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| Abdel R. Salaam. Photo: Jack Vartoogian |
For 40 years, the DanceAfrica Festival meant Baba Chuck Davis. As the founder and, until 2015, sole artistic director of the festival, he represented the festival, body and soul. With his 6-foot-5 height, booming voice, and regal dashikis, he was hard to miss on and off stage.
But Baba Chuck passed away at the age of 80 just before last year’s festival. For the first time, this year’s festival has been completely planned and will be held without his presence. His hand-picked successor Abdel R. Salaam is now writing the next chapter of this beloved tradition.
A native New Yorker, Salaam has been involved with the African dance community throughout his career. In the 70s, he performed for Joan Miller, whom he called his “dance mother,” and served as associate artistic director of the Chuck Davis Dance Company before he founded his own company in 1981, Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. He also directed and choreographed for theater and television to critical acclaim and has been active in the world of visual arts.
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| Ingoma Kwazulu Natal Dance Company. Photo courtesy of the artists. |
Q: Putting together last year’s festival must have been an emotional experience. Not only did you have to put on the regular program, you also had to plan a tribute to Chuck Davis. How did you do it?
A: Baba Chuck was my dance father. I wouldn’t be where I am today without him. But coming out of the tradition that I came from, our connection with the elders and ancestors are very strong. And that was true for the entire DanceAfrica community. We wanted to honor his life’s work. Even today, he walks with me in my spiritual belief. I feel I’m talking to him constantly.
Q: What did he want from you in terms of DanceAfrica?
A: “Do not do it the way I did. You can honor the concept. But do it your way.”
Q: What is that concept?
A: It started out as a way and means to empower African-Americans to learn their African cultures, to connect to the continent, so our understanding of our ancestral lineage would be elevated and exalted. And ultimately we will build a global community together.
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| Siwela Sonke. |
A: I want to add a contemporary element to it. I love traditional dance as much as contemporary dance. But we’re not simply an ancient people. Traditions evolve. When you go to the continent, there is a traditional Africa as well as a contemporary Africa. I want to show it. Even if it’s a traditional dance, once you add sound and light to refigure it for a Western stage, it’s no longer straight-up traditional. It is dance based on traditional movement.
I also love the theater. I remember from very early on after I watched a dance and talked to people, where they saw dancers, I saw lighting, design, entrances and exits, music structure. So I’d like to apply western theatrical craft to the tradition to create a coherent production. I want to tell a story.
Q: How does this year’s festival fit into all of it?
A: I was the child of The Movement. My company led the procession when Nelson Mandela visited New York in 1990. Black people here and in South Africa both know what it’s like to fight for your civil rights, to have dogs unleashed on you, to have parents telling you not to go out at night because you would be snatched and disappear. We had life and death struggles. And unfortunately we’re still in it. So you’re angry; you never forget.
But you can’t walk around carrying that hatred in your heart because it eats your soul and you become disenfranchised from the source of light. So with that construct of remembrance you come to reconciliation, which leads to renewal. That’s where dance and music come in. Because art can entertain, but it can also stimulate and heal—our attitude, how we see the future, our ability to bring all people together. We understand the importance of cultures in this context. This is what I hope the audience will see.
DanceAfrica comes to BAM this Memorial Day weekend, and great tickets are still available to performances in the BAM Howard Gilman Opera House.
David Hsieh is a publicity manager at BAM.
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