REGGIE WILSON/ FIST & HEEL PERFORMANCE GROUP
and COMPAGNIE 1ER TEMPS
“The Good Dance –– Dakar/Brooklyn”
BAM Howard Gilman Opera House
Dec. 16, 18 & 19 at 7:30 p.m.

Wilson & Ouamba Photo: Antoine Tempe

Choreographer Reggie Wilson has long been engaged in the investigation of what words like African and African-American signify. As an artist, academic, and individual, these questions are at the heart of his work and life, which has taken him from his birthplace in Milwaukee to the Mississippi Delta and to Africa. Wilson’s new work, “The Good Dance,” a collaboration with choreographer Andréya Ouamba and his Compagnie 1er Temps from Dakar, Senegal, will be presented as part of BAM’s Next Wave Festival.

“The Good Dance –– Dakar/Brooklyn,” a reference to the good books — the Torah, Bible, and Koran — creates a dialogue across cultures, linked by their connections through history and to the land, specifically the Mississippi River Delta and Central Africa’s Congo River basin. Disposable water bottles half-empty/ half-full are strewn about the stage. As they are assembled, knocked over, and re-positioned, they create boundaries within which the dancers move. Environmental waste for one culture, a vessel of life for another, they transmit other meanings as the dancers create new ritual through their movement.

This is Wilson’s first time performing as part of the Next Wave, on a tour of first-time appearances at some of the country’s most renowned venues for contemporary dance. “The Good Dance” had its official premiere at Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center on November 12 and subsequent performances at UCLA Live, where Wilson received the 2009 Alpert Award. Prior to the performances at BAM, the companies will be in residence at MANCC in Florida to rework some elements for the opera house stage — a rare, almost unheard of opportunity for dance in America.

“I didn’t all of a sudden become a great choreographer,” joked Wilson about his current fate. “I’ve been doing it so long, I wondered what happened — have I finally made it more legible? To me, I’ve always made what I want to make; I continue to be me. I think there is a time factor. Perhaps it is like the rice analogy. If you eat a bowl of rice it doesn’t taste like that much — but there are thousands of different kinds of rice. Like coffee, wine, and beer, you have to educate the palette. There’s a learning curve. And I think with any contemporary choreographer, there’s that learning curve with the public, the presenters, the funders. And of course, things go in cycles.”

The last cycle was when Wilson first worked with Ouamba in Senegal, while traveling on his Guggenheim Fellowship. Their initial collaboration involved an adaptation of one of Wilson’s solos for Ouamba. This time was far more complex and involved “stepping into each other’s process,” said Wilson.

“We also talked about other collaborations between European and African and American and African choreographers,” he added, “which have not always worked so well. It’s hard to find the time, the space, and the money to support them.”

Wilson knows that people have expectations when they hear they are going to be seeing African dance and when they are going to be looking at black bodies; but he also hopes they are open to seeing more deeply into the work.

“Among the eight performers, no one except me and Anna — an Orthodox Jew from the Bronx — are from the same country,” Wilson explained. “One is from Trinidad, one from Jamaica, one from Ivory Coast, one from Congo Brazzaville, one from Senegal, one from Benin.”

“Andréya,” he added, “is not an African choreographer. He is Congolese living in Senegal. I’m a Brooklyn-based African-American choreographer from Milwaukee. What impacts have those migrations had on us? As contemporary artists, we’re interested in addressing that question, not as a dissertation, but as a physical creative reaction to that.”

Andreya Ouamba

Wilson elaborated.: “There are cultures in Africa where words are secondary to experience. With theoretical discourse, there’s a lot of talking in circles. In an action there are more layers of information within many systems and structures.

“It might not always be as legible as I’d like it to be, but the effect is there.”

*originally published by Community Media as Delta Dance