I don't know where to begin...

I am going to try to keep this fairly brief because the whole thing had me stumped for a minute.

I am soo disappointed in this country and I don't know why...I should not be surprised at some of the things that are able to go on in this country because they have for years and history shows us that around the world it is much the same, contrary to popular belief. I am hurt by the judgements by our judicial system that seem to be blatantly saying to me that my children, my brothers, my elders, my sisters, etc lives do not matter in this country. Or rather letting the world see that police are in fact above the law and able to execute when they are frightened and it will be a justifiable homicide.

Being an artists and having grown up in a very artistic and militant family I never saw myself as one to sit by and watch things happen. I was always a doer, a leader, an activist against any injustice since I was in high school doing grassroots work until now where I channel my activism into my artwork, so it can be easier digested by the masses.

My question to the arts community is do we react or do we remain silent in hopes that this will allow us to go on as if nothing has happened and we can keep our sponsors, and keep our students, and not offend anyone, and - HOLD UP! - SINCE WHEN HAS ART EVER COMPROMISED IT'S POINT OF VIEW? WHEN HAS IT EVER BEEN OTHER THAN THE REFLECTION OF SOCIETY?

I recently submitted some events that artists could attend in support of the family of Sean Bell in response to the unfair verdict releasing his murderers to an arts e-mail blast in NYC. They never posted my info, but continued to post my class or performance info, so it was very clear that they did not feel it was necessary for artists to be active in this cause or to event understand what happened, educate communities on how to react, and give outlets to stifled, upset communities that want to react negatively to this tragedy. I guess it was more important not to offend anyone or oppose anyones view of the situation.

Let me know what you think about artists being a voice in the community, in the world and about the danger it may have for our careers or following when we are active and outspoken on a point that is dear to our hearts. Do you think we need to ignore world events and pretend we have no opinion or do you feel it is okay to be an artists as well as an activist and if so, what would you like to suggest to artist to do in response to this recent injustice?

I await your dialogue on this topic.

Peace,

Me

Okay, here we go.

I have such a strong opinion on this topic not only because I am an African American, African dance teacher, but also because I have studied under both African and African American instructors.My association to the African instructors and musicians in the U.S. has grown over time and we are all very close adn consider each other family, but I must also share some of the views they have shared with me on this topic over the years (of course no names will be mentioned, sorry, all you gossips).

First I would like to say that I have gotten the foundation of my African dance training from African American African dance teachers. From their lessons I was able to go into Fareta at age 13 and take classes with Youssouf and Bemba without my stamina failing me (though it was put to the test, but that first day at Fareta is a whole 'nother story...). My first African dance teachers were from Bernice Johnson's Dance Center: Audrey Lawrence (when I was 3 to 6 years old), Aaron Dugger (in my adolescence), Kevin Hunt (pre-teen years), and the most influential of them all - Cheryl Godineaux - who's company "Tri Shades of Gold was my first dance company experience.Those instructors taught primarily Old Malian Empire dances and straight-up, hardcore, African American, Gang gang. Denise Bey came to the school and was a guest teacher for awhile. From her I learned my first Senegalese Kutiro dances which would be Linjin and Ekonkon. I owe my stamina and the ability to pick-up steps and combinations quickly, to these teachers.

My first time in a traditional African class was at Fareta, I was 13 years old and me, my sister Latisha, and our Godsister, Khadyjah went to take Youssouf's class and we thought we had taken the class when the warm-up was finished! Needless to say, I began to frequent the place and my main teachers there became, Youssouf Koumbassa and M'Bemba Bangoura (both like big brothers to me, though Bem sometimes exagerates on how little I was when he met me), Richard Gonzalez (I loved to watch him dance - hey I was young and in high school!), and Xiomara Rodriquez. I was still scared of the sabar classes while in high school. These teachers taught me where the dances came from, how they all connect to life in their country, and how to not just give a show when you dance, but to understand the dance and feel it from a different place other than ego.

So I like to say I got my "Broadway Style" performance techniques, as well as my basic foundation of African dance and the energy it takes to execute it - wild yet still clean - from my African American teachers. From them I also got the love for dance and the opportunity to learn not just one technique but techniques from various African regions and countries. From my "Traditional" teachers I got the technique and the love for the culture - which is important. I feel without the combination of both I would not be the same kind of dancer I am today.

Now here is where we get to the negative side of this issue.

Needless to say I am a Senegalese/ Guinea Village girl in Spirit and so I am often in the company of artists from these regions and then some - okay let's just say I hang with the Africans (as my family calls them) - and so do a few other African American artists, mainly musicians, and some nights when I can get a break from Mommy-hood, we all get together and get to talking. Well, the issue of at hand has been a major conversation piece at times and was the stimulant behind my quest to bring African and African Americans into one company. One night someone said to me, "Amina, you teaching at a lot of conferences now, you making good money. I don't see you at classes no more. That's what you African Americans do here, you learn from us and then you take it and go teach and forget about us. You take our jobs and then we can not send money home to our families, that's no good!" Now, this was very funny to me coming from someone that was in a country where they were looked at as taking jobs from us, but none the less it turned into a full blown discussion. Many of them felt we take  money from their pockets when we teach what they feel is THEIR culture. I told them no. We do not teach like you do. We come with something different to offer when we teach African dance.At least I believe so. I told them,first of all, you would have no job if we did not come to learn the culture form you in the first place. Second, it is because of us and our overcoming  struggles here that you are here teaching the culture today (my comments by now had the room quiet beside a few mumbled native language remarks). Third of all, this is OUR culture, too! Do you feel this way when you teach the culture to people other than African Americans? When you create these all white or all Asian companies that perform traditional, in fact often replicated, versions of Les Ballet Africans or Ballet of Senegal repertoire do you feel like they may take your jobs? Do you feel like they may take your culture?

You wanna know what this person told me?

"No, because we know they are going to always support us. They are going to come back and take classes and get us work with them if they get work. African Americans, they learn from you and they finish with you."

Well, to an extent I had to agree. We do have a rep for often forgetting to give back - shoo we forget within our own communities! Yet, I had to let him know that I personally felt like I owed nothing. I payed for my classes and teach my own way, and when I want to I come to take class again. This is my culture, too, and it was taken from me and I have an issue with how we even ended up in such a predicament coming from the largest continent in the world, but that's a totally different topic all together. So I was not sympathetic to that concern about us taking and not giving back - we've been robbed for years by soo many others how can this be considered the same thing?

Recently I was chatting with some African American artists, and we started talking about how when we teach we are supported but not really by the community. For example, in our classes rarely will those who consider themselves "Divas" or who's heads are too big to believe you can teach them anything come to take our classes. We often get the die-hards, the beginners, the curious, the members of our companies, and oh yea those who are our friends and family. Why is this? My observations have often led me to believe this is due to feeling that an African American will not know as much about what they are teaching as someone who is a native of the land where it originated.

One of the people said, "I will never spend my money to take a class with an African American African dance teacher, no offense, but if I am going to learn it why not get it from the source?" I laughed and the person was serious so I explained myself, "The Source? Show me The Source because the only one I know I can't see until I pass onto the African Burial Grounds. There is no one from a Ballet that is teaching you raw tradition and there is no African raised in the city region that is knowledgable of village and bush traditions." Sano told me once that what you see on the stage is for the Ballet, it is entertainment, you have to go into the bush and get a dancer from the bush, the forest, or even the villages if you want to learn the traditions and even still unless you go in deep enough you can never know for sure if you are getting the traditions that the first people practiced. Everyone has their own version of Lamba, but which is the one of the original Malian Empire - many will have an opinion - Guinea Lamba, Senegalese Lamba, Mali Lamban, but who truly knows? Some very old people, some griots, but who REALLY knows?

THAT'S MY POINT - WHO REALLY KNOWS?

So with all that said, I have come to this conclusion: Africans and African Americans need to get over themselves and work it out. This is our culture not a financial investment. Yes, God has blessed us to be able to market it and make a living off of it, but it is not to be exploited or used for any purpose other than to educate and heal the Spirit. An African teacher as wellas an African American teacher can offer these same qualities in a class. To the African teachers I say, use the success of your students to build on your reputation as a Master teacher. My teachers stay letting it be known that they taught me when I was a child whenever I do a show with any of them, so this idea of stealing jobs and stuff from them to me is an issue that rings true only for a few of them. African American teachers - just teach and never stop and make sure that you are honest with your students about what you know, what you are teaching, and you coem from a place that's as passionate about the culture as you are about your students. I teach traditional and non-traditional classes and make it very clear what I know and what I don't. My classes focus on technique and feeling the dance/ music. I make that very clear. If a student is doing a research paper and wants histprical facts that I do not have, I refer them elsewhere, but I have never been one to play the role of the all-knowing and I damn sure support my teachers and take their classes whenever I am not performing, teaching, or traveling (or broke)!

We have to support each other! I am a wealth of information just searching for minds, soul, and bodies to give it to! I know Mali, Guinea, Senegalese djembe dances, Senegalese Kutiro, and Sabar, some Ivory Coast dances, very little Afro-Cuban, Graham technique, tap, jazz, pointe, ballet, stepping, South African Bootdance, and the list goes on. Most African American teachers can boast the same level of expertise, but we are seen as not having as much to offer. It is the opposite we have the most to offer.

African teachers are experts of the dances and music from their region and very seldom can a Guinea teacher teach sabar and vice versa, very well (except for Tenefig, she is the ONLY one I know who can rock sabar and Guinea equally). The beneficial thing about them as instructors, TO ME, is no African American teacher will be able to give you the history of the dances, of the regions, of the people, no matter how hard they study or how many trips to Africa they take. It is one thing to study something and another to grow up in it, to live it, for it to be apart of you. I feel like African dance is a part of me, because I did grow up in it, but it just is not the same...

So who do you study with?

BOTH.

Ashe/ Amen.

Lemme know whatcha'll feel...lata.

This week, I want to talk about one of my favorite dance techniques, that catches a lot of heat from the dance and drum community for many reasons. For one, it is very much African dance, though it is not traditional African dance. It has no known origins, except through hear say. It also, has been the foundation for many of the top African dancers on the scene for years. It is called, "Gang Gang" or "Interpretive African Dance" and African American artform that seemed to rise up out og the seventies as many of our ancestors were in full swing of trying to find peace and the way back to The Motherland in search of our roots.

Growing our afro's and wearing the dashiki's was only an inner desire to know thyself. What we discovered was that we weren't in Africa anymore. As African artists were allowed to come across seas and perform in this country we watched and we picked up what we could. There weren't many if any African dance classes, as there were Afro-Caribbean dance classes and drum classes, forget about it. Maybe Conga drum class, not djembe and/ or sangbah, kinkinney, djundjun.

So with The Movement upon us and with the little rhythms and steps we were picking up and beginning to retain as our DNA was reawakened, we began to teach Interpretive Dance in our dance schools and community centers to Olatunji tapes. Once drummers began to grasp and even create rhythms that could channel our ancestors of Africa and African America the dances were created.

Gang Gang.

I only heard the term used by Bernice Johnson alumni and those taught by them, so for me this is where it became a technique. Gang Gang was the dances created for this concrete jungle here in America. We do not work the field unless you're a farmer, we do not go into the bush for Rites of Passage, we don't dance and drum for the fishermen that catch the fish that's in our supermarkets, there for - TO ME - (gotta make that clear because people always seem to want to attack you for your opinion as if you said it's fact) we needed our own dances here that came from the ancestors brought here that lived, built, and died here. We needed our own song, our dance, our own rhythms.

Gang Gang.

Different to each person who has studied it, but basically it is what it is; the combination of Caribbean influences and traditional African dance. For me it is not just going wild, it is executing each step, with the fullest of energy, sharp, clean, and free. Hair is out and released during Gang Gang dance performances (BJ style, actually) derived from dancers competing to top each others energy, using the wildness of the hair swinging with the movements to help enhance the height of the energy being used. Techniques are not always sat down and scientifically written out and created. Sometimes, they come from people naturally as they evolve. Sometimes they are born from an environment or planetary vibe.

I teach Gang Gang often and my company performs it as one of our signature segments that includes Gumbe, Ibo, 6/8, 4/4, and Khaldun - all non-traditional dances with songs and purpose behind each movement. I use some of the dances to heal. Some of the rhythms not mentioned here, that I may choose to teach, are my own but are fused with my knowledge of traditional and Gang Gang techniques. Of course, if that's the case I call the class a Gang Gang class, never any surprises.

How can you tell the difference between a teacher who is teaching Gang Gang and one that just has no knowledge of either techniques and is doing anything and calling it Gang Gang? For one, look at their technique as a dancer period. Musicality, balance, style, and choreography/ combo's. You can always tell a professional dancer from a fraud as soon as they start to move. Gang Gang takes a sort of wild control that is hard to describe, when at the same time it also has a smoothness to it.

How do you feel about Gang Gang? Have you ever learned or studied it? With whom? Do you agree with innovations in traditional African dance technique? What did you learn about Gang Gang? Let's start a dialogue this week on it. Next week, I'll probably be bloggin about students and teachers...where's the respect?...and vice versa...who knows...

Stay blessed ya'll!

Amina