Festivals

At the festival “Visa 2 Dance” from 4.-16. October 2010 in Dar es Salaam / Tanzania young artists develop and discuss contemporary dance.

The ventilators sum softly, a breeze wafts through the windows and a small, energetic woman drives the dancers on: “Don’t go half-way with anything!“ More dancers enter hurriedly, shake hands, leap onto the makeshift covering over the floor of the room in the Russian Culture Center and swiftly work their way into the movements. In the workshop of the South African choreographer P J Sabbagha quietness and concentration prevail. For in Tanzania these workshops are a rarity, and contemporary dance an exciting, hybrid sphere of development in which Aloyce Makonde, founder of the festival Visa 2 Dance, is carrying out ground-breaking work. Born in 1972 in Tanzania, Makonde studied traditional and modern dance at the Bagamoyo College of Arts, one of the few training venues for dance in East Africa. In 2007 he performed short choreographies in the Russian Culture Center of Dar es Salaam and named them Visa 2 Dance. This has now become a four-day international festival with workshops, discussion panels and numerous guest performances; it is directed by Makonde together with the Italian choreographer Vanessa Tamburi. In the days before the festival the artists instruct one another in workshops, as in that of PJ Sabaggha in the Russian Culture Centre 2009.

„Cultural highlight of the season“

“We invite only contemporary dance,” says Makonde. “We want to show its whole range and to bring African dancers together with European ones.” Only short choreographies are invited, four or five performances per evening make for a multifacetted programme. In 2010 the festival is taking place from 4. – 16. October, planned guest performances include those by the Kunja Dance Theater from Kenia, the Keiga Dance Company from Uganda, the Danish Mancopy Dansekompagn and by Stephanie Thiersch from Germany. In addition there are seven “home” productions in which choreographers work out performances together with Tanzanian dancers from diverse backgrounds. With regard to content they all revolve around one subject each year – in 2009 it was the ritual murders of albinos in Tanzania, this year the topic is the struggle against social exclusion and poverty. In these productions as in the workshops the festival also has an educational function.

The festival is financed exclusively by local sponsors and international organisations as public financing for cultural projects is rare in Tanzania, which is one of the poorest countries in the world. In 2009 the budget consisted of about 60,000 Euro in cash and the same again in donations in kind and other contributions. From the very beginning one of the Festival’s sponsors has been the Goethe-Institut; director Ulrike Schwerdtfeger describes the Festival as the “cultural highlight of the season”. The sponsors contribute not only financially but also in terms of content to the Festival - by suggesting guest performances. For example, in 2009 the Israeli dancer Zufit Simon, now resident in Berlin, appeared with her solo fleischlos following a proposal by the Goethe-Institut.

Das Festival als Chance

Contemporary dance in East Africa is a very post-modern mixture: in some parts entire phrases are taken over from traditional dance and combined with street dance and modern dance to deal with topical subjects – for example Kenya’s socialist past, as in Neema Baga’s Leo, Kesho, Kesho Kutwa, which she performed here in 2009. “There is no dance training n Kenia, we are all autodidacts who have worked out our own style based on traditional dance, workshops and memories. When dancers are chosen for companies, then not because they have been through a specific school but because they have their own special style,” says Baga. In contrast to West European tradition, heterogeneity is a given here. It is - almost disturbingly - self-evident for the young dancers that European style elements are as much part of their identity as are those from Africa, they see themselves as the children of globalisation, take dance clips from Youtube as inspiration at the same time as they delve back into their roots. African contemporary dance differs from European dance in the frequent clarity of its symbolic language and the body’s low-lying centre of gravity. “The dancers retain the aesthetics of the African dancing body, its use of rhythm and expression,” explains the Norwegian dancer and dance instructor Ingrid Remmen, who is currently working in Bagamoyo as part of an exchange project. “After the end of Africa’s colonisation performance art began to grow, the Tanzanians wanted to show the world their African identity.” Nevertheless, in her opinion, dance as a performance art is mainly an urban affair. “Most people simply can’t afford to see performance art. Here I still have the feeling that tourists and rich Tanzanians are the target audience,” says Ingrid Remmen. “For the general public contemporary dance is something quite strange,” agrees Neema Baga. Hence the festival audience is predominantly international – a circumstance that also gives the young dancers pause for critical reflection, and which is also due to the fact that there are hardly any theatres. Rehearsals and performances take place in international institutions.

The dancers and choreographers at the festival see themselves as the spearhead of a movement: “They are pioneers,” says Dr. Herbert Makoye, of the Institute of Fine and Performing Art of the University of Dar es Salaam. “So they have to expect to be fired at – and have to get themselves a bullet-proof vest.” For the young artists the festival is chance which they seize with great energy and enthusiasm – a chance to get to know other artists and styles and to exchange information about financing and co-production possibilities. They are highly motivated and eager to learn from one another, to co-operate in evolving structures as well as strategies to develop and strengthen contemporary dance in East Africa. Going only half-way is simply not an option here.