Please note that the relevance of the star rating (they should always be taken with a pinch of salt) will depend on whether you are a dance enthusiast or a cinema enthusiast.
This movie is a documentary recording a gathering held in the US of choreographers and dancers from across the continent of Africa and the African Diaspora. It was directed by a white American academic called Joan Frosch who is professor of Dance at the University of Florida.
It is mostly a combination of talking heads, generally choreographers and occasionally dancers, interspersed with clips of dance pieces that they have produced. It is a pity perhaps that they were only clips because it may have allowed more context if we had seen the whole pieces, the Senegalese piece on the Rwandan genocide for example deserves more than a clip.
There is a lot of dogma to deal with coming from the choreographers. They like to have discussions about the meaning of "contemporary dance", which means something different in the continent of Africa to what it means on the continent of Europe. Also about the overlaps and possible synergy between traditional African dances and contemporary African dance. A South African choreographer refers to his performances being attended mainly by white people, and when black people do attend they are disappointed by the lack of the traditional dance. This is all rather dry if you are not been initiated into the rites of the dance world, a tad political.
I was much more at home watching the dancing, which included a piece about drought performed by two Burkinabe dancers. One of the gentlemen moved his arms about his head very vigorously which may have been showing a heat haze or the of the drought, another gentleman made noises with an empty plastic water bottle. This was very effective I thought.
There was a lady who liked improvisation. That's much more my cup of tea, that's when the real expression, the real catharsis can begin for me. Of course I have had very little exposure to dance. The lady was moving her arms so fast that everything was blurring. Good stuff.
Another talking head, a professor of art, came on and talked about cubism and it's relationship to African art. He talked about cubism relating to images that were fractured by shadow, which is a technique known to African art. This was followed by a dance where the performers had all sorts of shadows over their bodies which produced a moderately cubist effect. It is fair to say that the dances usually followed on well from the talking head sequences, so there is a real pedagogic effect.
Other comments that I found interesting included talking about the differences between African continental and Diaspora dances. African Americans for example have apparently traditionally eschewed contact in their dances as a reaction to what they believe is a Western tradition. This is a mistaken impulse though as African continental dance has embraced contact.
The main impression was one of diversity, different choreographers had incorporated butoh or ballet movements into their dances, and there wasn't much in common between some of the different regional traditions.
As a cinema enthusiast I would have to say that the film is not really very cinematic, it's of far more interest to the dance enthusiast for whom it will be a horn of plenty.
I remain unconvinced as to whether dance is more about personal catharsis or expression (or it could be both), and what value it has to the audience as opposed to the participants. I'm sure though, dear reader, that you are not so agnostic if you have come across this comment.
