AATABA was a contemporary dance performance by a Moroccan female dance trio that became a quartet with the addition of of Namibian artist Angelica Schroder. The show had no program, the name of the choreographer was not announced, we were only told of the idea. The idea of cultural exchange between francophone Morocco and francophille Namibia.
The exchange of culture did appear fruitful as the ripples travelling through the back of Schroder captivated me. She had clearly internalized Moroccan belly dance techniques .However, when one of the Moroccan dancers began to send pulses of muscular articulation from her head to her waist and back up again, I felt shock waves move through my body in amazement. The Moroccan dancers used what we would call their traditional dance in combination with the dance of their former coloniser, France. This was demonstrated by the Moroccan dancer who executed sinuous movements of her arms while taking minuscule steps on the tips of her toes with her legs tightly together, called burees. With her back to the audience and her head turned just a tad to the side and up, she was the ballerina with mystic Arabian arms.
What made AATABA distinct from ethnic dance performances, whether they be ballet or belly dance, was the form of the whole piece. The painstaiking progression of movement ideas pervaded this performance. For me, the most poignant example of this was when one of the dancers took a plastic tub, full of tomatoes, dropped it on stage and slowly stepped into it. I still feel reverberations from that moment - her feet slowly plodding in the tomato pulp, while she turns with each step to give us a 360 degree view of how she steps. Time was dilated by her slowly meditative steps, but also rushed forward each time she jerked her foot up to the shin of the opposite leg. During this plodding, a woman undresses her self as she sits at the lip of stage. Taking her time, she pulls of her top to leave us staring at her in a her black lace bra. Her look is pensive and she begins to sing along with a chorus of female voices, in arabic, which is playing. Just that look evoked feelings within me. I wondered how her half naked body would be perceived in her native Morocco. What message could this send to those who believe in covering up the woman's body according to Islamic tradition?
It was the build up the ensued which wove together a message. The one on the tomatoes gradually stepped harder, splashing bits of red along her smooth legs. Concomitantly, another woman, lying on her back on stage and he bent legs jutting like mountain tops is roused to move. She progressively comes to cover her head with a black pantie hose. To her feet, she attaches the ends of the stockings and comes to stand up, with her knees bent. Black sinews appear to run from her feet to head and her legs resemble the curved arms of a praying mantis. Indeed, like the stealthy mantis, she moves forward in spurts with quick insect-like turns of her head. The stockings from her head to toes appear to constrain her movement as her torso stays close to the ground. But then she winds her arms round those black sinews, pulls on them occasionally reaches a leg up in a high diagonal, pushing the limits of her body. I saw her as dancing the plight of the Muslim woman who cannot show her face and is finding out how many was she can manoeuvre given her constraints. As this occurs, the voices of Arab women begin to crescendo and Schroder, seated in a far corner of the stage, covers her head with a green garment, resembling a woman wearing a veil, green for the color of Islam. A pulse in her torso raises her body to upright and she takes large steps towards the audience while her upper body continues to pulse and gyrate causing her veil to flutter. From within the veil, her arms grasp towards the audience, as if she were reaching from within this symbol of Islam.
Once Schroder came to edge of the stage, she removes the veil and begins to breath easily, while her fellow dancer removes the pantie hose from her head to also find respite. The tomatoes splashing stops and an air of stillness descends on stage. Was AATABA an expression of Moroccan feminism or was their something else? In spite of my interpretation, other audience members may have found different messages. An Italian lady I spoke to afterwards said she saw the bloodiness of War within the tomatoes and the stomping. Italians, French, Congolese, Moroccans and a few Namibians, these are the people that attended AATABA. I wish more of us could have come. It was probably just bad luck for the producers of the show, because while we were watching AATABA, in a half filled hall, hordes of Namibians were watching the Rugby. Next time, come to a contemporary dance show, where anything goes, including the physicality of rugby.
The exchange of culture did appear fruitful as the ripples travelling through the back of Schroder captivated me. She had clearly internalized Moroccan belly dance techniques .However, when one of the Moroccan dancers began to send pulses of muscular articulation from her head to her waist and back up again, I felt shock waves move through my body in amazement. The Moroccan dancers used what we would call their traditional dance in combination with the dance of their former coloniser, France. This was demonstrated by the Moroccan dancer who executed sinuous movements of her arms while taking minuscule steps on the tips of her toes with her legs tightly together, called burees. With her back to the audience and her head turned just a tad to the side and up, she was the ballerina with mystic Arabian arms.
What made AATABA distinct from ethnic dance performances, whether they be ballet or belly dance, was the form of the whole piece. The painstaiking progression of movement ideas pervaded this performance. For me, the most poignant example of this was when one of the dancers took a plastic tub, full of tomatoes, dropped it on stage and slowly stepped into it. I still feel reverberations from that moment - her feet slowly plodding in the tomato pulp, while she turns with each step to give us a 360 degree view of how she steps. Time was dilated by her slowly meditative steps, but also rushed forward each time she jerked her foot up to the shin of the opposite leg. During this plodding, a woman undresses her self as she sits at the lip of stage. Taking her time, she pulls of her top to leave us staring at her in a her black lace bra. Her look is pensive and she begins to sing along with a chorus of female voices, in arabic, which is playing. Just that look evoked feelings within me. I wondered how her half naked body would be perceived in her native Morocco. What message could this send to those who believe in covering up the woman's body according to Islamic tradition?
It was the build up the ensued which wove together a message. The one on the tomatoes gradually stepped harder, splashing bits of red along her smooth legs. Concomitantly, another woman, lying on her back on stage and he bent legs jutting like mountain tops is roused to move. She progressively comes to cover her head with a black pantie hose. To her feet, she attaches the ends of the stockings and comes to stand up, with her knees bent. Black sinews appear to run from her feet to head and her legs resemble the curved arms of a praying mantis. Indeed, like the stealthy mantis, she moves forward in spurts with quick insect-like turns of her head. The stockings from her head to toes appear to constrain her movement as her torso stays close to the ground. But then she winds her arms round those black sinews, pulls on them occasionally reaches a leg up in a high diagonal, pushing the limits of her body. I saw her as dancing the plight of the Muslim woman who cannot show her face and is finding out how many was she can manoeuvre given her constraints. As this occurs, the voices of Arab women begin to crescendo and Schroder, seated in a far corner of the stage, covers her head with a green garment, resembling a woman wearing a veil, green for the color of Islam. A pulse in her torso raises her body to upright and she takes large steps towards the audience while her upper body continues to pulse and gyrate causing her veil to flutter. From within the veil, her arms grasp towards the audience, as if she were reaching from within this symbol of Islam.
Once Schroder came to edge of the stage, she removes the veil and begins to breath easily, while her fellow dancer removes the pantie hose from her head to also find respite. The tomatoes splashing stops and an air of stillness descends on stage. Was AATABA an expression of Moroccan feminism or was their something else? In spite of my interpretation, other audience members may have found different messages. An Italian lady I spoke to afterwards said she saw the bloodiness of War within the tomatoes and the stomping. Italians, French, Congolese, Moroccans and a few Namibians, these are the people that attended AATABA. I wish more of us could have come. It was probably just bad luck for the producers of the show, because while we were watching AATABA, in a half filled hall, hordes of Namibians were watching the Rugby. Next time, come to a contemporary dance show, where anything goes, including the physicality of rugby.
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