BY GREGORY AUSTIN NWAKUNOR
THE images are searing. Strikingly similar. The camera glides towards a ghetto, and a teenage boy pushing cart, comes up. He stuffs upholstery and mounds of garbage into the cart.
Another man sits on a slab behind debris. He is about 40 years old. But the signs taped in his face are those of somebody who has passed that age. Poverty has made him age faster. His smile is weary, but welcoming.
In another scene, some local peasants, who sit on a concrete, pant up to their thighs, fan themselves with local gossips.
These images are just a few of thousands of neighbourhood in Africa, where poverty sticks out like sore thumb.
Poverty walks nakedly in Africa and waiting to be clothed. On a typical day, young men and women and ill-clad kids hang around waiting for a job or something to do.
Mo Abudu, through her project, Act of Kindness, hopes to reduce the level of poverty on the continent. An initiative of the Inspire Africa Foundation, the project was launched on Thursday, April 3, 2008.
Mo says it is a way of showing that everybody's effort is needed in the attempt to improve the standard of living in the continent.
How? You ask.
"If you have ever wondered about what some amazing people do to help others, then make an effort to watch the showing of Acts of Kindness, a special feature episode of Moments with Mo, airing at the City Mall Cinema, Onikan, every Thursday this month at 6pm," she reveals, her jaw claps and eyes narrow. She appears unfazed and absolutely determined to get her way.
"Our first request is to get Nigerians to watch the show and then we ask you to perform a random act of kindness in the lives of some of those we have showcased on Moments with Mo, as well as in the lives of other less privileged in our society," she reflects.
"Oh no… wait a minute!…" She says. "Moments with Mo is giving back to the society by dedicating this special episode to the wonderful people featured in it and we are pleading with all Nigerians, young and old, rich and poor, man and woman to take a little time out to watch this special feature and do a little bit of giving! And truly, no amount ids too small. If we sit back and count our blessings and see the plight of others, it's fulfilling to do something for someone more needy than we do. And there is always someone more needy than us out there, no matter our situation in life."
According to the lady, "the programme is the first Pan African talk show, showcasing and celebrating the greatness of Africa, as well as dealing with day to day issues that affect Africans."
The topics on the show covers wide range of issues, which include lifestyle, celebrity to family and marriage, parenthood, fashion, beauty and fitness.
ON April 6, 2008, the programme was launched on NTA network. It airs every Sunday at 6pm and on Mnet every Wednesday, Thursday and Friday also at 6pm.
For the founder of Vic Lawrence Associates (recruitment specialists & consultants), "inspiration propels vision, and great vision propels action."
She believes that the programme is a platform to empower Africans, Nigerians especially, and showcase the continent in a positive light. The debut episode in November 2007, had ex-footballer and Deal or No Deal presenter, John Fashanu, and the wife of JJ Okocha, Nkechi, as guests.
Despite her busy schedule, the charismatic personality, whose warmth and understanding of people and their lives, finds time to involve herself in community self-improvement efforts.
The go-getting business woman and hotelier, whose creativity and imagination are infectious, believes that "Moments with Mo is a purpose built vehicle by which Africans and the rest of the world will come to appreciate our culture and our achievements ant to know and understand us as a people."
Mo realises that the ultimate task facing Africa is to build a world class persons and brand, to 'showcase' its own achievements in a global setting and economy.
She reflects, "Africa needs a platform, activities and an anchor through which its untold stories of success and achievement can be heard to encourage everybody on the continent, motivate people into action, educate, inform and guide their decision making, enabling them to celebrate successes and most importantly, make us proud of our heritage individually and collectively."
The warm and chatty lady is not one to shy away from a discussion about Africa. She says, "we can only but learn from their experiences, their stories and their achievements. The self-fulfilling prophecies of Africa as a failure have to stop. Every medium possible must be used to enable us take the strides necessary to make Africa the continent it rightfully deserves to be. We are blessed with abundance of natural and human resources. This is what must be harnessed and potential realised. This can and will happen with all sectors playing their role."
The quiet, but firm lady says her programme is an avenue through which the image of Africa can be improved and numerous challenges faced by Africans tackled. Her words: "the programme showcases the greatness of Africa, emphasises the new contemporary Africa, highlights the life and accomplishments of well known role models, provide an elaborate well deserved pat on the back for those who define the future of Africa, impel a yes I can attitude, by just sharing their stories to encourage and inspire others."
She blandly suggests, "it’s all about creating credible media-driven platform through which we can engage ourselves and the rest of the world as Africans."
Through the programme, she tones down the derisive manner Africa's image has been cast in the media.
With a warm smile and unmistakable steeliness, she says, "our challenge is to credibly debunk the tendency of the western media that portrays us as the dark continent, which exemplifies disease, despair, destruction, disaster destitution and deceit."
When the programme was first aired drew big headlines and stirred a new awakening in the media re-engineering the continent.
Aired weekly, each episode of Moments with Mo highlights the life and accomplishments of a usually well known, but sometimes an undiscovered African individual who by her or his own tenacity and determination, has accomplished sometimes, overcome something that makes her or him a role model to others.
The people brought to the programme tell the untold stories of their victories and challenges, in a manner that inspires and educates rather than the usual doom and gloom constantly portrayed by the Western media.
Brimming with a defined sense of purpose, she has become a kind of evangelist for accomplishment. Thematically, the programme takes full advantage of her defiant and always challenging "yes I can" attitude, always putting pressure on the individual to stand up and be counted.
BORN Mosunmola to Mr. and Mrs. Akintunde in September 1964 in Hammersmith Hospital in London, Mo, with a Master's Degree in Human Resource Development from the University of Westminster in London, brings her considerable training and education into play in her show.
Mo’s family roots are in Ondo, Ondo State. The eldest of three sisters, Mo, who lost her father at the age of 11, was undaunted with her pursuit of life ambition.
Mo spent most of her youth in the UK where she worked her way through college attending the Ridgeway School, Mid Kent College and West Kent College. She went on to receive her Masters degree in Human Resources Development at the University of Westminster in London.
She began her professional career in 1987 as a Recruitment Consultant with the Atlas Recruitment Consultancy firm in the UK. Within a few years she rose to the position of Branch Manager.
And action is what the Britain-born, Nigerian-bred Mo is going to be providing. Lights, cameras and action!
In 1990, Mo was headhunted by the Starform Group, a very successful business information group in the UK to manage the prestigious Corporate Credit Management Exhibition. Mo successfully managed the exhibition from 1990 through 1992. Additionally, she assumed responsibility for the research, design and production of several conferences and seminars whilst at Starform.
In 1993, she returned home. On her arrival, she was once again headhunted, this time by Arthur Andersen. Her initial assignment was as Head of Human Resources and Training for Esso Exploration & Production Nigeria Limited (Exxon).
By the year 2000, having successfully completed her responsibilities to the ExxonMobil HR Transition and Merger Team, Mo fully recognised Nigeria’s growing need for a trained and highly motivated talent pool that would take Nigerian businesses into the 21st century.
Taking advantage of her growing reputation as a HR specialist, she resigned from ExxonMobil to start Vic Lawrence & Associates Limited (Popularly known as VLA).
Today, VLA is rated as the fastest growing and the largest indigenous HR & training management consultancy firm in Nigeria.
While involving herself in a number of business activities her next really significant achievement was the conceptualisation and building of The Protea Hotel, Oakwood Park, situated along the Lekki Expressway in Lagos, which was commissioned in August 2004.
Of significance is her participation on the board of directors of Junior Achievement Nigeria, a non-governmental organisation promoting business skills development amongst Nigerian youth. Here Mo sits and plans with fellow board members that include the managing directors of ChevronTexaco, Coca-cola International, ExxonMobil, the Dangote group and others.
She is married and has two children; a daughter aged 16 and a son aged 10.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Peju storms the scene with Aramada
BY GREGORY AUSTIN NWAKUNOR
IN D.O. Fagunwa's Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, Aramada is the enigmatic, weird character,who blows hot and cold, depending on the people around him. But Peju Alatise is not such a character. She could be also. She's a flush with new ideas, and you can't blame her for this.
The graduate of Architecture from Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso, understands as much, which suggests her marriage of two worlds — art and architecture to give the aramada feeling..
Walk down a street in any part of the world and you'll see the evidence of the new world culture: globalisation and fleeting new ideas. The need to offer other attractive service has seeped into modern lexicon.
From May 5, her new show will explore how her new thinking absorbs outside force and adapts to the new global ideas. Titled Aramada Spectacular: The Art in Function. The Function in Art, it is going to be an exhibit of eclectic paintings and sculptural pieces designed for functional purposes. The exhibits highlight the fluid, timeless nature of functional wares.
According to Alatise, "our intent is to unite striking forms and simple materials in an ensemble that enhances an environment, with distinct character and grace."
She says, "as an artist, I have grown to perceive things differently. A discarded piece of wood to my perception could become a counter-top for a console table. A little round bead could become part of a grandiose armchair. A simple word can help tell an inspirational tale. As long as I understand the object to represent a medium in Art, there are no impossibilities!"
Alatise continues, "as an architect, I am trained to be disciplined and focused. There are rules and only when you understand these rules can you break them. There are boundaries not for limitations but for purpose. Everything must work! Yes it is beautiful. But it must work!"
Alatise, who is one of the lighting rods of the new generation of artists in Nigeria, admits that she is compelled to create objects of attractiveness and nobility, "but it must work."
She insists, 'Art in Function and Function in Art ' best say the eclectic nature of the works she is going to parade at the show.
In her words, "these influences, I must not abandon. Not even one for the other. I work with my experiences and I am some what creative in rendering these works. And my mother exclaims, Aramada I am hopeful I have made a spectacle of my works."
From a young age, the Ijebu-born artist knew what it was to have a conflict of interest. She had thought of a course in the humanities, but this was not to be as her father wanted her to be an architect. The clash of interest led her to study architecture at the expense of Fine Arts, which she had love and passion for.
After graduation, the need to take her future in her hands stared her, and she wondered how to continue with her discipline or to build a new career. She eventually opted for a new life outside architecture, and she became a furniture maker. This again brought about another clash with her father.
To raise finance for her furniture work, she began painting. She had said in an earlier interview with The Guardian, "when I couldn't get money from my dad to go into furniture making, I went back to painting, which I sold to make money."
From then on, she has continued to paint her way to relevance. In 2006, she wrote a ground-breaking novel, Orita Meta: The Crossroads, a novel that paints feminism against the background of African folklore and Christian doctrine to prescribe an emergent African and black people’s consciousness.
BY GREGORY AUSTIN NWAKUNOR
IN D.O. Fagunwa's Ogboju Ode Ninu Igbo Irunmale, Aramada is the enigmatic, weird character,who blows hot and cold, depending on the people around him. But Peju Alatise is not such a character. She could be also. She's a flush with new ideas, and you can't blame her for this.
The graduate of Architecture from Ladoke Akintola University, Ogbomoso, understands as much, which suggests her marriage of two worlds — art and architecture to give the aramada feeling..
Walk down a street in any part of the world and you'll see the evidence of the new world culture: globalisation and fleeting new ideas. The need to offer other attractive service has seeped into modern lexicon.
From May 5, her new show will explore how her new thinking absorbs outside force and adapts to the new global ideas. Titled Aramada Spectacular: The Art in Function. The Function in Art, it is going to be an exhibit of eclectic paintings and sculptural pieces designed for functional purposes. The exhibits highlight the fluid, timeless nature of functional wares.
According to Alatise, "our intent is to unite striking forms and simple materials in an ensemble that enhances an environment, with distinct character and grace."
She says, "as an artist, I have grown to perceive things differently. A discarded piece of wood to my perception could become a counter-top for a console table. A little round bead could become part of a grandiose armchair. A simple word can help tell an inspirational tale. As long as I understand the object to represent a medium in Art, there are no impossibilities!"
Alatise continues, "as an architect, I am trained to be disciplined and focused. There are rules and only when you understand these rules can you break them. There are boundaries not for limitations but for purpose. Everything must work! Yes it is beautiful. But it must work!"
Alatise, who is one of the lighting rods of the new generation of artists in Nigeria, admits that she is compelled to create objects of attractiveness and nobility, "but it must work."
She insists, 'Art in Function and Function in Art ' best say the eclectic nature of the works she is going to parade at the show.
In her words, "these influences, I must not abandon. Not even one for the other. I work with my experiences and I am some what creative in rendering these works. And my mother exclaims, Aramada I am hopeful I have made a spectacle of my works."
From a young age, the Ijebu-born artist knew what it was to have a conflict of interest. She had thought of a course in the humanities, but this was not to be as her father wanted her to be an architect. The clash of interest led her to study architecture at the expense of Fine Arts, which she had love and passion for.
After graduation, the need to take her future in her hands stared her, and she wondered how to continue with her discipline or to build a new career. She eventually opted for a new life outside architecture, and she became a furniture maker. This again brought about another clash with her father.
To raise finance for her furniture work, she began painting. She had said in an earlier interview with The Guardian, "when I couldn't get money from my dad to go into furniture making, I went back to painting, which I sold to make money."
From then on, she has continued to paint her way to relevance. In 2006, she wrote a ground-breaking novel, Orita Meta: The Crossroads, a novel that paints feminism against the background of African folklore and Christian doctrine to prescribe an emergent African and black people’s consciousness.
Monday, May 5, 2008
We think alike on stage at Goethe
By Gregory Austin Nwakunor
THREE people are on stage, looking every bit agitated. Their movement is quirky, but balanced. They reel around the stage in a signature style of contemporary dance: twisting and turning on feet, as music plays at the background. The sequence is the rather popular ‘boy meets girl’ tale. However, rather than the usual parental restrictions, the alternative control: another girl.
The 35-minute piece, We Think Alike, will be on stage today at Goethe Institut, Lagos and tomorrow at the University of Lagos.
The time for the dance piece, which is the product of a workshop facilitated by Adedayo Muslim Liadi is 6pm.
The piece will see Liadi, Rachel Arianne Ogle and Jennifer Dallas replicate recognisable dance steps and forms: turned-in-feet, spastic jerks and head rolls.
The carefully crafted piece embraces stillness and challenges the dancers with restful chorus of unison. It is all about spatial and aerial communication in dance: The link and strength of togetherness, which grow from relationship. It asks pertinent questions, as, if I am different, does that mean I can’t blend? Because I am short does not mean I can’t reach with a tall man?
We Think Alike points out that in life, the post is very wide but with the passion that drives human beings, they forget that they can only score one goal together — mindless of colours and differences (faces, ages, styles). One movement, one people, and one dance are what bind humanity because we think alike.
Hosted by Ijodee Dance Centre, Nigerian, Canadian and Australian artistes have come together to discuss and demonstrate working methods, share generous and candid ideas about cross pollination of dance concepts, especially in the way their artistic inspirations and dance work might be read.
Ogle and Dallas come with tantalisingly brief resumes of the careers that had brought them to the current point.
According to Liadi, the relationship began as a student/mentor thing in 2005 at an African Contemporary Dance workshop, which he facilitated as part of the ImPulseTanz Festival in Vienna, Austria.
By 2006, Rachel and Jeniffer had come to Nigeria to perform in Dance meets Danse Festival and also to work with Ijodee Dance Center as artistes in residence.
"This cultural exchange through the art of contemporary dance aimed to expose them to the very heart of the language, which inspires and the very basic of their practise of West African traditional and contemporary dance," Liadi reflects.
By the time they (Ogle and Dallas) visited in 2007, a platform had been created for them to learn and co-create.
As part of the arrangement, Ijodee Dance Centre will provide 125 hours of apprentice work under the direction of Liadi, over a four- week period, including daily company class and an apprentice position in the centre. Then, participation in all rehearsals and activities surrounding the creation of We think alike.
Professional Development Apprenticeship period for the creation actually began in Lagos on December 26, and lasted till this moment.
Canada Council for the Arts, Ijodee Dance Centre and The Department of Culture and Arts/Government of Western Australia sponsored the creation.
Three dance companies — Kemi Collective, Canada, Ijodee Dance Company, Nigeria, Rechel Arianne Ogle, Australia — are collaborating.
Music is supplied by Saidi Ilelaboye, Isioma Williams (Nigeria) and John MacLean, Canada.
Ogle
Ogle, who is excited about the project, says, she "is very happy to return to Nigeria to perform with Ijodee Dance Company in this unique international exchange, which also involves."
A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Ogle has toured nationally and internationally with Phillip Adams’ Melbourne Dance Company BalletLab, and worked with Perth’s Kompany Kido, Buzz Dance Theatre, and Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company.
Additionally, dhe has worked with various independent choreographers including Sete Tele, Olivia Millard and Chrissie Parrott, and choreographed and performed in a number of dance festivals throughout Australia.
In 2005, she was the Australian recipient of a danceWEB scholarship to travel to Vienna to participate in a five-week workshop programme at the Impulstanz Festival.
In March 2006, Rachel was an international guest artiste at the Dance Meets Danse Festival, in Lagos, Nigeria where she taught workshops and presented a solo work.
Additional to her performance experience, she has co-facilitated numerous community dance residency projects throughout regional Australia and Christmas Island, and has extensive experience working with dancers with various physical and intellectual disabilities.
Ogle lectures at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts for both the dance and theatre departments, and later this year, will travel to Belgium to undertake studies in the professional training programs of Charleroi Danses and Ultima Vez.
Dallas
For Dallas, she is focused on collaborations and exchange of ideas through performance, choreography and travel.
Since graduating from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Programme, she has travelled extensively throughout Europe and has engaged with and exposed herself to the various palettes of the European dance scene.
She participated in DanceWeb 2005, in Vienna, Austria where she had opportunity to study with a number of dance artistes from around the globe.
She also spent some time in Nigeria in March 2006, where she was exposed to both traditional and West African dance and contemporary African dance.
As a result of her travels and exchange of ideas through movement and dialogue, she now creates and interprets work with a multi-faceted understanding and dance language.
She seeks integrity in creation and humanity in presentation. To her, "there is no room for pretending in dance creation, no room for affectation. The choreographic works that most attract me pose a question or introduce a kernel of thought, which lingers."
She is in love with the process she is "working in, as much as its presentation, for, in reality, it is the process that is the constant. Moments onstage are fleeting and rare, particularly in the contemporary dance world, which must struggle to remain in the public eye in a very fast-paced, competitive climate."
She believes that love affair for her is in the creation and preparation of the work versus the unsustainable blaze of rapture, which she reserves for presentation.
She continues, "I am drawn to individuals who are, similarly, heavily invested in the creative process and recognize that it is an evolving journey affected by all facets of the creators’ lives."
The artistic work that she has dedicated her life to is a constant, relentless reaching for original thought and variation, "a concept which resonates on sociological levels as it becomes clearer that we are bound together as a species by a collective dependence on our ability to adapt to what we cannot foresee."
Dallas says that dance creators and interpreters are champions of invention whose future is secured by the sharing of knowledge. "There are few places where human interaction has the freedom to transcend age, race, and experience; the studio and stage should exist without boundaries," she muses.
While saying that in the coming years, it is her intention to engage with artistes who have a similar sensibility to her own, points out, "I will continue to seek exchanges both internationally and domestically as an integral part of my development as a contemporary dance artist and as a critical stepping stone to the evolution of dance. I will create and perform work that has relevance and meaning beyond beauty or logic."
MacLean
For John MacLean, composer and recording engineer, who is also involved in the project, says the search for original language was the reason for the collaborations.
The Juno-nominated composer, producer and woodwind player says through collaborations in modern dance and his current co-creative endeavor, Mr. Something Something, he continues to probe the areas where stage and studio overlap for genuine expression of the human condition.
He was a young clarinetist with classical aspirations when a chance introduction to Charles Mingus’ alumnus, Billy Robinson, led to a very fruitful mentorship.
He says that the disciplines of improvisation and creation just awakening in him responded naturally to Robinson’s living tradition and language of jazz improvisation and tenor saxophone.
Creation and originality provided the philosophical springboard for the next 20 years of his musical activity at home and abroad.
With hundreds of live performances yearly, he has made time to apply his collected technical and compositional knowledge in the recording environment as producer, arranger, and engineer of numerous albums as record label owner/operator (World Records).
Liadi
He is a choreographer, dancer, dance teacher, drummer, and acrobat of International repute. He is a graduate of the International Centre for Dance and Choreography, Ecole Des Sable, (JANT-BI) of Senegal/France. The winner of Lagos State government’s award, Generalissimo of Culture and Merit Award of the Guild of Nigerian Dancers (GOND), Liadi has enjoyed a French Government scholarship to France (C.C.N.N) Nantes. He was Best Nigerian dancer 2002/2003 (GOND) and two times UNESCO/ASHBERG bursary award winner, 2003/2004 and now a dance WEBBER.
His Ori was the first position winner of the 5th African/Indian Ocean choreographic contest in Madagascar 2003. He has conducted over 30 national and international workshops.
He has worked with notable directors and choreographers among whom are Pata Rosy, Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarches, Germaine Acogny, Carlos Orta, Flora Teffen, Helene Cathal and Fabric Ramalingom, Muyiwa Osinaike, Ojo Bakare, Heddy Maalem, Sussane Linke and Fred Bendongue and also had a Master class with Salia Ni Seydou, among others.
He is the director/choreographer of Ijodee Dance Center and also the Director/Executive Producer of TRUFESTA International Solo and Duo Dance Festival Lagos, Nigeria. He has choreographed so many works, which includes Ido-Olofin; It’s me, New Age Transition, In-Imagination and Why Not…? His works are all on different tours as usual.
Williams
Williams is a total theatre artiste, with the drive to preserve, develop and promote the multicultural resource of Nigeria, started work on his goal as ‘Director of rehearsals’ of Akis Productions International. He experimented with the company around the nation down to Togo. He was the artistic coordinator with African Japanese Cultural Exchange Groupe in a project to Fukuoka Japan (2000/2001) and also Assistant Choreographer of Badejo Art’s Elemental Passion that toured UK. The second assistant choreographer to Peter Badejo OBE for the 8th All Africa Games opening and closing ceremonies. He also assisted Koffi Koko for Collective Artiste’s UK tour of Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka and till date, he remains the coordinator of Gongbeat Arts Company Nigeria and a choreographer with Badejo Arts Company UK. He is currently running a project with Osun Arts Foundation based in Liverpool UK.
THREE people are on stage, looking every bit agitated. Their movement is quirky, but balanced. They reel around the stage in a signature style of contemporary dance: twisting and turning on feet, as music plays at the background. The sequence is the rather popular ‘boy meets girl’ tale. However, rather than the usual parental restrictions, the alternative control: another girl.
The 35-minute piece, We Think Alike, will be on stage today at Goethe Institut, Lagos and tomorrow at the University of Lagos.
The time for the dance piece, which is the product of a workshop facilitated by Adedayo Muslim Liadi is 6pm.
The piece will see Liadi, Rachel Arianne Ogle and Jennifer Dallas replicate recognisable dance steps and forms: turned-in-feet, spastic jerks and head rolls.
The carefully crafted piece embraces stillness and challenges the dancers with restful chorus of unison. It is all about spatial and aerial communication in dance: The link and strength of togetherness, which grow from relationship. It asks pertinent questions, as, if I am different, does that mean I can’t blend? Because I am short does not mean I can’t reach with a tall man?
We Think Alike points out that in life, the post is very wide but with the passion that drives human beings, they forget that they can only score one goal together — mindless of colours and differences (faces, ages, styles). One movement, one people, and one dance are what bind humanity because we think alike.
Hosted by Ijodee Dance Centre, Nigerian, Canadian and Australian artistes have come together to discuss and demonstrate working methods, share generous and candid ideas about cross pollination of dance concepts, especially in the way their artistic inspirations and dance work might be read.
Ogle and Dallas come with tantalisingly brief resumes of the careers that had brought them to the current point.
According to Liadi, the relationship began as a student/mentor thing in 2005 at an African Contemporary Dance workshop, which he facilitated as part of the ImPulseTanz Festival in Vienna, Austria.
By 2006, Rachel and Jeniffer had come to Nigeria to perform in Dance meets Danse Festival and also to work with Ijodee Dance Center as artistes in residence.
"This cultural exchange through the art of contemporary dance aimed to expose them to the very heart of the language, which inspires and the very basic of their practise of West African traditional and contemporary dance," Liadi reflects.
By the time they (Ogle and Dallas) visited in 2007, a platform had been created for them to learn and co-create.
As part of the arrangement, Ijodee Dance Centre will provide 125 hours of apprentice work under the direction of Liadi, over a four- week period, including daily company class and an apprentice position in the centre. Then, participation in all rehearsals and activities surrounding the creation of We think alike.
Professional Development Apprenticeship period for the creation actually began in Lagos on December 26, and lasted till this moment.
Canada Council for the Arts, Ijodee Dance Centre and The Department of Culture and Arts/Government of Western Australia sponsored the creation.
Three dance companies — Kemi Collective, Canada, Ijodee Dance Company, Nigeria, Rechel Arianne Ogle, Australia — are collaborating.
Music is supplied by Saidi Ilelaboye, Isioma Williams (Nigeria) and John MacLean, Canada.
Ogle
Ogle, who is excited about the project, says, she "is very happy to return to Nigeria to perform with Ijodee Dance Company in this unique international exchange, which also involves."
A graduate of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA), Ogle has toured nationally and internationally with Phillip Adams’ Melbourne Dance Company BalletLab, and worked with Perth’s Kompany Kido, Buzz Dance Theatre, and Hong Kong’s City Contemporary Dance Company.
Additionally, dhe has worked with various independent choreographers including Sete Tele, Olivia Millard and Chrissie Parrott, and choreographed and performed in a number of dance festivals throughout Australia.
In 2005, she was the Australian recipient of a danceWEB scholarship to travel to Vienna to participate in a five-week workshop programme at the Impulstanz Festival.
In March 2006, Rachel was an international guest artiste at the Dance Meets Danse Festival, in Lagos, Nigeria where she taught workshops and presented a solo work.
Additional to her performance experience, she has co-facilitated numerous community dance residency projects throughout regional Australia and Christmas Island, and has extensive experience working with dancers with various physical and intellectual disabilities.
Ogle lectures at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts for both the dance and theatre departments, and later this year, will travel to Belgium to undertake studies in the professional training programs of Charleroi Danses and Ultima Vez.
Dallas
For Dallas, she is focused on collaborations and exchange of ideas through performance, choreography and travel.
Since graduating from The School of Toronto Dance Theatre’s Professional Training Programme, she has travelled extensively throughout Europe and has engaged with and exposed herself to the various palettes of the European dance scene.
She participated in DanceWeb 2005, in Vienna, Austria where she had opportunity to study with a number of dance artistes from around the globe.
She also spent some time in Nigeria in March 2006, where she was exposed to both traditional and West African dance and contemporary African dance.
As a result of her travels and exchange of ideas through movement and dialogue, she now creates and interprets work with a multi-faceted understanding and dance language.
She seeks integrity in creation and humanity in presentation. To her, "there is no room for pretending in dance creation, no room for affectation. The choreographic works that most attract me pose a question or introduce a kernel of thought, which lingers."
She is in love with the process she is "working in, as much as its presentation, for, in reality, it is the process that is the constant. Moments onstage are fleeting and rare, particularly in the contemporary dance world, which must struggle to remain in the public eye in a very fast-paced, competitive climate."
She believes that love affair for her is in the creation and preparation of the work versus the unsustainable blaze of rapture, which she reserves for presentation.
She continues, "I am drawn to individuals who are, similarly, heavily invested in the creative process and recognize that it is an evolving journey affected by all facets of the creators’ lives."
The artistic work that she has dedicated her life to is a constant, relentless reaching for original thought and variation, "a concept which resonates on sociological levels as it becomes clearer that we are bound together as a species by a collective dependence on our ability to adapt to what we cannot foresee."
Dallas says that dance creators and interpreters are champions of invention whose future is secured by the sharing of knowledge. "There are few places where human interaction has the freedom to transcend age, race, and experience; the studio and stage should exist without boundaries," she muses.
While saying that in the coming years, it is her intention to engage with artistes who have a similar sensibility to her own, points out, "I will continue to seek exchanges both internationally and domestically as an integral part of my development as a contemporary dance artist and as a critical stepping stone to the evolution of dance. I will create and perform work that has relevance and meaning beyond beauty or logic."
MacLean
For John MacLean, composer and recording engineer, who is also involved in the project, says the search for original language was the reason for the collaborations.
The Juno-nominated composer, producer and woodwind player says through collaborations in modern dance and his current co-creative endeavor, Mr. Something Something, he continues to probe the areas where stage and studio overlap for genuine expression of the human condition.
He was a young clarinetist with classical aspirations when a chance introduction to Charles Mingus’ alumnus, Billy Robinson, led to a very fruitful mentorship.
He says that the disciplines of improvisation and creation just awakening in him responded naturally to Robinson’s living tradition and language of jazz improvisation and tenor saxophone.
Creation and originality provided the philosophical springboard for the next 20 years of his musical activity at home and abroad.
With hundreds of live performances yearly, he has made time to apply his collected technical and compositional knowledge in the recording environment as producer, arranger, and engineer of numerous albums as record label owner/operator (World Records).
Liadi
He is a choreographer, dancer, dance teacher, drummer, and acrobat of International repute. He is a graduate of the International Centre for Dance and Choreography, Ecole Des Sable, (JANT-BI) of Senegal/France. The winner of Lagos State government’s award, Generalissimo of Culture and Merit Award of the Guild of Nigerian Dancers (GOND), Liadi has enjoyed a French Government scholarship to France (C.C.N.N) Nantes. He was Best Nigerian dancer 2002/2003 (GOND) and two times UNESCO/ASHBERG bursary award winner, 2003/2004 and now a dance WEBBER.
His Ori was the first position winner of the 5th African/Indian Ocean choreographic contest in Madagascar 2003. He has conducted over 30 national and international workshops.
He has worked with notable directors and choreographers among whom are Pata Rosy, Claude Brumachon and Benjamin Lamarches, Germaine Acogny, Carlos Orta, Flora Teffen, Helene Cathal and Fabric Ramalingom, Muyiwa Osinaike, Ojo Bakare, Heddy Maalem, Sussane Linke and Fred Bendongue and also had a Master class with Salia Ni Seydou, among others.
He is the director/choreographer of Ijodee Dance Center and also the Director/Executive Producer of TRUFESTA International Solo and Duo Dance Festival Lagos, Nigeria. He has choreographed so many works, which includes Ido-Olofin; It’s me, New Age Transition, In-Imagination and Why Not…? His works are all on different tours as usual.
Williams
Williams is a total theatre artiste, with the drive to preserve, develop and promote the multicultural resource of Nigeria, started work on his goal as ‘Director of rehearsals’ of Akis Productions International. He experimented with the company around the nation down to Togo. He was the artistic coordinator with African Japanese Cultural Exchange Groupe in a project to Fukuoka Japan (2000/2001) and also Assistant Choreographer of Badejo Art’s Elemental Passion that toured UK. The second assistant choreographer to Peter Badejo OBE for the 8th All Africa Games opening and closing ceremonies. He also assisted Koffi Koko for Collective Artiste’s UK tour of Lion and the Jewel by Wole Soyinka and till date, he remains the coordinator of Gongbeat Arts Company Nigeria and a choreographer with Badejo Arts Company UK. He is currently running a project with Osun Arts Foundation based in Liverpool UK.
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