Dance, Dance, Dance! Report from Africa

Kuva: Sylvester

The final dance of the workshop! /Työpaja päättyi CLAN:in soittoesitykseen, joka sai kaikki tanssimaan villisti.

”DANCE, DANCE, DANCE!” - 2 months under the sun of Africa-

It is 20:45 and the kids are missing. Our show is due to start in 15 minutes and we were supposed to go through the choreography one more time. I’m desperately looking the long road of Grand Popo, hoping to see some small shadows coming towards us..

I ended up in this situation in Grand Popo, Benin. 13.2 me and my old friend, writer Katja Kettu left to Villa Karos residence, to spend 2 months as a stipendiates. My aim was to to make puppet-workshop with children and Katjas job was to document it on a film and on photos. Benin is a West-African country, neighbouring countries are Togo in the West, Burkina Faso and Niger in the North, and Nigeria in the East. The long, peacefull country lays by the Guinea bay. It has been independent since 1960 and its population is almost 9 million. The climate is hot but the wind from the sea makes it tolerable. But for us who come from Lappland it took a while to get used to the heat and constant sun. I spend my first two weeks just sweating and laying on the matress of Villa Karos balcony. The climate change (from -25C to +32C) was huge. Villa Karo was founded 2000 by writer Juha Vakkuri. It’s aim is to widen the Africa knowledge of Finnish artist and support cowork between Africans and Europians. Every year several artists, researches or otherwise Benin-minded people spend from 3 weeks to 3 months in the house. Per year avarage 30 artists from all the arts sector visit Villa Karo. There is also a small library and museum which are run by the friendly and helpfull staff of Villa Karo. The chief of the place is always smiling Kwassi Akpladokou. The collaboration with local artist depends of your projects there.

We had a huge chance to meet Yéhoumè Georges Anselme Agbazahou who is an artistic director of CLAN – L’Association Contes et Legendes d’Afrique Noir. CLAN is founded to preserve and develope the history and culture of Africa. Mr.Agbazahou has a background in modern dance, but he is also a percussionist, musicien and a marionnetist. Other members of CLAN are Addja and Abdoullay who are both talented musicien and dancers. They are also members of UNIMA Benin and a soon to be opened “Centre Academique des Arts Africains et d´Écoute de Grand-Popo” school. Unima Benin is based in the official capital of Benin, Porto Novo. I had the priviledge to meet the secretary of Unima, Mr.Jaqcues. He has been visiting Charleville de Mezieres many times with his marionettes. I got to visit his storageroom and office and was facinated of the variaty of different puppets. I even got to see the secret voudou marionettes. Voudou is originally from Benin and there is lots of different kinds of marionnettes and masks to use for rituals. Most of them aren’t shown to foreigners, but the styles and ways of manipulation are spread among the artists. As an example I have to mention the huge, humansize zangbetos, which are made of hay and decorated with different coloures. They look kind of like massive moving straw bales. They are the protectors of village and seen often in voudou ceremonies.

Other amazing puppetstyle is stringmarionettes which are manipulated while standing on a long stilts and wearing a mask. Mr. Agbazahou was doing also this with astonishing energy. He even played djembe while standing on the stilts! We got along very well and decided to make a project together which would end on a big concert in Lissa Kwassa, the main stage in Villa Karo and Grand Popo. The first step was that I build a marionnette for myself. Mr. Agbazahou uses mainly string-marionnettes and he borrowed me one of his own so I could use it to build mine.

My marionette wasn’t as spectaculour as the voudou-puppets. It has 15 strings and I did it from recycling-materials like locals too. The beaches of Benin are beautiful but unfortunately (and fortunately for me) you can find lots of good materials from there. Some materials we had to go and get from the bush. Abdoullay and me were wandering around to find bambu for the cross of the marionnette. Since we always carried marionettes with us, the kids started to recognise us and many times our walks were interrupted by herd of kids who wanted to see the marionette dance while they were singing to him. The openess and spontanity of the kids never stopped to facinate me.

When my marionette was finished we started to rehearse with it. In Benin the marionettes are mainly used as a instruments, they come to dance with the band and make a small number. Just like a little solo. So I had to also learn to dance, sing and play an instrument. The puppeteer doesn’t try to be invisible but is an active, lively part of the show. That was for me a challenge and new thing to learn. I took lessons of dance and playing of djembe, maracas and balafone. And I even tried the kora, cool string-instrument which at least for me resembles of sitar. Unfortunately I didn’t have enough time to progress more in my music lessons. There is something left for the next time! It was interesting and fruitfull to combain different art-forms and instruments, try my limits (”No Georges, I do not sing”) and overcome them. The African beat, what the members of CLAN were teaching us, just got a hold of us and we went with the flow. And to the right direction I think. We rehearsed in bars of Grand Popo and met few other marionnetistes who we made concerts with. The joy of performing together and challenge each other with different ways of dancing was so enjoyable. Our work culminated when we went on a tour to Lomé, the capital of Togo. We performed in a small venue and Katja Kettu was our lead singer. Mr. Agbazahou thought that we need a Finnish singer and since Katja is singer in a punk-band called Confusa, she got the post.

In Togo there is at least two puppet-groups where all the members are women. Unfortunaltey I met only male marionetists. I got a lot of admiration when they learned that I also build my own puppets. Benin is a country where signs by the road say:”All the girls to the school.” There is the cultural differences , and women have still lower status. It was a good suprise for the togolese audience when two white yovos (foreigners) came on stage, the other singing and the other with marionette and we played with our rastamen ”Kurja matkamies maan” and ”Minun kultani kaunis on”. Succes was granted. Members of CLAN are very talented and good in improvising. They took our songs and

Kuva: Abdoullay

kept the essential but also changed them a bit to fit with the African style. I think that same change happened in me and Katja on a spiritual level!

When we returned from Togo we organised the workshop for children. We thought that 10kids would be enough. We collected materials and organised the lunches. When the clock strike 10:00 on Saturday morning, we had 26kids on the yard, making morning exercises together with Villa Karos lovely technicien Boniface. He had collected the children from the village, and everybody brought a sister or a brother or a friend. So we ran to Villa Karos kitchen and took all the dishclothes to be used as an extra material and the chef cut the sandwiches into 3 pieces so we all got something in the stomach. The workshop started with puppet building. Kids were between 6-13 years so some needed more help than the others. We made scarf-marionettes and when everybody had their own ready, we started the rehearseals. We tought ”A ram sam sam” song to the children and then made a choreography for it. Children in Benin are singing all the time and everywhere and they got the tune and words immediately. Members of CLAN joined us in the noon and we made a big party with the marionettes, live music and dancing. I also performed with Abdoullay and the theater marionettes for the children. All in all, after the workshop, when we all sit on the floor munching our 1/3 of a sandwich I could only see tired but very happy faces around me. Mr. Agbazahou was so impressed of our work that he decided to take the kids to perform to our concert the next Saturday in Lissa Kwassa. On that stage normally performs only big stars like Adjignon Hanbladj from Benin but next Saturday there would be 26 very small, but very bright stars. And now is that Saturday and we are back in the situation of missing kids. Band is ready, instruments are on the stage and the lights are on. Then we see little figures emerging from the bushes hastily. Life can be hard for African children. Saturday is off from school but many of them have to work instead. One boy, the one who came last, ran like crazy, still covered in flouver since he had to work for his uncles pizzeria just before and still he really wanted to participate on the show. Sky was clear, we were forming a line on backstage and we were smiling to each other. Mr. Agbazahou started to play the djembe on the stage and we; Katja, me and 26 children started to sing ”A ram sam sam” and enter the stage. And the whole night we radiated and sparkeled more than the stars above us.

Johanna Salo Lapin Nukketeatteriyhdistys

Lisätietoa: www.villa-karo.org Villa Karon viralliset sivut

www.letke.fi Lapin Esittävien Taiteiden Aluekeskus www.laplandpuppets.net Lapin Nukketeatteriyhdistys