Groovin' Griot

Ofosuwa Abiola: [00:00:00] But even in the other societies that don't have griots —a griot class— as part of their um, artisan groups, they have dance.

So we have to really look at the oral tradition and the dance as one, because they do work as, as one. _._

OreOluwa: Welcome to Groovin' Griot. A podcast about how we use dance to tell stories. I'm OreOluwa Badaki.

Azsaneé: And I'm Azsaneé Truss. Let's get groovin'

OreOluwa: On this episode of _Groovin Griot_, we chat with Dr. Ofosuwa Abiola, associate Professor of Africana [00:01:00] Dance History and Associate Dean of Research and Creative Endeavors in the College of Fine Arts at Howard University.

Azsaneé: And like many of our guests on the show this season, Dr. Abiola's background as a dancer has informed much of her work.

Ofosuwa Abiola: Um, I started, I was, my mother put me in dancing school when I was about five years old and I was trained in all aspects of dance— modern jazz, ballet, African, spiritual, all of it.

Um, and I, out of high school, well, actually in high school, I started my first dance company: Fantasy. I was 17 years old. I designed and made all the costumes. And it was a modern dance company And after I graduated at 18, I became, um, a solo artist. So I performed on and off Broadway, mostly doing, um, musical theater. I've danced on, um, cruise ships you know, traveled all over the world [00:02:00] dancing. And I began to really, focus on our people, and began to wonder, okay, how can this dance help us to better understand our history, our agency, and not only the plight of our people, but our way out.

OreOluwa: Dr. Abiola ended up moving with her family to southern Virginia. She founded a dance company called Suwabi African Ballet in order to teach about various African histories and cultures through dance.

Ofosuwa Abiola: I did that for 15 years, was, was wonderful, but I wanted to reach more people. And I said, well, wait a minute, "what if I reached people that before they got out in the world and began their lives —what if I reached them at the time that they were building their information base and deciding what they were going to do when they got out there?

What if I reached them there?" And then that way, [00:03:00] when they got out into the world, no matter what their career choice would be, they would have this sense of identity, this confidence in who they were, and they would know who they were beforehand. So that's when I said, well, shoot. I want to teach college then.

OreOluwa: And with that, Dr. Abiola set out on a new path to becoming a college professor. But if you remember from earlier, she became a professional dancer right out of high school. And at that point, she didn't have a college degree. So first, she went back to complete an undergraduate degree majoring in interdisciplinary studies and designing a program that merged her interests in dance and history

Ofosuwa Abiola: So I called it cultural studies, my bachelor of interdisciplinary studies. And made it a point to get all A's —graduated with a 4. 0 and I graduated in three years instead of four— because I knew that I would need a Ph.D. in order to teach university level. And I said, well, [00:04:00] I don't have money to pay for it, so I better get these good grades so that I can get a fellowship.

And that's what I did. When I got accepted to Howard, Howard had offered me a full ride as a Frederick Douglass scholar. So I said, well, that's the one for me. And so I went to Howard, majored in African history, fused together the dance history and cultural history

and, uh, that's all she wrote. Graduated in 2016 at the age of 54 with a Ph.D. in, um, history.

OreOluwa: Dr. Abiola has had such a fascinating journey, spanning multiple locations, disciplines, and communities. You and I have talked before, Azsaneé, about how our experiences as dancers have helped shape the work we do with our communities, as well as our research. And Dr. Abiola gives a really great example of how to bring those worlds together.

Azsaneé: And even more specifically, she shows us how African dances are an important part of that process. In her 2021 [00:05:00] book, Fire Under My Feet, Dr. Abiola discusses how African dance is generally underrepresented within scholarly research.

We asked her to reflect on why dance as a modality for information, storytelling, history, and so much more, is important to study specifically within the context of West African movement practices.

Ofosuwa Abiola: In the literature... When I got to college, um, I really had to create this field of dance, African dance history, or African and African dance for dance history because

there were a few sources on African dance movement, but the sources were not on the history, and were not on the history of the culture. So, the scholarly sources with regard to the actual research and the impact that African dance had, um, outside of just the movement was not there.

So, okay. Now, um, so to [00:06:00] answer the question, when we move, when we do these dances and the dances are in housed or imbued with all of this history, not only the history from before, but also cultural developments, what's about to happen —which I can explain later— our entire body is speaking to the entire body of the receiver or of the audience.

So, it's going beyond, we're not only speaking to the intellect of the audience, but we're speaking to the spirit of the audience, to the emotion of the audience —to— and to the entire body of the audience. And everyone knows that the body also holds memory. So I think that, uh, with regard to dance, it speaks more holistically to whoever is receiving the dance because it's the body of the dancer [00:07:00] speaking to the entire body of the receiver.

OreOluwa: Thinking about the tradition of the griot, we also wanted to hear about how Dr. Abiola sees the relationship between dance and oral storytelling. In another one of her books, titled _History Dances_, she discusses the relationship between these systems specifically in Mandinka society. The Mandinka, or Malinke, are a West African ethnic group primarily from southern Mali, the Gambia, and eastern Guinea.

The Mandinka continue a long Oral history tradition through stories, song, proverbs, and of course, dance. We asked Dr. Abiola how she sees oral storytelling and dance working together in the development of societies on the African continent.

Ofosuwa Abiola: So on the African continent, you're, in _History_ _Dances_, that book spoke specifically to Mandinka or Malinke, Mandingo —all of these the same people— um, to their dance systems.

But you have dance systems or systems of culture in other parts of the [00:08:00] continent that do not have oral tradition. but they have dance. So, uh, you have in the Mandinka tradition, they do work together, but I just wanted to point out there are other traditions where they don't have a class of oral historians, but the dance itself becomes that, um, that way of not only storing the history, but also conveying it.

So now let's go back to the Mandinka Society with the two working together. In Mandinka Societies, you have the artisan classes, um, and within the artisan classes, you have your folks that are not only experts in these particular, um, crafts —dance being one— but they also pass it down from generation to generation.

So it becomes a generational, uh, engagement with these different types of, of [00:09:00] crafts and arts. So with dance, dance then also becomes a way of telling the history of that family line. And it also becomes a way of telling the history of the village, because these people exist within that village, and their family is known as the dancers of the village.

OreOluwa: In her work, Dr. Abiola models how to understand dance as part of a wider network of modalities. Understanding how these modalities interact can reveal a lot about how societies have historically organized and sustained themselves.

Ofosuwa Abiola: I speak of dance systems because the dance does not exist by itself. Within the dance, you're going to have singing. which is how the oral historians conveyed their, um, their histories.

Um, you're going to have the attire, and within the attire, that's a whole nother narrative. There are colors [00:10:00] that the attire represents and there are, um, particular materials that the attire is made from

Um, you have your musicians who speak with their drumming or the balafon or whatever instruments they're using, but they also are wearing particular attire that also has a message. And all of these messages that are conveyed through, um, the attire. The singing, the location where the dance is to occur and the time of day, who does the dance, all of this is centered around the dance

and therefore, um, really makes the dance a holistic, uh, modality. With the oral tradition, it becomes, or it is part of the dance. So when in those societies, um, I won't even say in those societies, I was going to say in the society, the Mandinka societies, where they have oral [00:11:00] tradition and dance, you should look at them not as two modalities, but as one because they are part of one.

But even in the other societies that don't have griots, a griot class as part of their, um, artisan groups, they have dance and no society in Africa do you have dance without the singing, without the verbal part, without the attire, without the location being specifically selected to convey whatever the message is that the dance is trying to convey.

So we have to really look at the oral tradition and the dance as one, because they do work as, as one.

Azsaneé: Time for another movement break. [00:12:00] Ore, can you tell us a little bit about this clip?

OreOluwa: My pleasure. Thanks, Azsaneé

Uh, so this clip is from a film I worked on called Bantaba on Baltimore, which is about a West African dance class in West Philadelphia. Bantaba is a Mandinka word, which roughly translates to "meeting place." And this is usually done under a tree.

This film was about how rhythm can unite different modalities such as song, dance, and storytelling. And this clip, is from a Bantaba Circle where dancers come together at the end of the class to share what they've learned, offer their gratitude, and connect with each other and with the drummers.

[00:13:00]

OreOluwa: Welcome back. Maybe you got a chance to clap or move along with the Bantaba Circle. And if so, or if you have a movement practice of your own that you think aligns with the show, we want to hear about it. Please shoot us an email and you might be featured in an upcoming episode. All right, let's get back to our conversation with Dr. Abiola.

Azsaneé: In addition to discussing the blurred lines between dance and oral traditions within African dance systems, Dr. Abiola reflects on how the lines between performer and spectator are also blurred. She talks about how these exchanges transfer messages and energy differently.

Ofosuwa Abiola: In diasporic dance you have a dynamic.

And the dynamic is, um, you have dancers, you have the drummers, and the audience, which is part of that, the audience does not remain on the outskirts as audience. They are, [00:14:00] um, performers or dancer-spectators. That's what I, I call it. And I call it dancer-spectators because, um, on one level they witness the dance, but then on another level they participate.

And in diasporic dances, they literally go and dance with the dancers that are performing it. When we have to, look at dance on a stage, which is, you know, what dance has, um, come to in these Western spaces, then the participation happens on a different level because there are instances when the spectator dancer from the audience cannot come up to the stage and actually dance with the, um, the performer that's dancing.

So now you have verbal signals. You [00:15:00] notice in Black spaces, when you go to dance concerts, the audience is never quiet. It's, it's never a, as you said, you dance, we receive. Never. There's always a participation. If it can't be physically —and I, when I say physically, I mean physically on the stage, because in these instances, you do see dancers from the audience dancing in the aisles or swaying in the aisles.

Um, but if it can't be physically on the stage, then it is verbally, it is spiritual, it is emotional. Um, I remember one of the concerts that we did, Suwabi African Ballet, did in Virginia. One of the audience members came to me crying and she said, you know, I've just never experienced anything like this before.

And I have gone to dance concerts before, but I have never experienced —it touched me in more than just me looking at it. [00:16:00] I was part of it. it was part of me. So there, within diasporic dances, we speak not only to the the person on an intellectual level, even when they can't come and dance on the stage with us, we still touch in all of these other modalities, because it is the whole body that's transferring the message to the whole body.

OreOluwa: To close the conversation, we asked Dr. Abiola what she's groovin' to these days.

Ofosuwa Abiola: I enjoy Soukous, which, um, for the viewers who, who don't know, though, that's an um musical art form from, uh, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

And I enjoy Gnawa jazz which Is an art form, a musical art form from the, um, Blacks in Morocco. And let me, let me clarify that because you know, there are Blacks in Morocco. There are Black folks [00:17:00] that were indigenous to Morocco, uh, in Northwest Africa, and then there were Black folks that were brought to Morocco, uh, through the trans-Saharan slave trade

from, uh, Senegal, the Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Northern Nigeria, uh, Mauritania. And those folks still retained their roots from, um, that area, uh, of Africa when they went, when they were brought to Morocco. And they consider themselves diasporans. They say that they're from the African diaspora and the music that they, um, create is very similar to jazz here, but not so you can hear the elements.

But then you hear the other distinct elements of, um, of Africa in that music. So that, those are the [00:18:00] two musical art forms that I really, really enjoy, that I'm groovin' to. I love, um, comic book movies, fantasy, and sci fi, as long as there's a lot of diversity, you know, in it. So, of course, you know, we're looking at the Black Panther, both iterations.

Um, Little Mermaid, the Black one. Um, you know, so things like that. Um, I really enjoy. I like, um, Afrofuturism, of course, but I'm more on the sci fi side. I'm really in, I love sci fi. I'm looking at now _Foundation_, um, that's Apple TV. So again, a lot of diversity, black women leads, that whole thing. I really, really enjoy, um, seeing.

So yeah.[00:19:00]

Azsaneé: This episode of _Groovin' Griot_ was a production of. Production of the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. It was produced and edited by me, Azsaneé Truss, and my co host, Ore Badaki. Our theme music is Unrest by ELPHNT and can be found on directory. audio.

OreOluwa: You can email us at groovingriot@gmail.com.

That's G-R-O-O-V-I-N-G-R-I-O-T @gmail.com. And follow us on Instagram @groovingriot. You can continue to listen to episodes of _Groovin' Griot_ wherever podcasts are found. Thanks for groovin' with us.

Azsaneé and OreOluwa: You wrote the —or this you —what, last time we recorded this? Yeah. You said that. I remember, yeah. You were like "it's an audio play, but no one's acting." [00:20:00] I was like, "we're keeping that."