Groovin' Griot

Jonathan Van Arneman: Thinking about how we can be in the diaspora and still feel whole, still feel connected, and I think seed and sound was really the journey of that road to connection.

[Intro music fades in]

OreOluwa Badaki: 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’.

[Intro music plays]

Azsaneé: This episode, we're taking you behind the scenes of a show Ore worked on called Seed and Sound. It was the second iteration of a solo you choreographed a couple of years ago, right?
OreOluwa: That's right. I got this incredible opportunity to work with some dear friends and collaborators to expand a three-minute solo and turn it into a compilation piece. It ended up premiering with the Philadelphia Dance Projects last spring. And I was also doubly grateful to have you there, Azsaneé, to help record the process.

Azsaneé: Yeah, it was really cool to witness the rehearsal process, come to the show, chat with you all after the premiere, hang out, and, you know, have some pistachios on Jonathan's couch. (laughs)

OreOluwa: That was fun. That was really fun.

Azsaneé: It was also a great way to unpack some of the themes we talk about on Groovin’ Griot. Fo you wanna share a little bit more about the piece before we dive in?

OreOluwa: So, Seed and Sound originally was a piece I choreographed as part of my dissertation work. I was looking at the connection between West African dance practices and agricultural practices. So I was really interested in thinking about diaspora. I was reading work by Tsi Tsi Jaji who is a scholar who thinks about these topics. And, I really love this concept she talks about: echolocation. It's the idea that when sound is emitted, the vibrations and echoes that come forth help you to orient yourself. And so, when one is in a diasporic experience, right, what is it that's helping them orient where they are, where they've been, where they're going? And this is something we played with a lot in the second iteration of Seed and Sound with Jonathan and Anna, who you're about to meet.

Azsaneé: Yeah. So let's get to know your collaborators.

Ore: I'm gonna pass the mic to the best person in the world, Anna.
[The group laughs and makes bullhorn noises]
I mean, Anna. Sorry.

Anna: Call me Anna. Uh, full name Anna Marie Elizabeth Martone. I am —who am I? I am a dancer. I like to bake. I like to do arts and crafts. I am also working towards my license as a therapist, and a dance movement therapist at that. So, I think a lot about how our mind, body, soul, spirit are connected, and how they move in relationship to those around us. I also study a lot about the environment and so how our environment affects how we exist in the world and our relationships with others.

Jonathan: My name is Jonathan Van Arneman. I am Caribbean transplant originally from Sint Maarten. Shout out to my Sint Maarten people. Yes, yes, yes. I am a somatic psychotherapist. I have my master's in dance movement therapy and counseling. And right now, I work as a grief counselor for an amazing organization called Philly Heals. A dancer, choreographer, I think that you know, my first love. And so really trying to understand the bridge between art and healing and how I can bring people to that bridge.

Azsaneé: One of the major themes that came up during our chat, and that was also a starting point for your piece, was the nature of diaspora and the ruptures that occur at the outset.

OreOluwa: Exactly. So, the first piece of the compilation was choreographed by Jonathan prior to us collaborating on Seed and Sound, actually. He shared a bit about his thinking behind the piece and why it was important to start with this sense of rupture but not end with it.

Jonathan: Seen and Sound starts off with, a song called Kona. And Kona is a Zulu word for “there” or “place.” It's by a band called Mafikizolo. And in the song, the chorus of the song is, “where is my Love? Please give it back. Where did you take it? I want it.” And I really resonated with the lyrics of the song because originally, I had choreographed this piece for a Palestine fundraiser. I went to school in Canada with a schoolmate who was from Palestine. And so some of the alumni of the school, they were putting together an art auction for his family. He was trying to get them out. And so, we were raising funds and they asked me to perform.

And so, you know, I wanted to create work and so I was looking for, for music. And when I found this song, you know, Kona, it —I mean the music spoke to me before the lyrics did 'cause I don't speak Zulu, and so I didn't know what was being said. And so, again, it is Afro-house — specifically South African House.
And so, I was attracted to, you know, the beat and the rhythm and the musicality, the instrumentation, all of that stuff. And so I was like, “okay, let me figure out what these lyrics are saying before I, really land on this song.” And when I did research into the lyrics, I was amazed because it was talking about the loss of a place —the loss of a thing. And really, for me, it connected a lot to the loss of Palestine. Just the displacement of a people and the genocide that's happening right now.
And so, when it came to Seed and Sound and us having a conversation about diaspora, we talked a little bit about how diaspora cannot exist without displacement. And that was intentional to start the piece there. Because we knew that's not where we wanted to end it. And really the role of, of connecting people, thinking about how we can be in the diaspora and still feel whole —still feel connected.
And I think Seed and Sound was really the journey of that road to connection, you know. Starting it off with Kona, which had a lot of pain and separation, and then ending it with everyone in the audience coming together and dancing together and, and literally connecting. I think it was really just a journey of what it means to find beauty in each other.

Azsaneé: I think that’s such an important point. Especially when we think about diaspora, it’s not just about where something starts, it’s also about where it travels. And one way that Seed and Sound interrogated that question was —well, it's in the title— through sound.

OreOluwa: It is indeed in the title. And so, yeah, I think coming back to Tsi Tsi Jaji’s point about echolocation, about echoes, sound was really important in how we were thinking about diaspora. Anna was particularly attuned to how sound and space played a role in our piece.

Anna: We talked about internal rhythms. We talked about, you know, external rhythm. We talked about how our body wants to move in that space. And I think, especially being in the round, it became, “okay, so what does it mean to exist in, in this environment today, where we are?”
Whether we're sort of moving through narrative and history and bringing, sort of, knowledge of past into present, how do you, um, marry those two? Or what does it mean to engage in, use of sound? Whether it's like internal sounds and internal rhythms or external rhythms… What is that noise?
Jonathan: Sorry. It's the …
[Group is laughing]
Azsanee: It’s the icemaker, right?
Jonathan: The ice maker just decided to… So random.
Ore: It has something to say, y'all.
Anna: See, there we go! Like what is the, the sound the fridge makes that then like, brings me to a different space. And now my body's like, I wanna do whatever.
[Group continues laughing]
Anna: So, I think that sort of primes me —and something that I enjoy thinking about is how environment affects how you exist in space. And then in performance, what does it mean to play around with spacing and orientation? I'm really interested in using my voice and so in the piece, I played around with like, as I move my body, what is the sound that comes out, right? So, it's not like a predetermined sound that I'm making, but it is in space, as I move my body, as the echo —like whatever the space is, you know, we were in the old…
Azsanee: Black box.
Anna: Black boxy… thing So, my voice in there is gonna sound very different than it would outside, than it would in this space here. Andwhat does that mean in present moment and about how you're telling the story.

Azsaneé: Speaking of sounds, let's take a little movement break and hear some audio from Seed and Sound rehearsal I went to. It was cool seeing and hearing how you all work together and incorporated the themes and ideas that you're wrestling with into your movement.

[Audio from Seed and Sound rehearsal including drums, clapping, snapping, sounds of movement]

Azsaneé: Welcome back. In that clip, you also heard some other voices we haven't introduced quite yet. One was Anssumane Silla. He was the musical anchor of the piece. Although it included recorded music, the narrative compass of the piece was the live percussion. As we know from working on this podcast, West African dance does not exist without the drum.

OreOluwa: No, it does not. And in Seed and Sound, we considered the role of the drum as a form of echolocation. Something that calls us back, as well as forward, as we orient where we are in time and space. Anssumane, who is also a dancer, helped anchor this in our piece. He helped us understand the dances that we incorporated into some of the choreography. One of them is a dance called Kuku.
Anssumane: Kuku is from most of um, Liberia and Sierra Leon. That's where the Kuku came from. So, Kuku is a fishing, dance. Fishing. But we say cuckoo C is a bird sound bird. *Makes cuckoo bird noise* in the forest. But when the woman go fishing, coming out, they celebrate Kuku.
It's different ways to play it, different ways to dance it. In other countries, they dance faster. If you notice, for me, Kuku I always do slow. For us, it's a dance more to show your character, show your, you know, body movement.

OreOluwa: He also taught us a Manjaco song to help culminate the piece.

Anssumane: So, this song that we sing is belong to Manjaco people. What was the song, actually?

OreOluwa: *sings Manjaco song*

Anssumane: So, the song was saying that the, the fruit is falling in a forest. There's nobody to pick it up. That's which means manpatas. This fruit —

OreOluwa: Fruit is manpatas.

Anssumane: Yeah. In Guinea Bissau, we call it manpatas. In Guinea they call it suguee.
In Guinea they sing it. And in Guinea Bissau they sing it but different ethnic groups. Manjaco and Soussou people. Which is my father's ethnic group: Soussou. So, dance has the rules. Sometimes we say, no, no, but dance has the rules. For me, the rules is a movement and the rhythm. If they match, they can walk. If they don't match, they're never gonna walk together.

Azsaneé: What Anssumane said there about the rhythm and the dance walking together, and the importance of having respect for both, is super important. It seems like a lot went into crafting not only the movement sequences, but also the soundscape of the piece. The piece seemed to shift and respond to lots of different stimuli. You all talked a bit about that during the debrief. We chatted about how you created structure and shape around the moving pieces while still being responsive to emerging dynamics.
Let's take a listen.

OreOluwa: I think, at our core we are dancers and storytellers, right? We happen to be —our social location happens to be— research, happens to be academia. And I'm grateful that I’m in a field that, for me, is about storytelling, right? So, Soyini Madison, who's a performance ethnographer, who I draw a lot from, she has this quote where she talks about ethnography being —yes, it might be a science, yes, it might be an art— but really, it's about presence and it's about being present in the immediacy of stories being told… Or for stories being made —something like that.

And for me, I think the research helps me be more refined in being present as stories are unfolding around me and being systematic and strategic about it. Everybody knows about my little spreadsheet.

[Group laughs loudly]

Anna: She loves her spreadsheets.

Azsanee: This season, we were putting together one, we were putting together like how we're gonna organize a season and, and Ore puts together a spreadsheet and she goes, “I see it now.” “I now, like, I understand now that we can actually make another season of the podcast now that there is a spreadsheet.” Like, we had it all in a Google doc. And then once it moved to a spreadsheet, it was like, “this makes sense now.”

Anna: Ding!
OreOluwa: I, I just —
Anna: You know how you work and what you need.
Ore: I know how I work and I also think it's helpful, you know, for other people to see how things are organized.
Azsanee: Absolutely.
Ore: And so you can like, share a spreadsheet. You can't share your, you know, your mind.. Actually yeah, you can.
But I just think like bringing those spaces together where it is structured, where there is organization where people know how they can fit in, where they can get agency and autonomy, and then also where they can get support. And then having that structure be flexible so that it is, you know, malleable and mobile and can live and breathe the way humans do, for me, is something that I gravitate towards.
The original Seed and Sound piece —I had mentioned before— in my head, when I started choreographing, it was not a solo. So then, cultivating this space —so then when these incredible people came into my orbit, I was like, “oh, I know exactly where we can go with this.
And then also bringing in folks who had already been in our circles to really amplify and fortify the message that we were trying to bring to fruition. So, I think, yeah, I mean, I think coming back to that son Madison quote about like, “how are we trying to be present in the unfolding of stories?” And for me, using my training as a researcher, my identity, I think, as a dancer and a storyteller, bringing those things together, I think, helps that make that possible.

Azsaneé: And to wrap things up, like we do with all of our guests, we asked you, Jonathan, and Anna what you're grooving to these days. You all were getting ready to premiere your second piece as a part of the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, so the song you were choreographing to was heavy on your minds.
OreOluwa: I think one song we are all grooving to, maybe a little too much these days, is a song by Yussef Dayes because we're choreographing our upcoming piece to this song. It's called black Classical music. Is it from his latest album?

Anna: Yeah it is. It is his latest album.
OreOluwa: And it's the title the title track. Our next piece is gonna be part of Fringe Festival —
Azsanee: I already got my ticket.
OreOluwa: I love sound of that. And it’s really exciting because we're working with, you know, 20 plus, 21 dancers. And so we've, we've cultivated this practice of collaborative choreography for each other, but also doing that for other people, in front of other people —it's been, yeah, it's been a journey. And we have just the most incredible cast. A it’s such a blessing, to be a part of this. So Yussef Dayes, “Black Classical Music,” it's a bop.
Anna: It is a bop. It takes you on a journey
Ore: It takes you on a journey. And our piece is gonna take you on a journey. So, Yussef Dayes, if you're listening…
Anna: Come to our show. Flow State… September twenty…. Eighth? At some… at a certain…
Ore: …time.
[Group laughs]
[Closing music fades in]
Azsaneé:
This episode of Groovin' Griot was a 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 you can continue to listen to episodes of Groovin’ Griot wherever podcasts are found. Thanks for groovin' with us.

*BLOOPERS*