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Quiet please >> 45 Minutes of Silence honours genocide victims by MARITES CARINO
"It's not like the silence in church where nobody says anything," explains Maboungou, surrounded by a clutter of African instruments in her sunny St-Laurent studio. "It's a silence of life, where people can breathe and talk." The show commemorates victims of tyranny and genocide in Africa, Europe and Asia. "I'm trying to show that the piece is going to serve another purpose," she says. "We're creating a living memorial and that's why people are going to gather. I see the functionalism of art--that it is useful and is involved in everyday life." For Maboungou, who grew up in the Republic of the Congo (Congo-Brazzaville), dance was a celebration and not uniquely for show. Dance rituals celebrate various life passages such as entering womanhood or manhood, life and death. "In Africa, dance is not about decoration, it's about education," she explains. "The body is the channel by which we constantly learn to connect with ourselves. I'm trying to maintain that in another space. I'm outside of the context of the tradition, and that's the challenge." Maboungou came to Canada in 1973, telling herself she would stay for a maximum of one year, but she's been here ever since. In that time, she's established Compagnie Danse Nyata Nyata, Canada's first professional dance troupe to receive government funding, and has created over 20 works. This show came about when artist Chryso Bashonga, originally from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (Congo-Kinshasa), invited Maboungou to create a choreography to complement his installations on the theme of genocide victims. Maboungou had already created a piece called Mozongi, which means "those who come back" in Congolese. "The piece seemed to fit within [Bashonga's] context," she says. The choreography takes place in and around the artwork on display at the Saidye Bronfman Centre. Mozongi was performed twice this month at different Maisons de la culture. The trio of dancers move to the rhythms of onstage drummers. The dancers start off lying low on the ground and gradually inch their way stage left and right, through combinations of full-body gyrations and crawling on their backs. Circular movement and body undulations reappear throughout the choreography. "Undulation comes out of the circulation of the breath," says Maboungou. "This is linked to life and death. When something dies, another thing comes out of it." For Maboungou, breathing is key in dance; she's even created a teaching method called the "rhythmics of breath." One striking aspect of this choreography is that there's no physical contact between dancers, which can make the piece feel cold. However, Maboungou explained that this is a characteristic of African dance. "We learn to dance within our own body... there is no direct social exchange," she says. "You could have a stage of 300 dancers who don't touch at all; the contact is purely on an energy level. Physically they're together, but they're all individuals." 45 Minutes of Silence, April 3 and 4 at Galerie Liane et Danny Taran of the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, 8pm, $5
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Don't expect 45 minutes of actual silence when multi-disciplinary artist Chryso Bashonga and choreographer Zab Maboungou combine their talents this weekend. Although it's called 45 Minutes of Silence, the Congolese artists' collaboration features three dancers, drumming and interactive installations.