germaine acogny: somewhere at the beginning
ABOUT SOMEWHERE CAST & CREATIVE TEAM AT THE BEGINNING Germaine Acogny, the “Mother of Contemporary African Dance,” presents the US premiere of her powerhouse solo, SOMEWHERE AT THE BEGINNING. This is … You can help », A message from Phong Bui In 1960 she moved from Dakar, Senegal, to France in pursuit of modern dance and ballet training, and eventually returned home to develop a new teaching … Text by: Togoun Servais Acogny, Aloopho, Germaine Acogny, Euripides (Medea) Adaptation: by Mikaël Serre On the occasion of the 15th Venice Biennale International Dance Festival, to be held from 23 July to 1 August, Germaine Acogny will present her solo "Somewhere at the beginning". This performance is part of the Explore festival. It is the dynamic of colonization, which plays out such violent erasures posing as exchanges as much on the psyche as geography. Before any action, you notice her skull, the strength and buoyancy of it; you notice her standing with patience, power, age; you notice the dignity in the lines around her mouth; when she begins a choreographed action, you notice she performs not only for the audience, but for something beyond the confines of the present moment: there is a communion taking place, not mysticism but history. Later, she dashes a pillow against the floor, a mock infanticide, briefly becoming Medea while disdaining those who believe child-rearing to be a woman’s destiny. Riley Rienert Germaine Acogny September 15th, 2020 Germaine Acogny also known as “the mother of contemporary African dance” is a legendary Senegalese dancer and choreographer. When the august Senegalese choreographer and dancer Germaine Acogny was born, on Pentecost in 1944, a dove appeared on the windowsill. Their self is the story. In another film, she dances with Senegalese women in vibrantly-patterned dresses, while she describes the hierarchies that reduce these competing wives to petty fights over their shared husbands, and her want to escape such imprisonments. She stands up straight, connected with heaven and earth and with stomping feet she arches her torso front and back. GERMAINE ACOGNY (SN/FR) Somewhere at the Beginning (2015, 65’) Italian premiere concept & direction Mikael Serre choreography Germaine Acogny assistant choreography Patrick Acognys set design Maciej Fiszer costumes Johanna Diakhate-Rittmeyer music composed and performed live Fabrice Bouillon «LaForest» video Sébastien Dupouey She enters into a dialogue with her grandmother Aloopho, a Yoruba priestess; with her father, who preferred to hide his African identity; and with her own painful experiences. BRIDGING offers international perspectives to evaluate policies and practices in an effort to move beyond simple … She said, “Power must be passed from woman to woman.”, RENNIE MCDOUGALL is a writer from Melbourne, currently living in Brooklyn. Music composed and performed live: Fabrice Bouillon «LaForest» Video: Sébastien Dupouey. Čo chystá Germaine Acogny? French spoken with Dutch and English surtitles, Read more about the festival program in Frascati, General terms and conditions for visitors. She studied in France in the 1960s and then went on to combine classical ballet and modern dance with traditional African rhythms and styles. You might guess her age as approaching 50 – in fact she is 72, and she still has the suppleness of a twenty-year-old. Assistant Choreography: Patrick Acogny. In Germaine Acogny, an intriguing woman in so many ways takes to the stage. When Acogny made the comment about connection in the Q&A, her interlocutor, fellow choreographer Okwui Okpokwasili, speaking indirectly with Acogny through translation, offered that such attempts at connection have often, historically, failed, whereby one side of the connection must erase herself in order to be understood by the other. In Germaine Acogny, an intriguing woman in so many ways takes to the stage. Heralded as the 'Mother of Contemporary African Dance', French-Senegalese choreographer Germaine Acogny comes to Curve as part of Let's Dance International Frontiers 2018. Nor is it suggest that Acogny is confined to her one self. Legacy Platform closed with Germaine Acogny’s Somewhere at the Beginning, directed by Mikaël Serre which premiered in 2015. Her work is a combination of contemporary dance and traditional African styles that strive from her roots. Black Lives Matter. Acogny’s reckoning with the phantom of her father, who appears as a projection dressed in military uniform, is a reckoning with this colonized mind. Co-created and directed by Mikaël Serre, this unflinching and brave work traces African history interwoven with her own life narrative. In Germaine Acogny’s performance Somewhere at the Beginning—directed by Mikaël Serre and presented at La MaMa theater as part of the Crossing the Line Festival—Acogny does strike her forehead and mark the ground and curl her wrists over her head, but it is her presence within these actions that bring her performance to life, something not easily translated into neat sentences. It perhaps removes her too much from the history that preceded her, that which so informs her self and her artistry. She studied in France in the 1960s and then went on to combine classical ballet and modern dance with traditional African rhythms and styles. Germaine has 6 jobs listed on their profile. Na GoOut sa dozvieš všetky novinky, Predstavenie, najnovšie info, vstupenky a viac. Somewhere at the beginning (2015) Concept & Direction: Mikael Serre. City/Cité: Translating Cities and Cultures Online Event. Publisher and Artistic Director. 'My life has often been unsettled. Festival 2019 in Parkstad Limburg Theaters… Thanks to her pioneering work, she became one of the key figures in modern African dance. The 4th edition of BRIDGING pays homage to Senegalese and French dancer, choreographer, and educator Germaine Acogny . In an amazing multimedia mingling of African legend and Greek mythology, Germaine Acogny brings together sound, images, objects, and physical movement to embark on a personal confrontation with her family’s past as well as Africa’s shared history with Europe through colonialism. Phrases like, “She tapped her fingers along the floor as if making marks in the sand,” or, “She struck her forehead with the edge of her palm and slapped her thigh with the back of her hand repeatedly,” begin to formulate, translating the performance in real time. Acogny’s father, who grew up in French colonial Senegal, received an Anglo education, studying Mein Kampf and learning to despise his own heritage—a colonized mind. I come from somewhere, but when I try to distance myself I … Using sound, images, objects and movement, Senegalese dancer and choreographer Germaine Acogny evokes both the history of her family and that of West Africa. At the 15th International Festival of Contemporary Dance of La Biennale di Venezia, to be held July 23rd through August 1st, Germaine Acogny will present the Italian premiere of her most recent solo piece Somewhere at the beginning, a journey touching on sensitive themes in which her personal history interlaces with collective events. Germaine Acogny’s 2016 solo Somewhere at the Beginning (À un endroit du début) which she created with Mikaël Serre, was the highlight of this year’s Let’s Dance International Frontiers festival in Leicester. She repeatedly meets the orthodoxies of power with the dissenting histories residing in her body. Germaine Acogny, 'When it comes to temperament, bravery and language, the dancer and choreographer Germaine Acogny, an important figure in African dance, has them by the shedload' Télérama (FR), performed by Germaine Acogny direction Mikaël Serre choreography assistent Patrick Acogny set design Maciej Fiszer costumes Johanna Diakhate-Rittmeyer video Sébastien Dupouey music, composition Fabrice Bouillon « LaForest» light design Sébastien Michaud technique Marco Wehrspann texts by Togoun Servais Acogny, Aloopho, Germaine Acogny, Euripides (Medea), Mikaël Serre production JANT-BI coproduction Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg / Théâtre de la Ville, Paris / Institut Français, Paris. review: Somewhere at the Beginning Germaine Acogny / Mikael Serres PAS DE PEUR – NO FEAR. Photo by Thomas Dorn. Multi-media production on the life of the grande dame of modern African dance. In a projected film, Acogny walks through Disneyland Paris, a site of colonization’s absurd extremity—a European fantasy devised by an American corporation and sold back to Europe. by Laura Brechmann | translated by Karoline Strys. Kompletný program na Apríl 2021 a ešte viac. See the complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Germaine’s connections and jobs at similar companies. Senegalese artist Germaine Acogny’s decades-long career has made an indelible impact on the international dance community. DBN: +27 31 260 1111 PMB: +27 33 260 5111 or Call +27 31 260 8596 and follow the voice prompts Maps This is a wonderful achievement amongst the many others you have accomplished, so proud of you and to be witnessing it. Acogny established her own studio and later started her own company while also still performing many solos. When she first walked onto the stage on the opening night she paused to observe her audience, something that, in a post-show Q&A, she said she does to establish connection. A COMMENT BY THE DIRECTOR (..Somewhere at the beginning) I vividly remember a remark that Germaine Acogny made at our first encounter. BRIDGING was launched by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and The Edmond de Rothschild Foundations as part of Crossing the Line Festival 2016. Theater and dance journalist Annette Embrechts (de Volkskrant) will have an after talk (in English) about the performance with Germaine Acogny. It is an extraordinarily powerful piece in which Acogny looks back at the events of her life, her combative relationship with her father Togoun Servais Acogny, and her feeling of connection with her … Mar 29. “My life has often been unsettled. Die 74-jährige senegalesische Choreografin Germaine Acogny taucht in ihre Familiengeschichte ein und beschwört in einem gewaltigen Solo die koloniale Vergangenheit… «Somewhere at the Beginning» Germaine Acogny & Mikaël Serre on Vimeo Tiona Nekkia McClodden: Hold on, let me take the safety off, Modernisms: Iranian, Turkish, and Indian Highlights from NYUs Abby Grey Collection, Betye Saar: The Legend of Black Girl’s Window, Julia Bland: The Half That Ties, the Half that Breaks, Helen Frankenthaler and Robert Motherwell: The Art of Marriage, Pat Passlof: The Brush is the Finger of the Brain, Sanam Khatibi: An hour before the Devil fell, Ron Gorchov: At the Cusp of the 80s, Paintings 1979–1983, Marco Maggi: Initialism (From Obscurantism to Enlightenment), Andrea del Verrocchio: Sculptor and Painter of Renaissance Florence, David Hartt: The Histories (Le Mancenillier), Rachel Rabbit White with Sophia Giovannitti, Joshua Abrams & Natural Information Society at Union Pool, Music of Harry Partch, Vol. It epitomizes this notion that the body houses the stories it hopes to tell, stories that can be read not in the choreographies or words of the performance but simply in the performer’s being. As such, it is apropos that for her appearance on the JOMBA 2020 Legacy platform she presented her critically-acclaimed autobiographical solo dance theater work, "Somewhere at the Beginning." Acogny uses the framework of Greek tragedy to convey her personal journey from her upbringing in Senegal through her “exile” in Europe to … This is not to diminish the structural sophistication of Acogny and Serre’s narrative in Somewhere in the Beginning. We stand in solidarity with those affected by generations of structural violence. Performance as memoir is a fascinating form. Germain Acogny performing in SOMEWHERE AT THE BEGINNING at Theatre de la Ville, Luxembourg. Later, she dances to Johnny Cash’s “Hurt,” those same slapping and striking actions culminating in a charged exorcism of a dance. Read more about the festival program in Frascati. I come from somewehere, but when I try to distance myself I cannot escape from my past. Choreography: Germaine Acogny. “Mother … When she first … Co-created and directed by Mikaël Serre, this unflinching and brave work traces African history interwoven with her own life narrative. Somewhere in the Beginning tells two autobiographies: the first Acogny’s own, the second her father’s, taken from a memoir he wrote before he died, and which Acogny and Serre now mine for personal histories. Watch part of “Somewhere at the Beginning,” by Germaine Acogny, considered the mother of contemporary African dance. “Somewhere At The Beginning” Germaine Acogny is considered as the “mother of Contemporary African dance”. Her hands are dancing in the air, they glide, … It's as if I go back to the beginning - the place from whence I come - back to my ancestors and those who accompagny me.' As such, she inherited her grandmother’s knives, a tool with which she will cut up all expectations of her lineage. When she was born, she recounts early on in Somewhere in the Beginning, a dove appeared on the windowsill, a sign that Acogny was her grandmother, her father’s mother, reincarnate. You might guess her age as approaching 50 – in fact she is 72, and she still has the suppleness of a twenty-year-old. The JOMBA! Acogny walks toward the park’s central castle, a relic without history, a mirror to Acogny’s disillusionment and unbelonging. Brian Seibert Sept 24 29 Germaine Acogny La MaMa In Somewhere at the Beginning from PG 101 at EM LYON Letting bottom and head circle while waving the spine. The translation both engages you and distances you, sharpening your perception while giving you the sense of mastering the dance with language rather than surrendering to its wordless rhythms. Impressions of SOMEWHERE AT THE BEGINNING by GERMAINE ACOGNY / MIKAËL SERRE – filmed at schrit_tmacher justDANCE! Somewhere at the Beginning. 3: Sonata Dementia, Bridge Records (2019), Artonov, Brussels, Belgium, 7th-13th October 2019, DIMITRIS PAPAIOANNOU with Ivan Talijancic, Crossing the Line: Germaine Acogny's Somewhere at the Beginning, Crossing the Line: Jérôme Bel's Isadora Duncan, Crossing the Line: Stefanie Batten Bland's Look Who's Coming to Dinner, The Eyes of Another: “Tokyo Stories” at the Japan Society, KAZIK RADWANSKI AND DERAGH CAMPBELL with Tyler Wilson, Replete and Incomplete Portraits: Documentaries at TIFF 2019, Notes on Berwick: “Why this passion for pictures, why this passion for darkness?”, Please Glauber Dont Hurt Em: Glauber Rochas On Cinema, Édouard Louis Comes to Brooklyn: The History of Violence and The End of Eddy, inSerial: part twelve The Mysteries of Paris, We are in Open Circuits: Writings by Nam June Paik, Alive Still: Nell Blaine, American Painter. In Germaine Acogny’s performance Somewhere at the Beginning—directed by Mikaël Serre and presented at La MaMa theater as part of the Crossing the Line Festival—Acogny does strike her forehead and mark the ground and curl her wrists over her head, but it is her presence within these actions that bring her performance to life, something not easily translated into neat sentences. Talk One of the downsides to reviewing dance is that you begin to see everything in sentences. Senegalese choreographer Germaine Acogny presents the US premiere of her powerhouse solo, SOMEWHERE AT THE BEGINNING. Get notified about upcoming live conversations with artists and when the next issue of the Rail drops. Senagalese choreographer/dancer and founder of the world renowned Ecole des Sables, Germaine Acogny has long been regarded as "the mother of contemporary African dance." Her dancing body triggers the memory. Legacy Platform closed with Germaine Acogny’s Somewhere at the Beginning, directed by Mikaël Serre which premiered in 2015. If performance memoir grants the body an inherent storytelling virtuosity, Acogny transcends the limitations of her self by bringing to life others passed. More of his writing can be found at renniemcdougall.com, Critical Perspectives on Art, Politics and Culture. View Germaine Acogny’s profile on LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional community. Several times before the performance, I heard people refer to Acogny as the “mother of contemporary African dance.” (I suspect she might not favor the title, not only because of her emphatic feelings about child-rearing.) She still has the suppleness of a twenty-year-old complete profile on LinkedIn and discover Germaine ’ s Somewhere at Beginning... Acogny, an intriguing woman in so many ways takes to the.! 72, and educator Germaine Acogny ’ s knives, a mirror to Acogny s! 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