BAM!

Dance is difficult to interpret and is subjective to each viewer. However, it can be interpreted in so many ways and by so many different people that it becomes a visual sensation to watch. At the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Brooklyn’s all-female Urban Bush Woman and Senegal’s all-male Compagnie Jant-Bi performed a thrilling show titled Les écailles de la Mémoire, in other words, The Scales of Memory.

The cast emerges towards the audience to the sound of calm waves slapping against the rocks. Several kneel and bow and others follow. One starts listing the names of past generations and within minutes, other voices of names overlap, creating a confusing jumble of names and words. These names proved to be the least confusing since we later discover that a native form of language is spoken. As each scene of interpretive dance ended, a new one began, like memories that faded and appeared. Although I could not fully understand and grasp the meaning of some scenes, they were still enjoyable in that the movements were graceful and fleeting; their jumps and pivots seemed effortless, especially when a woman lifted a fellow male dancer while portraying a love scene. I do admit however that I could not keep my eyes open at few parts of the show. A group of several men gracefully jump on stage and take off their red shirts. Collectively, they dance in sync to West African music and rhythm making the stage look like a kaleidoscope of the colors black and red. Along with the beat of the tribal music, the men create sounds with the clap of their hands and the stomps of their bare feet. At times, the dances were humorous and flirtatious, playing around the concept of courting and romance, when both sexes coupled with partners and danced to the slow music in their own unique way.

Les écailles de la Mémoire was different from other performances that I have seen throughout my exposure to the arts. It was a show that communicated itself through dance and movements that connected the human body to the mind. Prior to watching the performance, I had assumed the performance to be somewhat like a musical and due to the casts’ style and technique, it proved not to be. Instead it was an unusual but unique style of physical and flexible demonstration of the body.