ADAD Trailblazers: Investing in Creation and Education

by Jeanette Bain

I’m sitting in a room in the Sadlers Wells building in London and my heart rate is rising from pure excitement. I have that feeling you get when you’re watching a dance piece that really touches you �" whether it’s the way the dancers embody rhythm, or how the movement somehow captures a moment of human experience where words might fail. But I’m not in the theatre �" I’m sitting around a table that’s way too formal for my liking, doing an evaluation exercise with our most recent group of ADAD Trailblazers. So why so excited? (I hear you ask). Let me explain.

Adesola Akinleye has had a prolific dance career that has included dancing with Ballet Rambert in the UK and Dance Theatre of Harlem in New York; lecturing at State University of New York; forming her own company, Dancing Strong and choreographing dozens of works in England, Canada, the United States and the Caribbean. After living outside of the UK for several years, when she returned with the desire to become re-established as a choreographer, where was she to start? She wanted to do research into step dance, continue to explore the use of lighting, film and architecture in the creation of new work, but she had few networks and little funding. The Trailblazer fellowship opened the door for her by providing her first source of funding and raising her profile. Adesola went on to receive an award from the Bonnie Bird choreographic fund and to create a new piece Climbing with bare feet for Resolution! 2007. More recently, Adesola has been commissioned by Dance in Herts and St Albans Arts Development Team to choreograph and perform for a site specific dance project called TRACE. For more information, you can check out her website, www.dancingstrong.com or her blog, http://adesola.wordpress.com/.

Naomi Green is an independent dance artist who aims to produce challenging Dance Theatre that explores issues of identity in Post Colonial communities around the World. Her dream was to travel to Jamaica to do research into the stories of 4 of her female relatives, as a starting point for her first piece for her company Phatix Dance. The Trailblazers fellowship was the first step towards making her dream a reality. The award gave her the opportunity to go to Jamaica with two film makers to document her primary research material. Naomi went on to receive in kind support from Greenwich Dance Agency, who provided her with space to develop and rehearse her new piece. Under the guidance of her Trailblazers mentor, Colin Poole, she had the opportunity to clarify her creative process and hone her choreographic and performance skills. In addition to looking for further opportunities to develop her choreography, Naomi is also training in Body Mind centering for performers and therapeutic massage and working on a Community Arts project at the Waterman Theatre.

Chrissie Adesina’s vision is to use dance theatre and dance as a tool to inspire and challenge people’s perception of themselves and the world they live in. Having trained first as an actor, she trained in dance at Lewisham College and Laban, and has performed with several companies including Irie! Dance Theatre, Kompany Malakhi and Bimba Dance Theatre. She is an associate artist for East London Dance and the Lyric Hammersmith. Her choreography is an idiosyncratic mix of contemporary dance, Caribbean dance and acting. In September of this year, Chrissie’s solo piece Cosmetic Clothing, was featured at the Decibel Showcase in Birmingham. I had the privilege of chatting with Chrissie at the Showcase about her work and her experience as a Trailblazer. She is committed to her vision of creating work that asks real life questions and Cosmetic Clothing, part of a larger work in process to be staged next year, demonstrates this. The piece explores the mental and physical dilemmas women face when trying to hide or enhance the parts of the body they wish they could change. The piece opens with a spotlight on Chrissie’s curvaceous rear end, and a voice-over saying: ‘Wow! Your bum is soooo big. Look at it!’. The piece takes us on a journey in which a woman vacillates between self-love and self-hate, eventually giving in to the latter and covering herself in layers of clothing until it becomes absurd. The movement vocabulary exemplifies Chrissie’s eclectic approach to dance with a gestural language, interspersed with phrases of contemporary and Caribbean-styled movements. One of the interesting features that stood out to me was that Chrissie chose to use the Caribbean movements to express moments of self-affirmation. In conversation with Chrissie about her Trailblazers experience, she revealed that the highlight of her time as a Trailblazer was travelling to New York in the summer to do a ten day intensive with the Urban Bush Women. She received technical training from a company that incorporates African and Caribbean dance into their work. However over and above this, she found that their commitment to using dance as a transformational tool inspired and energized her to continue to see her personal vision through.

Last but not least is Akosua Boakye-Nimo. The last time I heard, it was her express intention to change the face of African dance in the UK. Akosua used her fellowship to do research into education in African dance technique (traditional and contemporary). She travelled to “L’Ecole des Sables” (The School of Sands) in Senegal where dancers benefit from a professional dance education set up by Germaine Acogny to observe and film classes. Akosua is now the head of dance at Kensington and Chelsea College and is working on several initiatives to develop formal training in traditional and contemporary African dance. In Akosua’s words, her year as a Trailblazer was the first “bite into a huge apple”. Now that she has bitten in, she is beginning to understand the immensity of the task. However she is full of passion, excitement and energy for making her vision a reality. What’s more, she is well-placed within the education system to truly make a difference.

ADAD’s Trailblazer fellowships for 2006-2007 made my heart-rate go up, just by being in their presence. What excited me most was the seemingly limitless potential that was brimming into the room as they shared their experiences. I also had a great sense of privilege, knowing that through this scheme ADAD has and will continue to make a real impact on the development of dance of the African Diaspora in the UK. This year’s fellows promise to take the scheme to an even higher level.