BAM! – “Les Ecailles de la Memoire”

The performance opens up with a group of men and women who start to move in slow motion. As they move forward, one woman starts to announce the name of her parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents. The others behind her begin to speak as well, stating their family names in their own language. One voice became many, and the chaos of layered declarations, filled the background of the stage with memories, like scales. “Les Ecailles de la Memoire” (The Scales of Memory) is a dance performance that seizes the imagination, leaves you on the edge of your seat, and thrills you in the moment.

Urban Bush Women’s performance is dedicated to the exploration of cultural expressions, social change, and history. It incorporates the use of music, dance, and text into every single performance. The collaboration between the Urban Bush Women and the Senegalese male company, and the collaborative choreography made the work complex and at the same time remarkable.

The music and text echoed not only the revelations of their African identities, but also self-reflecting explorations of the past and the concepts of each one of us as individuals. It also aimed at showing the audience that Africa and the African culture is more than primitive and unchanging. It explored the themes of Africa’s past and its present. Not only African history, but also individuality and distinctiveness.

The dancers of men and women at first dance separately, and then towards the end blend into one. The music is of powerful African ancestry, there is a lot of drumming, and it is very vivid. There is much African dancing, feet stomping, and highly charged energy present on stage and in the audience. The powerful music beats are thrilling.  Whether a scene was about love or hardships, there was a story in each act. The choreographers incorporated a few scenes of individual dances, or rather monologues, conveying the dancer’s story. The dancers contributing hisses, grunts, and foot stumps provide a complex atmosphere.

The work ends with scenes of love and courtship. As men advance, women stare and reject.  This collaboration between the Urban Bush Women and Compagnie Jant-Bi came out just in time as the nation elected an African-American president of African descent. It couldn’t be timed any more perfectly.