Intro by Chinyere Ogbue, Head of Workforce Development
Black History Month remains a crucial period of reflection and honouring of the paths paved by those before us. This year’s theme encourages us to stand firm in the power and pride; thus, this is a timely opportunity to reflect on the ways in which Black dance continues to be a movement for resistance and reclamation of power. To honour this, it is important to shine light on the conversations that have taken place that still contain reflections that still ring true today.
Under the header of Rhythm of Resistance, we are pleased to reshare some excellent interview / posts from the seminal ‘Voicing Black Dance’ which was a project that sought to bring to the fore the Black British experience from the 1930s – 1900s.
The first post in this collective reflection of power and pride, comes from the interview done in 2006 with Peter Badejo OBE who is described as “one of Britain’s foremost choreographers, dancers, and African performance specialist”. He is interviewed by Ukachi Akalawu.
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In 1993, Peter Badejo gave a position paper at a conference facilitated by the Dance Department of the Arts Council. The theme of the conference was ‘What is Black Dance in Britain?’, which was also the title of Peter’s position paper.
Peter Badejo, when presenting his paper, talked about the myriad issues which seem to have surrounded Black dance for too long:
• Definition
• Multiple functions of African People’s Dance
• Investment
• Survival versus Art
• Convenient funding labels
• Funding to fail
• Dealing with venues
• Education, Training and professional development of artists
• Administration
• Leadership
Ukachi Akalawu (UA): Peter, the issues that you highlighted in your position paper – do you still stand by the viewpoint you took, back in 1993?
Peter Badejo (PB): Yes, for the most part I do stand by what I said in 1993, although many events and situations have affected my views since then; particularly in the African dance sector. If anything, I’ve changed my mind about the term African People’s Dance, which has become so polluted, that I have completely turned my back on the term. I’ve gone back to the original term itself – African Dance. People can do aspects of it, they can use various forms of it, but the term African People’s Dance has become so encompassing that it is meaningless, in the sense that the term represents a bleaching of culture – you bleach the essence of Africa itself. Ten years have passed and we are still unable to identify our dance via a technique, so we are still basing it on a broad, yet undefined, concept of Africa. Africa is a continent of many meanings and it is many things to many people. So, we are still unclear about what we mean by African Dance, for me this means that – things have not improved and, if anything, there is a decline.
UA: Where do you stand within this argument, in terms of the direction of your work?
PB: Quite a number of things have changed within my work – some are for good, some I have regrets about. For example, if you look at my ideas about training, I think I have deviated a little bit in the sense that my initial understanding and belief that music, dance and movement in Africa are interwoven and must be taught as such, have changed. In my earlier work, I used to teach both (the dance and the music) so that people could clearly understand the relationship and I think now, because we lack institutional development, I have inadvertently slipped a little bit in terms of my work. I’ve put more emphasis on dance as movement and not really given the two qualities the equal attention they deserve. So, in that sense, I think that the approach to my work has changed. But, in another sense, I’ve also gained in that I’ve been able to push my work into certain directions where I think we should be aiming.
But again, you must realise that part of the problem is that in Britain, we don’t have the institutional support for the development of African Dance and the exploration of the range of techniques that would support its future development – the support is not there. We don’t have institutions; we’ve never even had an incubating centre up until today. African Dance on a professional level has been going on for at least 50 years I this country, yet we cannot name one theatre or arts space where we can find African Dance artists really developing their work or showing the development of their work to audiences. So we are still at the same place, in fact because of the lack of institutional support and experimentation, we are even in a worse situation.
When I first came here, quite a number of venues would take a risk on African Dance productions. In fact, many were eager to try it, despite the significantly fewer number of Africans in this country at the time. They wouldn’t just see it as something incomprehensible or assume that audiences wouldn’t be interested. But now, fewer and fewer venues have presented African Dance over the years and consequently there are fewer opportunities arising for people to create work; for example – an incubating centre or laboratory, where people can develop their work without fear. Many artists are now so scared, because they think that maybe if they receive £1000 funding, and then don’t do exactly what the funder wants to see, they will lose that money and any subsequent opportunities. People are faced with the stark reality of survival and possible starvation if they get it wrong. Given that most African Dance practitioners (in common with their contemporaries in other dance forms) have no other interest or expertise, the danger of falling out with the funders weighs heavily on their minds, knowing that the alternative is a penurious life – working as a cleaner or minicabing, at best. There appears to be a direct correlation between our work and poverty. Yes, it’s true – the poverty that faces them when they defy the wishes of the funders and their funding is withdrawn. As a result of this, people are so poor they are not in control of anything, not even their own artistic expression or the presentation of it. They are forced to perform in certain ways, they are forced to teach in certain ways. Where are all the subtle dances of Africa? Where are they? The subtlety that you find in traditional African dances, where are they? Lost and gone, to satisfy what the artists think is expected, all sweat and no brains style of dancing? Everybody’s talking about building a six, seven, ten pack, so that they can show off their bodies in African Dance, is that what African Dance is? It’s not! If you look at the forms there are quite a number of dances, even in traditional African dances, where the nuances of the movement are within the body, so it’s how you feel the dance, not how you look. But we have become exhibitionists.
UA: Well, people have a certain perception of Africa and they are comfortable with those perceptions. And it causes confusion when they are presented with something different, because then they feel they can’t understand the subtleties and nuances and complexities and thus can’t engage with it.
PB: Yes. People who shout and call for contemporary African dance, I’m sure if they were slapped in the face with the reality of Contemporary African dance, they would not recognise it, because that’s not what their perception is of what Africans are in the contemporary world. So, it’s one thing to say that you want the development of contemporary African dance, it’s another thing to accept what contemporary African dance actually is for the Africans themselves. Occasionally we slip through the net – one African dance company does one thing that interests one person among the funding authorities, or the economic powers, and that company is sponsored. Finished! Because it’s rootless. There is no building of understanding, no critical mass, no academic support, no intellectual support for such work. So, that company will last for a few years, then it dies off and that’s the end of that. Then a new one is sorted, it is all about changing fashion.
We have spent over 10 years since that conference and we have not been able to access the tap root of what African artistic expression is in terms of dance in this country. It’s a shame. If you look at it, every artistic expression that was developed 10, 20 years ago has contributed to the present development of those forms. However, look at Adzido. Where are the experiences, the 20 years of experience that was built by Adzido Pan African Dance Ensemble? Everything couldn’t have been bad with the company. But where is that knowledge and experience today? For African Dance here, there’s no storehouse, there’s no powerhouse for us to tap from. Can we say ‘Alright, these are the things that worked with Adzido, these are things that did not work with Adzido, that our young people can follow and build on?’ Adzido is not the only one. Look at Kokuma. What happened with all the experiences of Kokuma? Look at Badejo Arts. You begin to believe that we are programmed to start, develop, and fail within a particular period of our existence.
So, now new faces are around, new Black faces are on the block. Give it another 10 years, they will also be gone. Whether it’s Hip Hop, whether it’s street dance, give it whatever name you like. It will be the same situation. Now we can see what’s going on in MOBO [referring to the MOBO Awards 2006 decision to drop their Jazz category]. And I’m sure it’s going to happen in what they are now calling DOBO (Dance of Black Origin). It’s just a matter of time. What is DOBO? What is MOBO? Music of Black Origin? What is that, what is it supposed to mean? It has climaxed in this MOBO of 2006, where the origin of Black music and songs was flipped out. Are we saying that jazz is no more? If jazz is not there in the music of African peoples, what is black music? Are we also going to say that classical European music is no more? Music, especially in the West, has gone far. Music is already an industry, but dance is not an industry. But we are always nibbling their heels, following the music industry. And sure enough, people have been talking about DOBO. Dance of Black Origin. I don’t know what that means. I hope that by the time that term begins to be used seriously, I’ve left the scene. By that time, anything will be acceptable under that term.
What is painful is that before we even begin to crawl they want us to run. Some people will say ‘Are you then saying that there is no British Black Dance?’ What is that? We all live in Britain. But what makes Britain so interesting on the world stage is the multiculturalism that built this place called Britain. The British experience is the bringing together of, and respect for all those artists that make, this multi-ethnic expression in Britain. That’s what makes it interesting. Otherwise, what is British? But to do it, you’ve got to respect, you’ve got to value, put equal value on those cultural aspects. And to do that, you have to remember that training and education are very, very essential. That is the heart of it. It is a shame that today, 80% of the people who started African Dance, when I first came into this country, are doing menial jobs, care work, cleaning, driving and other unskilled work. They have not been able to develop their artistic talent and skill. Dance was a 9-5 job for them and there was no place for them to develop their artistic talents. So, when they got older – what happened to them?
Nowhere to go! From the beginning, in the African dance sector, practitioners weren’t encouraged to think as artists. When you look at Western contemporary dance (mark this, the word contemporary is not the preserve of one particular group), but when you look at Western contemporary dance, because quite a number of those practitioners are trained, they think as artists, they think about self-development, they think about their own artistic expression, they think about developing choreographic skills and becoming better performers. If they want to be dancers at their old age, the sector has the facilities to develop them. The sector benefits from the developed institution. But if you look at African Dance, 80% of the people who practice traditional African dance didn’t get the opportunity to go to school. We’ve gone beyond using the farmer’s experience in the London street. It doesn’t work. We live in an era of technology, era of television, where there are hundreds of TV stations. Sometimes you sit in front of the television and flip from channel to channel, which is a reflection of how the minds of present day audiences work. They want to flip through cultures. So if you present kpanlogo1 today, kpanlogo tomorrow and kpanlogo the next day, the audiences will be bored of the same thing. That’s why we must talk about developing techniques of dance to give the practitioners the necessary tools to create new works in African Dance. I’m working on Bata2 dance. Working towards developing BataBade dance technique. I don’t have the support I need, (not just money but the institutional and infrastructural support) but that will not stop the process of the development. I’m not saying Bata is the only dance technique that is needed. Other African dance techniques should be developed. Once this is done, it will provide the tools for practitioners and a better understanding for audiences and analysts. People who are interested in that form can pick it up and say ‘Alright now, I have the ABCs of this particular dance form and now I want to be able to use it to create my own expression, to say what I want to say.’
UA: And then, of course, it makes it more accessible to all sorts of people, regardless of their heritage.
PB: Yes, it wouldn’t matter. For example, if you study ballet in Jamaica, and you study ballet in Nigeria, and you study ballet in China, you go through the same plié, rélevé, bar exercise and training. So when ballet is mentioned, there is a common language that everyone knows. The same thing should be true for African dances.
UA: So, in your opinion, is the direction of creating tools for education and training one solution for the development and stabilisation of African Dance practice in Britain?
PB: Absolutely! For example, take River Dance. It has a specific heritage, style, technique, music and form that is recognizable anywhere that it is learned or performed. It has a location, a place in time, in a culture and in history. I don’t mean that it is stagnant, no! Not at all, but I do mean that if one wants to learn River Dance, then one must learn those aspects of it that make it what it is and not something else. Creativity will follow from an understanding of what River Dance is. The same should be true for African Dance. No one denies that it has a specific heritage on the African continent, but we have yet to codify it with respect to its style, techniques, music and forms that distinguish it, no matter where and no matter who teaches or performs it. And I am not saying that there is only one African Dance, no I am saying that there are African dances that have their own credibility and cultural context, by which they must be identified and respected. These are the tools for education and training that I believe will help to develop and stabilize the vitality, spirit and meaning of African dances. From here we can institutionalize African dances.
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To read more interviews and further reflections from those who have put brick to mortar in building and voicing black dance, we have the full resource available here.