Friday, May 25, 2007

Guelph Contemporary Dance Festival

Jiwani is preparing for the GCDF Site Specific Series. To be honest that particular series is the best dance event of the entire festival because it takes place in the picturesque Exhibition park under a blue sky, with the tall trees and green grass as as our back drop and the audience as part of our act. This year four dances will be performed at different sections of the park and hopefully the sun will prevail.

We will be premiering a dance, Spirit Alive choreographed for the event and performed to original recorded music by Kwame Badoe and the live drumming of the Jiwani drummers. Spirit Alive is a prayer which symbolizes and celebrates robust life for Africa after the current tragedy of the HIV epidemic which seems to speak death and decimation for the continent of Africa. Yet we shall live, and robustly so! I have fashioned the dance after the Lamban dance of Guinea, the dance of the griots. Something about the jeliw speaks directley to me because deep down I resonate to the call of the griots . I am called to tell the stories of Africa.

On June 2nd and 3rd, watch out for Jiwani on the green grass of Exhibition park.

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