège Montmorency since 1982. Her reputation as an artist, thinker and activist iswell-established, and she has been invited to hold workshops in universities and cultural centres in such locations as Halifax, Toronto,Vancouver, Washington, D.C., Boston, New York, Dakar, Zimbabwe, South Korea, Congo, Cameroon, Ivory Coast and England.

Carol Anderson's conversation with Zab Maboungou took place in Montreal, at the Nyata Nyata Studio, May 31, 2012.

CA: Thank you for finding time to speak with me Zab. Can you describe your journey,deciding to emigrate, and coming to Canada?

ZM: It may not be what is thought of as the usual story of people coming from Africa. I wasnot originally from Africa – I was born in Paris, the dixième arrondissement! But I grew upin Africa. My father was an intellectual, among a generation who were ready to change theworld. He travelled to Europe to study, and was called back to Congo by his government towork on independence and the revolution. He'd met my mother, a French woman, inFrance, and my brothers and I were all born in France. Very early on in my life, we all wentback to Africa.

By the age of five I was in Congo – that's really where I grew up, until I went back to Francebecause of a political coup. My life has really been directed by politics, and that is notunique. A lot of African people basically follow paths that are pre-written by the history ofcolonization, because of the colonialist relationship with France, or England or Portugal.That is very important, because now we refer to “post-colonialism”, and we're still in it,really. The more things grow, the more we can see the effects of colonialist history.

How did I come to Canada? It was a love story! I was in Paris, already studying philosophy,and met a Québécois there – a Québécois who insisted that he was Québécois before beingCanadian. I was trying to understand what that meant – it was really new to me. Finally hesaid, “Come to my country” – and I came.

I came to Canada, then returned to France, and then I came back again to Quebec; that wasin the 1980s. I don't remember travelling at any time in my life without looking for places todance, finding out where dance happens. When I came to Montreal, there was reallynothing; in terms of African dance, it was still new territory for dance. It was really thepeople who drew me – and I was still studying, working for my diploma in philosophy. Newpossibilities drew me. Another aspect was the travel – since as a child, emigrating fromFrance to Africa, I started travelling at a very young age. To me, the world was my place; itwas really not exceptional for me to travel to another place, in that sense. What is special ismeeting the people and the culture – but anyplace is my place, I just have to be there, to learn and share. It's a form of dance – travelling anddancing signify a lot in my life.


Zab Maboungou - November 2012



















I find that dance becomes my story – physically, concretely, objectively speaking – as well as in a more idealistic aspect, a projection of whatthings could be. I move, and dance is the way to find where I am – or where I am not. This is something I probably discovered in Congo. Bythe age of twelve or thirteen – and I was in Congo at the time – I knew that dance was going to embody my growth; and I kept it for myself.Dance is something obvious in Africa – it's so obvious that I could not identify it as a project. No. So, I knew that, but I kept dance withinmyself, because it was very important. I realized that it was something very very very fundamental, so fundamental that I had to be secretiveabout it. And the age of twelve or thirteen is when you want to be secretive. Also, I didn't have a mother – my mother died when I was at anearly age; and I had learned to keep to myself, in order to create myself in my life. So this is what dance meant for me, identity and growth.

When I came here, I did the same thing; I travelled with this idea of dance, kept for myself – ready to share, but also kept to myself. I still do –I still hold it close. I know it sounds funny, because I'm on the stage all the time – but I keep it to myself; this is what I do. This connection todance needs to evolve, and it needs to be challenged. So I need that space inside, where I can evolve myself and not let just anybody in, saying“Why did you do this?” or “Oh, that's nice!” Keep that space. As long as you don't close it for yourself, it's your space – it's an inside space.Keep it open, the air has to come in, but keep it there. It's something that you need to move inside, in order to move outside.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Reverdanse

I started dancing in Africa. Dance was all around me – everywhere, all the time – with the life, with the people. My mother died there. This isa huge event in Africa. You don't go to a funeral for one or two days. This is one thing that is strange to aliens. Non-Africans may be waitingfor their employees to come back to work, thinking, “Come on, people die all the time!” and they're shocked when two weeks after a death, thefamilies are still in the village. In Africa, death is not about “Let's get on with it.” Death is about life. Death is actually about organizing life, inAfrica. I saw this many times. I saw this when my mother died, and in other families – days and nights of dancing and singing, eventshappening; we were in the middle, we were surrounded by this, all the time. Plus, this was a country that had declared its independence, asdid many African countries - the 1960s were years of African independence. It goes with the civil rights movement in the USA, and even the



I find that dance becomes my story – physically, concretely, objectively speaking – as well as in a more idealistic aspect, a projection of whatthings could be. I move, and dance is the way to find where I am – or where I am not. This is something I probably discovered in Congo. Bythe age of twelve or thirteen – and I was in Congo at the time – I knew that dance was going to embody my growth; and I kept it for myself.Dance is something obvious in Africa – it's so obvious that I could not identify it as a project. No. So, I knew that, but I kept dance withinmyself, because it was very important. I realized that it was something very very very fundamental, so fundamental that I had to be secretiveabout it. And the age of twelve or thirteen is when you want to be secretive. Also, I didn't have a mother – my mother died when I was at anearly age; and I had learned to keep to myself, in order to create myself in my life. So this is what dance meant for me, identity and growth.

When I came here, I did the same thing; I travelled with this idea of dance, kept for myself – ready to share, but also kept to myself. I still do –I still hold it close. I know it sounds funny, because I'm on the stage all the time – but I keep it to myself; this is what I do. This connection todance needs to evolve, and it needs to be challenged. So I need that space inside, where I can evolve myself and not let just anybody in, saying“Why did you do this?” or “Oh, that's nice!” Keep that space. As long as you don't close it for yourself, it's your space – it's an inside space.Keep it open, the air has to come in, but keep it there. It's something that you need to move inside, in order to move outside.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Reverdanse

I started dancing in Africa. Dance was all around me – everywhere, all the time – with the life, with the people. My mother died there. This isa huge event in Africa. You don't go to a funeral for one or two days. This is one thing that is strange to aliens. Non-Africans may be waitingfor their employees to come back to work, thinking, “Come on, people die all the time!” and they're shocked when two weeks after a death, thefamilies are still in the village. In Africa, death is not about “Let's get on with it.” Death is about life. Death is actually about organizing life, inAfrica. I saw this many times. I saw this when my mother died, and in other families – days and nights of dancing and singing, eventshappening; we were in the middle, we were surrounded by this, all the time. Plus, this was a country that had declared its independence, asdid many African countries - the 1960s were years of African independence. It goes with the civil rights movement in the USA, and even the



fight for Quebec. Quebec at the time was very much attuned to Africa, and even activities of the Black Panthers, because they were followingevents worldwide; there was this movement for change happening in the whole world.

I was very aware of social change, because my father was very much into it. He met CheGuevera, and many other people connected to ideas of transforming the world, andquestioning culture; questioning power relationships in the world, and therefore culturalrelationships. Since my mother was French and my father was Congolese, I was right in themiddle of it. Influenced by the example of the Chinese declaration of the need for a culturalrevolution, there was a cultural revolution in Congo. Leaders said, “We need to payattention to our traditions.” The good intentions of the time said, “We need to purge what isbad, and keep what is good of our traditions.” Who would not say that of any tradition? Inorder to achieve these good intentions, a lot of attention was paid to music, of course, andto oral history, as a way of telling time, and being in time. With good intentions, my father,who was an intellectual, really exposed us to a wide cultural range. We attended lectures,heard music, went to literary events as children, so I was educated in that aspect also.

So – through history, stories, life, death and transformation, and through culturaltransformation – this is how I entered dance.

At a very young age I participated in the circle of dance; this was traditional dance whereyou were allowed to participate. I discovered very early on, at seven or eight, that I wasequal to an eighty-year-old person when it came to the circle of dance. It was important forme to feel that equality – I had already been stripped of power myself, with my mothergone, and it was hard for my brothers and I to situate ourselves; we were “part”, mixed-racechildren learning to situate ourselves in a world where everyone says, “So, you're half this,you're half that.…” Half is very hard to understand.

So all of this was already there, present for me, immediately, right in the middle of the circle. I was small – and I know I haven't grown somuch – and then I knew my true home was right there. Dance told me everything there is to know. And that hasn't changed. That idea hasn'tchanged, and I'm very pleased that I still do have a memory of something, when I was so young, that is still as fresh, and mysterious andpowerful as it was then.

For the immigrant that I became, dance was definitely home.

When I came to Quebec, there was no African dance. I started it … I know it's funny to say, when I came, everybody told me there were nouniversity programs of study, and you can't apply here or there, we don't know your form of dance, and there's nothing for you. You mightthink, okay, better to go back where you came from. But I stayed, because of the people who were interested in the dance, not because of theinstitutions. (next page)



I need to make a difference. My life has showed me enough that institutions are one thing,people are another – society tells you what you need to do. I needed to try something on myown, even though one could think that I was not really supported. But I was open –someone would ask me, and I would teach them. What it really was, was defining the way tointroduce my dance in Quebec.

At the beginning it was confusing. I spoke French, yet many thought I was from the USA,because I was black. They understood that only a black person who is Haitian could speakFrench. To Quebeckers, black people were either Haitian, or English-speaking black people.I didn't fit any of that. Then there were the Québécois themselves, for whom I spoke Frenchtoo much like the French! All of that took some adjustment. I'm still working on theseadjustments, because it actually reflects a whole position of society – toward immigration,toward people coming from elsewhere.

As I said, when I came, there was not much African dance. So I looked for Haitian people,mainly; this was the form of dance that was closer. Haitian people actually do share a lot withCongolese people because of slavery. A lot of Haitian slaves came from Benin, Congo andNigeria – so Congo is a big part of Haitian culture. I could recognize the rhythms. Rhythmswere the key – you ask the drummer to play, and you know. You can recognize the rhythms,they are really languages, they tell us about ethnic groups, and how they have travelled inAmerica and in the world, until the present day. This has been a big part of my research andexploration. Also, I began to really insist, to say, you need to understand what rhythms are.This is not something integral or genetic in black people's makeup – it's culture. That waspart of my big struggle here. It was with these types of arguments that I approached theinstitutions.

I first started teaching for people who asked me. I was not worried about whether I was going to perform, or whatever … for me dance isdance. You dance. First, you dance. And last, you dance. What happens in between you have to act with that. Presenting a more complex viewof the relationship to tradition, not only in Africa, but in the world, has been a big part of my struggle.

Dance is the beginning of intention in the human being. Dance is intelligent, it's fundamentally intelligent. I don't even negotiate that, it issomething I am so convinced of. When I talk about tradition, and the strong tradition of dance in Africa, I am full of admiration because it's sorich, so sophisticated in terms of educating the psycho-somatic – the body, the mind, how to place ourselves into the world – which is whyAfrican dance has been one of my main centres. People say – and I keep saying – that it is about how to present yourself in the world. I haveto come back to this because that's all I do – making sure I'm present, I'm into the world. Not above. Not under! I keep telling my dancers “Weare preparing our death. The more we dance the more we are preparing for our death, because we need to make the soil rich.…” This is what Ibelieve. This is what I feel.

mainly; this was the form of dance that was closer. Haitian people actually do share a lot withCongolese people because of slavery. A lot of Haitian slaves came from Benin, Congo andNigeria – so Congo is a big part of Haitian culture. I could recognize the rhythms. Rhythmswere the key – you ask the drummer to play, and you know. You can recognize the rhythms,they are really languages, they tell us about ethnic groups, and how they have travelled inAmerica and in the world, until the present day. This has been a big part of my research andexploration. Also, I began to really insist, to say, you need to understand what rhythms are.This is not something integral or genetic in black people's makeup – it's culture. That waspart of my big struggle here. It was with these types of arguments that I approached theinstitutions.

I first started teaching for people who asked me. I was not worried about whether I was going to perform, or whatever … for me dance isdance. You dance. First, you dance. And last, you dance. What happens in between you have to act with that. Presenting a more complex viewof the relationship to tradition, not only in Africa, but in the world, has been a big part of my struggle.

Dance is the beginning of intention in the human being. Dance is intelligent, it's fundamentally intelligent. I don't even negotiate that, it issomething I am so convinced of. When I talk about tradition, and the strong tradition of dance in Africa, I am full of admiration because it's sorich, so sophisticated in terms of educating the psycho-somatic – the body, the mind, how to place ourselves into the world – which is whyAfrican dance has been one of my main centres. People say – and I keep saying – that it is about how to present yourself in the world. I haveto come back to this because that's all I do – making sure I'm present, I'm into the world. Not above. Not under! I keep telling my dancers “Weare preparing our death. The more we dance the more we are preparing for our death, because we need to make the soil rich.…” This is what Ibelieve. This is what I feel.

Paying a lot of attention to tradition means using rhythms, as a way of reading. Mais, c'estplus qu'une lecture. But it is more than reading. It's about decoding, it's more than aboutreading a text. Decoding, with your self, with your body, as your body carries your life.Rhythms are keys to understanding culture – sophisticated and unique. There's nothinglike the rhythms. This was my approach. I developed a way to get at it while I was here. Ithought – am I going to work for these Westerners, who don't understand rhythm, or havethese ideas of rhythm that are really very simplistic – or am I going to work for everyone.Well, I work for everyone. Make sure that you make it exact, for everyone, which has meantthat when I go back to Congo, what I have developed here has to bring something newthere, too. My technique did that … bridged and opened communication. I was able tocommunicate so that everybody advances.

CA: Can you speak about the elements of your communication?

ZM: Rhythm, posture and alignment for dance. I was breaking down the idea of rhythm.Everyone has rhythm, because they are living. The rhythms have personalities – I call thempersonalities. The rhythms are personalities of time. That's why they suit the human being,because they are constructed through the drum. If you look at a drum, it's like a person –you look at it and it's impressive, as it is really like a person. It has a skin, a body and holes.When you drum the drum, you're drumming the human being – and the dancer is a

Zab Maboungou 2 http://www.dcd.ca/exhibitions/enterdancing/maboungou2.html

Zab Maboungou 2

musician.

As you develop this idea of how postures are also rhythmical structures, you identifythem, and then learn to manipulate those postures. You use the structures as a way to bein time, based on three points: Lo – the feet; Ke – the knee; To – the hips. “Lokéto” refersto the pelvis in Lingala. I thought such a term was important for all dancers of the worldand I also used it as an onomatopoeia in order to sing the rhythms.

Rhythm is about phrases of time – articulated time in us, which refers to the breath andour weight. Your breath and your weight are literally defined by rhythms. Whether you'rejoyful, angry, happy, excited, peaceful, quiet, there are three moments: Lo, the departure (the fundamental and the grounding); Ke, thetransition (shifting the weight); To, the return (breath and openness). So you depart, you transit, you arrive. And then you depart again, youtransit, then you arrive … to death! This pattern literally defines everything that happens. This is the human dance – you cannot go beyondthat.

At first people have an “idea” about how African dance looks; they don't engage the body, because they're controlling with the mind. Butreally, it's about articulating your whole body. When you work with the body, it's based on what happens in the body. When I started teachingthe classes with the drum, people started to understand the importance of rhythms. The result was clear – it was easy for me to see the validityof that technique.

So this was my contribution, this was my challenge, this was my way of giving sense to this travelling of mine – changing country, changingculture, but dancing.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Incantation

CA: Can you speak about the elements of your communication?

ZM: Rhythm, posture and alignment for dance. I was breaking down the idea of rhythm.Everyone has rhythm, because they are living. The rhythms have personalities – I call thempersonalities. The rhythms are personalities of time. That's why they suit the human being,because they are constructed through the drum. If you look at a drum, it's like a person –you look at it and it's impressive, as it is really like a person. It has a skin, a body and holes.When you drum the drum, you're drumming the human being – and the dancer is a

musician.

As you develop this idea of how postures are also rhythmical structures, you identifythem, and then learn to manipulate those postures. You use the structures as a way to bein time, based on three points: Lo – the feet; Ke – the knee; To – the hips. “Lokéto” refersto the pelvis in Lingala. I thought such a term was important for all dancers of the worldand I also used it as an onomatopoeia in order to sing the rhythms.

Rhythm is about phrases of time – articulated time in us, which refers to the breath andour weight. Your breath and your weight are literally defined by rhythms. Whether you'rejoyful, angry, happy, excited, peaceful, quiet, there are three moments: Lo, the departure (the fundamental and the grounding); Ke, thetransition (shifting the weight); To, the return (breath and openness). So you depart, you transit, you arrive. And then you depart again, youtransit, then you arrive … to death! This pattern literally defines everything that happens. This is the human dance – you cannot go beyondthat.

At first people have an “idea” about how African dance looks; they don't engage the body, because they're controlling with the mind. Butreally, it's about articulating your whole body. When you work with the body, it's based on what happens in the body. When I started teachingthe classes with the drum, people started to understand the importance of rhythms. The result was clear – it was easy for me to see the validityof that technique.

So this was my contribution, this was my challenge, this was my way of giving sense to this travelling of mine – changing country, changingculture, but dancing.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Incantation


Zab Maboungou 2


previous page

ZM: All of this was a struggle. It had a lot to do with the ideological aspect of what peoplethought African dance was.

I had no choice but to do solo dances in order to counteract this effect, in order to showsomething besides a lot of African people on stage with a lot of energy and drums. Andwhen I went back to Congo, and danced solo, the people there saw this as a statement. Andactually, people paid attention to the solo performances everywhere and on all continents.

Little by little dancers paid attention, and said, “Okay, I'm interested to learn this. I seewhat she's doing. Can I take your training?” and so on. It was a chance to open up a newway of looking at African dance and therefore dance in general. It took a bunch ofaficionados, people who followed, who took my classes. I trained some people from thebeginning, and they came to really understand the challenge. This is how ZabMaboungou/Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata came about.

CA: Can you speak about your relationship with musicians?

ZM: The drummers! Musicians, you know, operate in another realm. You have to look atthe difficulty of inserting oneself into the world of art and culture, especially when you arebeing put in the container of “world music”. I know a lot of musicians, I'm sort of a mentor– I give a lot of advice on how to operate as musicians and artists, knowing, of course, someof the issues, musically speaking but also in terms of the musical world. So yes, I work a lotwith musicians.

Drummers occupy a special territory. In the traditions of Africa, they're almost like amedium – they're at the heart of the circle of the dance, of the music, of communicatingwith the spirits. The drum holds that.

Often though, these drummers suffer from being alienated socially by a mentality thatconsiders drumming as a tradition from the past that has no value in this modern world.

When they arrive here they see that everyone knows the drum but nobody understands anything of it. In African tradition, the drum is notjust the foundation, it is the music and it is the life. That says a lot about the complexity of choreographing with a contemporary frame ofmind.

I came from Central Africa. Djembes (which are widely known here) are from West Africa – their high sound is what most people know, herein Canada and in the USA. Congo drum sound is deeper – Haitian rhythms are more like this. So of course I chose Haitian musicians beforeWest Africans. That in itself is interesting – as an immigrant coming from Africa, I was not necessarily going to work with Africans; I workedwith Caribbean people, who have retained certain rhythms more, and are more connected to those than African people of today. This is veryimportant because it tells a story of the travelling of the rhythms, of the cultures. And this is the type of story that I've really tried to honour, Iwould say, in the way I made contact, in the way I organize the art, in the way I approach creation, in the way I work on encounters. This iswhat we do with our international dance and drum workshop every year in July. We bring here many traditions that have evolved and areinterconnected. Our workshop presents dance forms, as well as their techniques, that move from the traditional to the contemporary.

CA: Can you speak about tradition's place in your creative process?

ZM: I like digging more than spreading. For some reason, that, for me, resonates muchmore in terms of creation, to dig rather than spreading yourself all over the place. It's funnyfrom someone who has been all over – I mean, I've lived on three continents. I keep onmoving. But it's always, for me, about digging. So you dig – and then, things come up.

The understanding of what rhythms are is long coming. I've been to enough conferences, allover the world, to know that not many people talk about what I'm talking about – I'mprobably one of the only ones.

Share | ShareShareShareShare



Zab Maboungou 3


previous page
















Zab Maboungou 3

When I first came to Canada, the idea of a technique met with resistance. People would say, “This is African dance, why is there so muchdiscipline?” And if I were to be contemporary, many people thought it needed to be a fusion with Western dance. Instead, to me, beingcontemporary meant that I was exploring these African forms. Africa was its own world. Its modernity was never the same as in the West.Contemporaneity deals with the way people live everywhere, the way their society is organized, and so on.

CA: Can you speak about your early dances? (next page)


Zab Maboungou 2

I was in Africa as an artistic counselor for the MASA - an African market for the live arts. Iwas designated as an artistic counselor by the Minister of Culture of Ivory Coast to guidethem in artistic choices regarding dance, choreography and so on. I organized the firstpan-African choreographic workshop in Africa, back in the 1990s. When I came toperform with the drum, the African choreographers were already using DJ's, synthesizers– that was the fashion. As a contemporary choreographer, for me the drum has remaineda strong symbol and a powerful tool. But whatever you do make sure that the symbolsomehow carries something that is not just decoration. So it's been a challenge, it's still achallenge, but I can see that people now pay attention to rhythms differently.

I've been trained to the drum. Anything I do, even in silence, emanates from that. To betrained by the drum doesn't mean to do technique “with a lot of energy”: it's an art ofdialoguing, it's an art of conversing with time. It's an art of being able to see the precisetime that's your life.

CA: Can you comment on changes you have perceived and experienced?

ZM: There's a shift, but it's painful – it's hard. I'm in Quebec – it's still very tough – anytime you don't pay attention, you start again. Now, I see my relaises (successors), peopleI've trained, not only the second generation but the generation after that. Now the ones Itrained are seeing their second generation.

Quebec has its own struggle with Canada, with the world – but with Canada, mainly. We're at this point where people have admitted thatthere are things to discuss. Not to intellectualize art so much that we're unable to reach out and converse with people.

I've been working on myself in ways that are artistic and academic, while engaging with the various communities. I had to do all of thatbecause it's me, because it reflects my life. So much had to be done – so much still has to be done: it took twenty years to expect to have morethan half black students in my classes – before that, it was all white. To me, cultural diversity means to have black people in my class! They'rethe ones who don't come – there's this attitude – “She's African, what is she going to teach us? I'm from Haiti, I'm from Martinique, I'm fromBarbados …” That was also the work, to reconnect with Caribbean people but also the African American, in order to show the links, and todiscuss this movement in the world that one can call diaspora. And to celebrate – because dance celebrates. It indicates that your body isjoyful enough to move. Joy is not happiness, it's a spiritual state.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Décompte

It's who you are. That is true rhythm: the very simple and very modest art of being in and into world. That is magic. That's really what I wantand hope to attain with people, with dancers.


Zab Maboungou 3


previous page
















Zab Maboungou 3

Resources: http://www.nyata-nyata.org


Zab Maboungou 3

I was in Africa as an artistic counselor for the MASA - an African market for the live arts. Iwas designated as an artistic counselor by the Minister of Culture of Ivory Coast to guidethem in artistic choices regarding dance, choreography and so on. I organized the firstpan-African choreographic workshop in Africa, back in the 1990s. When I came toperform with the drum, the African choreographers were already using DJ's, synthesizers– that was the fashion. As a contemporary choreographer, for me the drum has remaineda strong symbol and a powerful tool. But whatever you do make sure that the symbolsomehow carries something that is not just decoration. So it's been a challenge, it's still achallenge, but I can see that people now pay attention to rhythms differently.

I've been trained to the drum. Anything I do, even in silence, emanates from that. To betrained by the drum doesn't mean to do technique “with a lot of energy”: it's an art ofdialoguing, it's an art of conversing with time. It's an art of being able to see the precisetime that's your life.

CA: Can you comment on changes you have perceived and experienced?

ZM: There's a shift, but it's painful – it's hard. I'm in Quebec – it's still very tough – anytime you don't pay attention, you start again. Now, I see my relaises (successors), peopleI've trained, not only the second generation but the generation after that. Now the ones Itrained are seeing their second generation.

Quebec has its own struggle with Canada, with the world – but with Canada, mainly. We're at this point where people have admitted thatthere are things to discuss. Not to intellectualize art so much that we're unable to reach out and converse with people.

I've been working on myself in ways that are artistic and academic, while engaging with the various communities. I had to do all of thatbecause it's me, because it reflects my life. So much had to be done – so much still has to be done: it took twenty years to expect to have morethan half black students in my classes – before that, it was all white. To me, cultural diversity means to have black people in my class! They'rethe ones who don't come – there's this attitude – “She's African, what is she going to teach us? I'm from Haiti, I'm from Martinique, I'm fromBarbados …” That was also the work, to reconnect with Caribbean people but also the African American, in order to show the links, and todiscuss this movement in the world that one can call diaspora. And to celebrate – because dance celebrates. It indicates that your body isjoyful enough to move. Joy is not happiness, it's a spiritual state.

Excerpt from Maboungou's Décompte

It's who you are. That is true rhythm: the very simple and very modest art of being in and into world. That is magic. That's really what I wantand hope to attain with people, with dancers.


Zab Maboungou 3

DANSE CONTEMPORAINE AFRICAINEEN TROIS TEMPS10-06-2010

DANSE CONTEMPORAINE AFRICAINE EN TROIS TEMPSpar Yves Alavo

Dans nos répertoires comme dans les lexiques et autres encyclopédiesqui traitent de sujets divers, les définitions sont encore celles de la pratique ethno centréeoccidentale. Cette vieille méthode consistant à ne voir de mentions ou de références qu’enfonction d’une certaine idée de la culture européenne ou nord-américaine, semble d’autant plusdésuète que la réalité « mondialisante » nous offre, avec l’instantanéité des moyens decommunication et l’interactivité croissante et galopante, une vision bien plus dynamique etcohérente de nos représentations et de la production culturelle internationale.

Coup sur coup, à Montréal, les publics, les amateurs de danse et les artistes eux-mêmes,avons eu l’immense privilège de vivre trois importantes créations en danse contemporaine.D’abord à la SAT (Société des arts technologiques), de Zab Maboungou / Compagnie danseNyata Nyata, au cœur de mai Montréal by Night, notre premier volet. Ensuite, deuxspectacles dans le cadre du FTA (Festival Transamériques), de Faustin Linyekula /studiosKabako, Kisangani, début juin, More More More… Future et dans la foulée, de Seydou Boro +Salia Sanou, Ouagadougou, Poussières de sang, les deuxième et troisième volets dutriptique.

Voici les meilleures circonstances pour nous faire une tête et apprécier les talentschorégraphiques et l’immense qualité des danseurs/danseuses, artistes de la totalité (arts de lascène, danse, musique, théâtre, poésie, images et rythmes).

Un trait commun à ces créations, letonus créatif et cette maîtrise hors pairde l’art chorégraphique où instrumentshumains, instruments et élémentsmusicaux, paramètres spatio-temporelssont mis en synchronisation avec lesémotions, mis en accord avec le verbeet coordonnés avec la lumière visuelleet sonore.

Premier temps : Montréal by Night

Zab Maboungou / Compagnie danse Nyata Nyata s’est donnée pour objectif d’explorer l’art dela danse dans son rapport au temps. Toniques et stimulantes, les chorégraphies de ZabMaboungou dégagent une force physique et un élan mental qui saisissent et libèrent notreimagination. Le travail rythmique sert à la fois de matière et de canevas pour la création de sesœuvres «poétiques». Alliant musicalité et structuralisme symbolique, les créations de lachorégraphe et philosophe Zab Maboungou, multiplient les thématiques sur le temps.Obsession qui confère à la durée une densité ontologique rare.Texture verbale et esthétique fantastique/onirique/dramatique, convergent en une matièremétamorphique irradiée par la « gestalt négro-africaine », code transmis qui inscrit un mytheancestral dans l’univers contemporain et dans l’imaginaire de la création chorégraphique. Sagestuelle à l’énergie expansive et au pouvoir méditatif coordonné s’approprie et interrogel’espace scénique qu’occupent musiciens et danseurs d’origine et de formations diverses.Cette diffusion énergétique bouscule les structures idéologiques, balaient les conventionsculturelles et sociales ainsi que les statuts politiques de l’environnement de la création, sansoublier les spécificités du lieu de la production et agit comme invention radicale dans lelaboratoire virtuel que devient la scène.

Montréal by Night œuvre d’inspirationpoétique, œuvre projetée qui se veutune fresque composée comme unenchevêtrement de fables dont lemouvement sert de contrepoint à untableau non pas fictif mais en devenir,est une création de la maturité.

Danse africaine contemporaine etgestuelle traditionnelle, selon les labelsofficiels, Montréal by Night innovedans sa dimension technique etartistique : verticalité, agglomérationkinesthésique qui pourrait être une

kinesthésique qui pourrait être unekinésithérapie sociale, vocabulaire

déstructurant /structurant en soutien à une rythmique et à une gestuelle traditionnelles commecontrepoids aux mouvements d’avant-garde.

« Les histoires, si elles en sont, sontautrement “dites” » énonce ZabMaboungou. Dans la mise en forme,encore cette fois, comme sur le fond,les liens sont intimes. Montréal bynight parle de « montréalités » ou decomment des corps et des lieux sereprésentent et se proposent enmouvement dans l’écologie urbaine.Dans la ville, la danse est ouvrière dela nuit ; à la fois énergie et relais desprésences qui se côtoient, balfrénétique des exclusions qui seconjuguent et deviennent le fermentdes lieux qui l’habitent.

Dessinant de multiples parcours etpistes et traçant des diagonalesbrisées, la musique et la danse deMontréal by night appuient uneœuvre, mettent en relief des situationsscandaleuses, dénoncent les abuscorporatifs et les viols devenus légaux,d’un commun vouloir de vie communeoù les individualités sont clairementexprimées tout autant que leursolidarité. Le message est enracinédans le quotidien des citoyennes etdes citoyens, la révolte sourde face aucynisme et à une dictatureadministrative qui a corrompu les âmes

et les corps. Les gestes de la danse disent la collusion qui blesse les corps sociaux ainsi quela démission qui régit les âmes, figures de l’éthique violée, le chaos vécu ouvre la porte auxvagues d’espoir dans une rédemption qui surgit avec la musique instrumentale. Aux absencesde lumière du début de la pièce, suivent des éclats rafraîchissants, magie du DJ Elli MillerMaboungou et des accords séquentiels sous la houlette de Marc Keyevuh, sublime vertige jaillidu violoncelle de Jean-Christophe Lizotte.

Montréal by night est une rencontrecélébrée des corps, une sarabandeacrobatique des lieux et des rêves, tantartistiques que sociaux, économique etpolitiques, une valse nouvelle danséepar Jacob Cino, Karla Etienne, GamaFonseca, Marielle Mencé, OdessaThornhill, interprètes dévoués quidonnent, singuliers et pluriels, vie aulivret textuel, chorégraphique etmusical de Zab, avec la complicité deJacques Pilon, maître éclairagiste,complice attentif. Montréal by night révèle Montréal à elle-même. Ville désormais ancréedans sa spécificité de pivot urbain moderne de la danse contemporaine, vivier ouvert auxinfluences multiples des créateurs venus d’ailleurs pour des noces métissées.Yves ALAVO

Photos : Julia Haurio, Touki MontréalZab Maboungou / Compagnie danse Nyata NyataChorégraphie et composition musicale : Zab MaboungouMusiciens : Marc Keyevuh, Jean-Christophe Lizotte, Elli Miller MaboungouDanseurs : Jacob Cino, Karla Etienne, Gama Fonseca, Marielle Mencé, Odessa ThornhillCostumes : Zab MaboungouÉclairage : Jacques PilonPhoto : Pierre Manning, ShootstudioLien : http://www.nyata-nyata.org/fr_01_presentation.php

DossierPresseNyataQrk-juil10:DossierPresseNyataQrk-octobre05 15/07/10 15:02 Page 4

-Montreal by Night is a new work by Zab Maboungou, a local veteran choreographer who draws onthe dance heritage of her native Africa to create contemporary works with marked traditions. At atime when exotic cultures are often merely tagged on toWestern works, Maboungou utilizes hersources with artistic integrity. The five dancers of her Nyata Nyata Dance Company are accompaniedby three musicians. Shows tonight and tomorrow at 8 p.m. at SAT, 1195 St. Laurent Blvd. Tickets,$23 plus tax. Call 514-844-2033 or 514-849-9781. (VS)

Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/What/3054615/story.html#ixzz0yCmqjY36

Danse - Zab Maboungou: danser avec les ombres et la villeCatherine Lalonde 19 mai 2010 DanseÀ retenir

Montréal by nightde Zab Maboungou.À la SAT, à Montréal, du 19 au 22 mai.

«Je suis une Africaine, je fais de la danse africaine contemporaine.» Si elle est à Montréal depuis plus de 30 ans, pas ques-tion pour Zab Maboungou, Congolaise d'origine, de céder au discours sur le métissage des styles et cultures. AvecMontréal by night, pour cinq interprètes, elle fait danser les corps, les ombres et la ville.

«Je suis une métisse, sur le plan biologique comme culturel. J'ai vécu partout et je n'ai jamais joué la carte du métissage.C'est une mode, comme toutes les modes...» Bien au contraire, la tête de la compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata affirme sesracines africaines, profondément.

Après Dé/libérés, son dernier solo créé l'an dernier, elle cède la scène et dessine un quintette. Une façon de faire propreà son parcours qui alterne pièces de groupes et solos. «Je m'inspire des musiques africaines traditionnelles, de cettestructure question-réponse qu'on retrouve dans la musique à rythme. Une structure qui permet la circularité dans lamanière de concevoir la musique et que j'applique à la façon dont je pense la chorégraphie.» Un système qui fonctionnebien pour elle et qui permet toutes incartades, «car je peux le court-circuiter sans trahir le principe. Il peut y avoir uneréponse compliquée à une question compliquée, comme il peut y avoir une asymétrie».

Aussi philosophe de formation et professeure, Maboungou a sur sa danse une pensée claire et des réponses sûres. Ellesigne, autres cordes à son arc, les costumes et la musique de Montréal by night. Pour elle, le rythme est l'os de la danse.Inséparable de l'acte même. «Je travaille avec des danseurs d'origines et de formations différentes. Donnez-moi descorps divers, je fais le pari de faire quelque chose avec ça! Là, je fais une ville. Une ville comme métaphore et commeréalité. Je regarde les corps habitants. Comment ils parcourent le lieu, mais aussi comment le lieu les parcourt.»

À ses danseurs, elle dit: «Ne faites surtout pas ce que vous savez faire! Il faut s'inventer chaque fois, reprendre le risque.Et le paradoxe, c'est en même temps de s'adresser à ce que l'on sait faire, pour extirper quelque chose de soi.» Et ce «bynight», dans le titre? «J'adore la nuit, j'y vis, j'y travaille, j'aime la solitude nocturne», admet celle qui connaît ses sommetsd'inspiration entre 3h et 4h du matin. «Il y a aussi mes origines culturelles: en Afrique, la nuit est importante. On seretrouve, des centaines, pour danser, à l'extérieur. On peut être 200 à danser, sans se marcher sur les pieds. Les ombresdeviennent une référence essentielle. Et on danse avec elles.»

***

Collaboratrice du Devoir

Maisonneuve | Interview with Zab Maboungou

mai 20, 2010

INTERVIEW WITH ZAB MABOUNGOUby AMELIA SCHONBEK

Zab Maboungou founded her contemporaryAfrican dance company, Cercle d'ExpressionArtistique Nyata Nyata, in Montréal in 1986. Itwas a time when African dance was situatedfirmly on the fringes of the contemporary dancescene. In the twenty-four years since, she hasgrown the company into a well-known and well-loved organization that’s housed in a large, two-storey loft space on Boulevard St. Laurent. Athoughtful philosopher as much as she is anexpansive performer, Maboungou spoke with mein advance of the premiere of her latest work,Montréal by night.

Amelia Schonbek: You've really been a pioneerof the development of contemporary Africandance in Canada. Can you talk a bit aboutconceptions of African dance and its place in the Canadian contemporary dance scenewhen you began to work here, in the mid-80s?

Zab Maboungou: When I arrived [African dance] was quite unknown, basically. Iwas told quite immediately that there was no place for me because the art of Africandance just didn't mean anything, either for the public or the institutions. And reallysome people [were] just as straight as this. So I decided to just do it on my own as atrue immigrant. You know, “don't wait, just do.” And you are actually in the studio thatis the result of such a choice and decision. It was like, “we have to find a place wherewe can really evolve and start doing things. Otherwise we're just going to be like lesitenerants,” you know, moving all over the place, not really having a base. So that's howit all started.

And then it took, what, I'd say ten or twelve years before I got a grant that would allowme to just research my material – the minimum. Before we started being taken as aserious contemporary dance company, it took even longer. And one of the reasons wasthat I was claiming to be a contemporary African dancer, but not based on the ideasthat people had either of contemporary dance or of African dance. I told myself that if Icouldn't come up with a method that would be able to really allow people to be trainedin the way I thought they should be trained, I would still be stuck with the idea of theAfrican tradition, and not be able to evolve from it.

I started training dancers and formed my own company and came up with achoreographic technique that is unique and expresses what I feel is important. It is achallenge, because it's basically telling people, “there is something you have to learnthat you don't know. You think you know it because you have access, historically, to acertain kind of cultural material that you think you understand.” But historically,

certain kind of cultural material that you think you understand.” But historically,[conceptions of African dance] are very Eurocentric, and therefore unless you comefrom your own point of view there's no way things can evolve. That's what I've beentrying to do.

AS: Have attitudes changed over the past twenty-five years that you’ve been working inCanada?

ZM: Today, when people interview me, there are no more exotic, stupid questions like"Oh, what do you do with the drums," and on and on. Still today when I performpeople will ask me, "do you [choreograph] this, or is this improvised?" Even when youdo something that's really structured, some people are convinced that it's totallyimprovised and that we just let ourselves go onstage, you know? So these are views thatwe still have to counteract.

There was a strong idea in my family of new African culture, culture that had to payattention to what came before in order to embrace the future. This idea never left me. Itgave me a strong idea of where you come from, that you never move forward withoutknowing and understanding and re-questioning where you come from. It makes mevery aware of the fact that people invent culture. There is no essence that you are bornwith and so on. Yes, we do come from specific cultural surroundings, but [culture]moves, it transforms itself, it can be questioned, it can be reviewed. You can't justaccept history as it's been given to you.

AS: It’s very common to ask contemporary choreographers who work with ethnic danceforms about location – about how place has influenced their work. Do you think it’s avalid question to keep asking?

ZM: Depending on how it is asked, sometimes it's valid and sometimes it's not so valid.Of course, when people move, they're influenced. Whatever we do, we're influenced byit. When it comes to contemporary dance - you have to expect that people are not onlyinfluenced by, but that they purposefully pay attention to other ways, other forms ofmoving.

AS: Would you say that place is an influence on your work in particular? If it isn’t,what is?

ZM: In my case, due not just to my own specific life but to my views on humanity andwhat we do in this world, I pay attention to a lot of various things and I am verysensitive to transformation and also to what stays, what doesn't get transformed.Mobility and immobility are what concerns me as a dancer, and I see it in cultures also.How various societies come up with various answers to their situation in the world, andhow at the same time there are some things that are just human, that you find againand again. This is what dance addresses. Yes, of course, I see things and I sort ofabsorb them, and give them back, but not necessarily to prove I'm contemporary,because there are so many ways of understanding contemporaneity.


they're the way we stand in this world rather than fall. Again, it resists this veryWestern idea, "I don't have rhythm." Rhythms are like a language; this is the text forme. Let's not forget that [in the past] people have sent messages with rhythms, and thatthey can articulate, can call your name with a rhythm.

AS: Your teaching philosophy differs from many other ways of training dancers. Couldyou talk a bit about that?

ZM: I created a method to be able to teach people movement based on – I like to say –what they are, their dimension, the way they perceive their own place in the world. Mytechnique works with that. Instead of coming up with a lot of loaded information abouthow you should move, I have to look at your body, how you perceive it, to see how youare going to move.

It allows me to really have this very large view of our position in the world, and I'malways questioning this position. What do we do in the world, and what is the validityof our existence in the world? How is dance moving around these things? For me,dance certainly is that – it is far from being just entertainment. It is fundamental in theway we can define our humanity and how we can integrate the world in us, and giveback to the world. That's what dance is about.

Montréal by night runs from May 19 to 22 at La Société des Arts Technologiques (1195St. Laurent). For more information, visit sat.qc.ca.

AS: Exactly. It’s problematic that most criticism tends to discuss contemporary ethnicdance mainly in the context of this idea of fusion, of how two different places, East andWest, have shaped it.

ZM: It's a pain in the neck! It’s very frustrating. One issue is the thinking that to be anAfrican basically means that when you do contemporary dance you mix Africantraditions with Western traditions and this is contemporary. No. Contemporaneity isnot a mixture. It is how you perceive things from your point of view today, how you'reable to truly face, consider, absorb these various issues and the ways of life you have.Your ability to understand and pay attention to things and see how they shape yourviews and how you're going to [respond]. It's more complex than we think, in that way.I'm not a menu because I'm half French and half Congolese. [I will not] regurgitate this[identity] in mixed form and have that be my contemporaneity. That would mean I'mbasically bound to my métissage. [This view] is totally reductionist. It doesn't at allrender my capacity to think and reflect on the human situation and how I can addressit with dance.

AS: I read that you think of a piece of choreography as a "text" and of movement as a"poetics." Could you elaborate a bit on this way of thinking about movement?

ZM: I use the term poetics to put back the idea of aurality, of aural aesthetics based onsound and rhythms. Rhythms can articulate a thought, articulate a posture, articulate agesture. There's nothing for me outside of rhythm. Rhythms are incredible; for me


Nyata Nyata : oiseaux de nuitPar Julia Haurio | 20. mai 2010 | Catégorie : Arts et scène | Aucun commentaire »

Montréal by Night est la dernière création de la compagnie de danse Nyata Nyata.Interprétée par cinq danseurs et trois musiciens, cette fable rythmique plonge lespectateur dans l’incertitude d’une ville, la nuit. Touki Montréal a assisté à lapremière, le 19 mai dernier.

C’est pour son caractère urbain que Zab Maboungou, chorégraphe et fondatrice de Nyata Nyata achoisi la Société des Arts Technologiques (SAT) comme décor de son nouveau spectacle. Le lieuhabituellement peu exploité pour la promotion de la danse a été investi d’un épais tapis autourduquel le public est installé. Cette disposition circulaire lui permet une grande flexibilité dans lesjeux de trajectoires, nombreux dans sa création.

Débutant dans le silence, la chorégraphie de Zab Maboungou est aussi totalement habitée par lesrythmes. Les tambours parleurs (aussi appelés téléphones africains), les tables tournantes et levioloncelle prennent autant de place que les danseurs. Instruments et interprètes se parlent et serépondent, rythmes et mouvements s’interpellent, se cherchent et se trouvent.

D’une durée d’une cinquantaine de minute, Montréal by Night défile à toute allure. Alternant ralentiset enchaînements débridées, s’emmêlant ou s’évitant, les danseurs se donnent peu de répit. Unpeu comme lors d’une nuit blanche, ils se cherchent et se fuient au gré du rythme et parfois contre lui.

D’origine Congolaise, Zab Maboungou vit à Montréal depuis 37 ans. Elle rend ici hommageà sa ville d’adoption en la dépeignant en rythmes et mouvements. Et on en conviendra, cettechorégraphie mêlant danse contemporaine et influences africaines sied plutôt bien au « Montréal multiple ».

Montréal by Night par Nyata Nyata jusqu’au 22 mai à la SAT.Interprètes : Jacob Cino, Karla Etienne,Gamaliel Fonseca, Marielle Mencé, Odessa ThornhillMusiciens : Marc Keveyuh, Jean-Christophe Lizotte, Elli Miller MaboungouDirection artistique, chorégraphie, composition musicale et costumes : Zab Maboungou

http://toukimontreal.com/actualites/2010/05/20/nyata-nyata-oiseaux-de-nuit/

phot

o:J

ulia

Hau

rio


Danse - Zab Maboungou: danser avec les ombres et la villeCatherine Lalonde 19 mai 2010 DanseÀ retenir

Montréal by nightde Zab Maboungou.À la SAT, à Montréal, du 19 au 22 mai.

«Je suis une Africaine, je fais de la danse africaine contemporaine.» Si elle est à Montréal depuis plus de 30 ans, pas ques-tion pour Zab Maboungou, Congolaise d'origine, de céder au discours sur le métissage des styles et cultures. AvecMontréal by night, pour cinq interprètes, elle fait danser les corps, les ombres et la ville.

«Je suis une métisse, sur le plan biologique comme culturel. J'ai vécu partout et je n'ai jamais joué la carte du métissage.C'est une mode, comme toutes les modes...» Bien au contraire, la tête de la compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata affirme sesracines africaines, profondément.

Après Dé/libérés, son dernier solo créé l'an dernier, elle cède la scène et dessine un quintette. Une façon de faire propreà son parcours qui alterne pièces de groupes et solos. «Je m'inspire des musiques africaines traditionnelles, de cettestructure question-réponse qu'on retrouve dans la musique à rythme. Une structure qui permet la circularité dans lamanière de concevoir la musique et que j'applique à la façon dont je pense la chorégraphie.» Un système qui fonctionnebien pour elle et qui permet toutes incartades, «car je peux le court-circuiter sans trahir le principe. Il peut y avoir uneréponse compliquée à une question compliquée, comme il peut y avoir une asymétrie».

Aussi philosophe de formation et professeure, Maboungou a sur sa danse une pensée claire et des réponses sûres. Ellesigne, autres cordes à son arc, les costumes et la musique de Montréal by night. Pour elle, le rythme est l'os de la danse.Inséparable de l'acte même. «Je travaille avec des danseurs d'origines et de formations différentes. Donnez-moi descorps divers, je fais le pari de faire quelque chose avec ça! Là, je fais une ville. Une ville comme métaphore et commeréalité. Je regarde les corps habitants. Comment ils parcourent le lieu, mais aussi comment le lieu les parcourt.»

À ses danseurs, elle dit: «Ne faites surtout pas ce que vous savez faire! Il faut s'inventer chaque fois, reprendre le risque.Et le paradoxe, c'est en même temps de s'adresser à ce que l'on sait faire, pour extirper quelque chose de soi.» Et ce «bynight», dans le titre? «J'adore la nuit, j'y vis, j'y travaille, j'aime la solitude nocturne», admet celle qui connaît ses sommetsd'inspiration entre 3h et 4h du matin. «Il y a aussi mes origines culturelles: en Afrique, la nuit est importante. On seretrouve, des centaines, pour danser, à l'extérieur. On peut être 200 à danser, sans se marcher sur les pieds. Les ombresdeviennent une référence essentielle. Et on danse avec elles.»

***

Collaboratrice du Devoir

Montréal Arts de la scène Recherche

SPECTACLES ARTISTES SALLES ARCHIVES

Montréal by night Danse19 au 22 mai 2010SAT - Société des arts technologiques1195, boul. Saint-Laurent, Mtl ! (514) 844-2033

Ma cote:

écrire unecritique

du spectacle !

Zab Maboungou

Danse ta ville

Zab Maboungou cherche à incarner la montréalité dansMontréal by Night, une oeuvre de rythmes et de silences pourcinq danseurs et trois musiciens. Élevée au son des tambours et dans la ferveur des dansesafricaines, la compositrice et chorégraphe Zab Maboungouassocie la musique et la danse pour "fabriquer du temps". Elleécrit des partitions musicales avec lesquelles les danseursdoivent entrer en dialogue pour donner corps au temps quemarquent les percussions.

"Les rythmes sont pour moi des personnages vivants, affirmela Franco-Congolaise d'origine. Ils vivent, ils meurent, il fautsavoir les reprendre au bon endroit pour les faire serégénérer, et la conception rythmique dans ma musique seretrouve dans la manière dont j'orchestre le mouvement desdanseurs. Dans Montréal by Night, on a deux tamboursparleurs, qu'on appelle les téléphones africains, et unvioloncelle. Des séquences percutantes sont entrecoupées demoments de silence qui répercutent ce qu'on a entendu etdont les interprètes se saisissent pour pouvoir produire leurmouvement. C'est là un aspect de la circularité qui estfondamentale dans mon travail."

Cette circularité, on la retrouve dans la disposition du publictout autour de l'espace scénique de la SAT, que la directricede la compagnie Nyata Nyata a choisi pour son urbanité. Carla prémisse de cette nouvelle oeuvre est que la ville inspirenotre façon d'appréhender le monde et que les corpssubissent l'influence des lieux et en renvoient une certaineimage. Difficile à mettre en scène, cette thématique se déploiedans la notion de "solidarité paradoxale" que la chorégraphe associe à Montréal.

"On ne peut pas dire qu'ici, on s'aime, on se comprend et on est bien où on est, mais lasolidarité naît du fait des mouvements d'immigration et de la façon dont la ville s'estdéveloppée, lance la créatrice. Je mets donc en scène des gens qui, dans leurs distinctions etleur diversité, apprennent à vivre ensemble, doivent compter les uns sur les autres pour existerdans leur individualité. Cela se caractérise par des obliques dans la chorégraphie et dans lacomposition musicale où les trajectoires des uns et des autres sont régulièrement coupées."

De formations et corporalités diverses, les interprètes offrent un panachage de discrétion, deflamboiement, de fluidité et d'énergie plus brute dans leur façon d'exécuter le mouvement. Enmisant sur le travail du souffle et du rapport au sol, Maboungou ne manque pas de faireressortir leurs personnalités.

ACCUEIL SOCIÉTÉ MUSIQUE CINÉMA SCÈNE ARTS VISUELS LIVRES RESTOS MODE DE VIE ÉVASION BLOGUES MEMBRES CONCOURS

Fabienne Cabado

partager

ARTICLE - 6 mai 2010

[+] agrandir

Zab Maboungou: "Je mets en scènedes gens qui, dans leurs distinctions et

leur diversité, apprennent à vivreensemble, doivent compter les uns sur

les autres pour exister dans leurindividualité."

photo: Cindy Diane Rhéault

night

ACCUEIL

byMontréal

SOCIÉTÉ MUSIQUE

ht

QUE

SPECTACLES

ACINÉMA VISUELSSCÈNE ARTS

scèneSUELS

SALLES

laderts

M

ARTISTES

LIVRES RESTOS MODE

èneVIE

ARCHIVES

t

ÉVASIONDEE BLOGUES MEMBRES

Recherche

CONCOURS

Laurent,

ville

-Saintboul.1195,technologiquesartsdesSociété-SAT

2010mai22au19Danse

nightbyMontréal

taDanse

MaboungouZab

CabadoFabienne

2033

ille

-844(514)!Mtlnt,echnologiques

ht cMa

spectacleducritique

écrire

p

m

p

6-ARTICLE

:cote

!ctaclequeunee

p g

2010

partager

mai

poursontrythmes"Les

percussions.lesmarquentdialogueenentrerdoiventmusicalespartitionsdesécrit

laetmusiquelaassociecompositricelaafricaines,

tamboursdessonauÉlevée

mtroisetdanseurscinqouneNight,byMontréal

chercheMaboungouZab

affirmevivants,personnagesdesmoi

s.tempsaucorpsdonnerpouruedanseursleslesquellesaveccales

temps".du"fabriquerpourdanseMaboungouZabchorégrapheetce

dansesdesferveurladansetours

usiciens.silencesdeetrythmesdeoeuvre

dansmontréalité laincarnerà

ffirme

quers

Elles".gouses

pours

retrouvelaoncircularité,Cette

mondansfondamentaleunlàC'estmouvement.

sseinterprèteslesdontquisilencedemoments

séquencesDesvioloncelle.lesappellequ'onparleurs,

MontréalDansdanseurs.manièreladansretrouve

conceptionlaetrégénérer,aureprendrelessavoird'origine.Congolaise-Francola

poursontrythmesLes

pududispositionladansetrouve

travail."estquicircularitéladeaspect

produirepouvoirpoursaisissententenduaqu'oncerépercutent

entrecoupéessontpercutantesesunetafricains,téléphoneses

tamboursdeuxaon,Nightbylmouvementlej'orchestredonte

musiquemadansrythmiqueionsefairelespourendroitbon

ilmeurent,ilsvivent,Ilsrigine.affirmevivants,personnagesdesmoi

ublic

leuret

dees

destse

fautffirme

distinctionsleursdansqui,gensdesme"JeMaboungou:Zab

agrandir

etstinctionsscèneents

[+]

oùmusicalecompositionCindividualité.leurdans

apprennentdiversité,leurcréatrice.lalancedéveloppée,desfaitdunaîtsolidaritéqu'ici,direpaspeutne"On

"solidaritédenotionladansmettreàDifficileimage.

desl'influencesubissentd'appréhenderfaçonnotre

nouvellecettedeprémisselaNNyatacompagnieladesl'espace deautourtout

desetunsdestrajectoireslesobliquesdesparcaractériseseCela

compterdoiventensemble,vivreàntdescèneendoncmetsJeatrice.

etd'immigrationmouvementsscomprendseons'aime,on'ici,

chorégraphelaqueparadoxale"aritédsethématiquecettescène,en

certaineunerenvoientenetlieuxcorpslesqueetmondeleer

inspirevillelaqueestoeuvreuvelleurbanité.sonpourchoisiaNyata

directricelaqueSAT,ladescénique

coupées."régulièrementsontautresdansetchorégraphieladansuespourautreslessurunslesmpter

distinctionsleursdansqui,gensess'estvilleladontfaçonlade

lamaisest,onoùbienestonet

Montréal.àassocieaphedéploiene

pireCar.

trice

DianeCindy:photoindividualité."

existerpourautreslescompterdoiventensemble,apprennentdiversité,leur

q ,g

ées."lasexisterr

etons

a

Rhéaultanedividualité."

leurdansersurunslesr

vivreànent

personnalités.leursressortirdutravaillesurmisant

fluiditédeflamboiement,corporalitésetformationsDe

oùmusicalecomposition

ités.Maboungousol,aurapportduetsouffleleurdansbruteplusd'énergieetéoffrentinterprèteslesdiverses,alités

desetunsdestrajectoiresles

fairedepasmanqueneboungoumouvement.led'exécuterfaçonurdiscrétion,depanachageunffrent

coupées."régulièrementsontautres

eEnent.

den,

ées."


Zab Maboungou: la rigueur du rythme | NIGHTLIFE.CA

Zab Maboungou: la rigueur du rythme2010-04-19 17:30 par: Fabbie Barthélémy

Raphael Ouellet

Pionnière de la danse contemporaine africaine,fondatrice de Nyata Nyata ainsi queprofesseure de philosophie, la chorégraphefranco-congolaise Zab Maboungou nousprésente Montréal by Night, une fresque nocturne pour cinqdanseurs.

Pourquoi après Décompte, votre solo, avez-vous décidé deprésenter un spectacle pluriel? J’ai toujours tendance à présenter un solo pour ensuite en venir àun spectacle groupé. En fait, c’est une analogie avec la musiqueafricaine qui fonctionne en mode question-réponse. Le solo est unequestion et le spectacle de groupe, une réponse.

Le rythme est au centre de votre travail, pouvez-nous endire plus? J’ai fait énormément de recherches sur la science des rythmes.Ensuite, j’ai voulu extirper le mouvement et impliquer le corps dansune structure rythmée. La clé du rythme, c’est une meilleurecompréhension du souffle et du poids.

Et pourquoi Montréal est-il votre sujet? J’habite Montréal depuis 37 ans et Montréal est une ville velléitaire,à la fois incertaine et fluctuante, débridée et inachevée.

Et sur quoi s’appuie votre scénographie? Comme le son établit l’espace, ma scénographie est musicale. EnOccident, tout est érigé sur le visuel, l’image et le réalisme. EnAfrique, tout est en fonction du rythme. Personnellement, je ne suispas intéressée par les projections.

Vous avez plutôt deux percussionnistes et un violoncelliste.Pourquoi? La musique permet la progression du mouvement. Il fautcomprendre qu’il y a dans mes spectacles une rigueur structurelletrès forte. Le but, ce n’est pas de danser au rythme de la musique.C’est tout le contraire. Je demande aux danseurs de ne pas se laisserentraîner par la musique, de résister.

Pourquoi résister? La danse africaine est surtout considérée comme festive, improvisée,mais c’est une vision réductrice. Je tiens à la précision, àl’exactitude.

Est-ce une analogie politique? Je suis très politisée, mais je ne trouve pas nécessaire de politisermes pièces. Cette conscience politique, elle s’épelle elle-même ets’articule autrement dans ma vie. Les immigrants sont autre choseque des victimes de la politique. Nous devons nous élever au-dessusde tout ça et cesser d’être des saltimbanques.

Alors comment avez-vous envisagé cette création? J’ai horreur des histoires parce qu’on a tendance à s’y enfermer. Jepréfère commencer avec ce que l’on ignore et terminer avec ce quel’on sait. La création, c’est confronter l’absence et lui faireobstruction.

Du 19 mai au 22 maiSAT | 1195, Saint-Laurentnyata-nyata.org


Reviews and responses are posted in language of origin. |Les critiques et incidences sont postées dans leur langue d’origine.~

October 06, 2010

The Dance Current : reviews & responses http://www.thedancecurrent.com/reviews.cfm?review_id=224

Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata (Montréal), June 8th, CMC Theatre

Also on June 8th, Zab Maboungou and Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyatafrom Montréal took the stage of the Canadian Museum of Civilization withher 2007 work “Décompte”. Meaning “count down” or “taking stock”, thepiece is a trio for Artistic Director and principal performer ZabMaboungou, drummer Marc Keyevuh and cellist Eric Duval. Using a themefrom J.S. Bach’s “Prelude from Suite no. 2 in D minor” as a starting point,the work builds on the spaces between European and African rhythms.The piece opens in silence with Maboungou just sitting, digesting anddistilling the action that is to come. Maboungou is terrific with stillnesses,unafraid to leave her audience hanging and the work revolves aroundthese breaks, as integral to the piece as the rhythm-laden sections. Thein-between-ness that is created by the triangulation of Maboungou,Keyevuh and Duval remains teasingly unresolved, a clever geometry ofmusic, space, rhythm and movement.

Canada Dance Festival: The 2008 CollectionCanada Dance FestivalOttawa: June 7-15, 2008by Bridget Cauthery

Canada Dance Festival: The 2008 Collection

Author’s Note: At the CDF 2008, I had the pleasure to be working in anumber of different capacities. In addition to reviewing the festival forthis publication, I was also one of the post-show moderators for theDance Dialogues program, as a representative for the Society forCanadian Dance Studies in their collaboration with the festival and TheDance Current. Readers may also know me in my capacity as companymanager for Toronto Dance Theatre.

Maboungou,

drummer Marc Keyevuh and cellist Jean-Christophe Lizotte. Using a theme

Lizotte remains teasingly unresolved, a clever geometry of

[...]

[...]

Reviews and responses are posted in language of origin. |

Les critiques et incidences sont postées dans leur langue d’origine.

~

Two Snaps from the Festival Transatlantique

Maboungou and MurivaMontreal: September 17–20 and 23–26by Philip Szporer


“Gestes Dé/libérés” by Zab Mabougou

Two welcome evenings of contemporary African dance greeted audiencesat the seventh edition of the Transatlantique Festival, co-produced withMontréal arts interculturels. Opening night featured a double programbringing together Montréal’s Zab Maboungou (Cie. Nyata Nyata) andWinnipeg’s African troupe NAfro Dance, led by the charismatic CasimiroNhussi, on their first visit to the city. The former offered a short newdance, and the latter presented a series of four pieces from its repertory,entitled “Let Me Dance Before I’m Gone”. A week later the relativenewcomer to Montréal Gibson Muriva presented a new work. This reviewwill focus on the premieres of Maboungou and Muriva’s work.

In “Gestes Dé/libérés”, Maboungou, who is of Franco-Congolese origin,born in Brazzaville, the capital of what is today Congo-Brazzaville, theformer French colony of the Moyen (Middle) Congo straddling the equatorin sub-Saharan West Africa, references the aesthetic of African traditionaldances, privileging recognizable expressions: the use of hip bends, littlehops, bent knees, flexed, broken lines, the engagement of the entire bodythrough poly-centred and poly-rhythmic movement vocabularies, andaffinities to weight and gravity. But she adheres to no story, and imbuesthe dance with a wholly abstract contemporary sensibility. InMaboungou’s own words, “Movement is engagement, neither deferred nordiluted.” As such, she defines her own authority, and delivers a clarity inperformance that just stays with you.

To clarify the specificities of Maboungou’s dance, I’m borrowing a quotefrom dance scholar BridgetCauthery’s essay, “A DancingPhilosopher: Zab Maboungou

Reviews

critiques es L

~

langin posted are responses and ws

postées sont incidences et tiques

|in. origofeuagang

ine.d’origue langleur dans s

SwoT

Maboungou and MurivMontreal: September 17–20 and 23–26yb Philip Szporer


“Gestes Dé/libérés” b

wo welcome evTTwo welcome ev

ransatlantiqueal Tm the Festivnaps fro

angou and Murival: September 17–20 and 23–26ip Szporer

Snaps from the Festival Transatlantique

ab Mabougouy Zs Dé/libérés” b

ary Afcontemporenings offelcome ev

atlantique

6

al Transatlantique

rican dance greeted audiencesy Af esat the sevMontréal arts interculturels. Opening night fbringing together Montréal’Winnipeg’Nhussi, on their fdance, and the latter presented a series ofentitled “Lnewcomer to Montréal Gibson Muriv

ocwill f

In “Gestes Dé/libérés”

ansatlantique Frthe Tenth edition offseval arts interculturels. Opening night f

ab Maboungou (Cie. Nys Zg together Montréal’ro Dance, led brican troupe NAfs Afeg’

. The fyirst visit to the cit, on their fand the latter presented a series of

ore I’m Gone”et Me Dance Befd “La prmer to Montréal Gibson Muriv

Maboungou and Murivus on the premieres off

, Maboungou, who is ofstes Dé/libérés””, Maboungou, who is of

al, co-produced withestivtique Fameatured a double progrght f

ata) andata Nyungou (Cie. Nyy the charismatic Casimiroled b

ered a short newformer ofhe from its repertoryour pieces ffs off

e. A week later the relative”resented a new work. This review

s work.a’ou and Muriv

anco-Congolese origin,rFo is off

,y

w

born in Brormer Ffin sub-dances, privileging recognizable expressions: the use ofhops, bent knees, fthrough poly

inities to weight and grfafthe dance with a wholly abstrMaboungou’diluted.

ormance that just staperf

what is todaville, the capital offazzan Bren (Middle) Congo strythe Moy offrench colonF

erences the aesthetic ofrica, refest Afan WSahars, privileging recognizable expressions: the use of

en lines, the engagement ofed, broklexbent knees, fythmic mo-rh-centred and polyh poly

. But she adheres to no storyyvitaes to weight and gract contempornce with a wholly abstrement is engagement, neither defvs own words, “Mongou’

ines her own authorit” As such, she def.ou.ys with ymance that just sta

ville, theazzay Congo-Bris todaaddling the equatorddle) Congo str

aditionalrican trAfthe aesthetic offhip bends, littlesions: the use off

the entire bodythe engagement offocabularies, andement vvc mo

, and imbuesadheres to no story. Inyary sensibilitmpor

erred nors engagement, neither defy iners a clarit, and delivyauthorit

oral

eody

s

norn

o clarifTTo clarifrom dance scholar BridgetfCauthery’Philosopher: Z

Maboungou’icities offy the specififfance scholar Bridget

A Dancing, “ys essaery’ab Maboungoupher: Z

s dance, I’m borrowing a quoteu’

Celebrates Twenty Years of Work in Canada” (Dance Collection Danse, No.65, Spring 2008), in which she writes: “When questioned about what kindof African dance she performs – usually by Europeans keen to fix her to acertain place and time – Maboungou complies, describing herself as apractitioner of Congolese dance. But this, she explains, is a fabrication.The indigenous peoples living in what is today’s Congo-Brazzaville did notalways live there – it is not their traditional homeland. By virtue of forcedsettlement or displacement by European colonization, the people livingwithin the borders imposed by the Congo Act that gave France control ofthe region, became “Congolese”. Thus, to speak of Congolese dance ismeaningless; there are dances performed by the Kongo people but thesedances are not performed strictly within the geographical territory definedas the Congo. So African dance, encompassing a range of regionaltraditional dances within a global diaspora, shared between generationswithin the Congo but also recreated in the colonial mother countries andin other former colonies, conveys a richness of solidarity within Africa’sfractured identity. In Paris and later in Canada, Maboungou studiedtraditional music and dance of the region but also undertook studies inthe traditional dances of Mali, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Guinea, Nigeria andZimbabwe. She also danced with several Paris-based companies.”

In this invigorating new work, Maboungou begins front and centre, innavy pants and a sleeveless charcoal vest-like top, stock-still on a redfloor. It’s a restrained dance at the start; she shifts incrementally and,ever so slowly, turns her compact body. Her face is set with a steely gaze.There is something alluring, complicated and unforgettable inMaboungou’s performance: watching how her body circles upon itself islike watching the meanderings of the way the mind works.

Through her teaching, Maboungou has developed a cult of her own. Here,on stage, she is an energy force field, whether pointing two of her fingersor swivelling her arms, changing directions. What strikes me is herconfidence and strength. The pace quickens, when the musicians step onstage (at first drums are heard from the wings). Live accompaniment isprovided by percussionists Folly-Marc Keyevuh (on the tama), and thedancer-choreographer’s son, Elli Miller-Maboungou (on the ngoma). Therelation between the music and the dance has been questioned in thepiece, in a way that recalls Cunningham and Cage’s meeting ofchoreography and composition solely at the time of the performance.Often, African dance music guides the dancer, but with this work thedance adds rhythmic components of its own, independent of the music,though at some point the music and dance blend. In shaping the piecethis way, Maboungou is shifting the way an audience appreciates themusic and the dance.

I don’t know “where” she is while she dances, in what “space” or “time”,or even what landscape she occupies. It doesn’t matter, because she isspellbinding, effortlessly embodying the mystery of being.

“

[...]


KZ ZL* ä Ê äE äi u'K ä äE äE* iu · hcnnw rnwukgwtu cppÉgu cxcpv swg fgu itqwrgu fg...

Documents

Transcript of KZ ZL* ä Ê äE äi u'K ä äE äE* iu · hcnnw rnwukgwtu cppÉgu cxcpv swg fgu itqwrgu fg...