TAPS 0330: Mande Performance:Dance, Music, Culture and Social Engagement. www.yeredonmali.org
Mande Proverb:
“So don ji don yeredon de nyogon te.”
(While it is excellent to know how to ride a horse, wonderful to know how to swim, nothing is better than
to know oneself.)
This course is mandatory S/NC:
Primary Instructor:
Michelle_Bach-Coulibaly@brown.edu
Room #10 Lyman Hall
Office Hours: Wednesdays 12-2pm or appointment
(o) 863-3285 © 401-588-1688
Contemplative Practices Instructor:
Thomas_Coburn@brown.edu
Cultural Consultants:
Seydou Coulibaly/ ©401-588-2709
Moussatraore@hotmail.com/ 617-970-5587
Teaching Assistants
Sam_Yambrovich@brown.edu
Raques_McGill@brown.edu
Odera Ibokwe/oigbokwe@risd.edu
Emily_Goldman@brown.edu
Required Meeting Times:
Core Class: T@6-8pm and TH 4-6pm
Sections:
#1 TU @ 12-12:50pm (Emily/Odera)
#2 TH @ 12-12:50pm (Michelle)
#3 FR @ 12-12:50pm (Raques)
#4 FR @ 1-1:50pm (Sam)
COURSE REQUIREMENTS:
1. RHYTHM OF CHANGE FESTIVAL
March 2–4th, 2012.
Arts and Social Change in Africa and the Diaspora
In cooperation with the Arts in the One World Festival. http://rhythmofchange2012.blogspot.com
2. ATTENDANCE !!! PARTICIPATION, RESPECT and COMMUNICATION are PRIMARY VALUES, therefore no
more than three unexcused absences will be allowed. After two, you WILL AUTOMATICALLY receive a
warning from your TA, and asked to make up classes by coming to two additional sections. Clear
communication must come to the TAs via email if you are to miss class. If you do not make up classes and
fall behind, you will fail the class. These dances and concepts are complex and demand devoted practice.
You are accountable for the material given in class for the days you missed. If you miss a class, you must
make arrangements to make up the class material on your own time, and documentation is required for
illness based absences. Sections are preferred. Two extra sections equal one class. 30%
3. THREE DANCE TESTS: Each rhythm and dance is taught as a highly codified and stylized body language.
These three dances represent different casted or cultural groups with their own movement vocabularies,
musical traditions, languages, folkloric histories and embodied dialects. (Khassonke, Bambara, Woloso).
After we complete learning the basic material you will be tested on them in class time. You will be tested
on your ability to: learn the order, the rhythmic complexities of each step, accompanying songs, stylistic
aspects, transitions, weight-shifts, motif -structures, doubling and tripling the beat, the stance, listening
to and connecting with the musicians, vitality, energy, subtleties, ENDURANCE, collaborative creative
work with your families, and bio-mechanical nuances.
These tests will require that you meet with your family for SACRED TIME to organize spatial patterns for
the dance. This helps you to remember the order of steps, builds spatial awareness, near/ medium/ far
reach kinesphere, and the power of surrendering in a movement choir. You are not in it alone. It takes a
family to prepare for the test. You are only as good as your whole group is. 30%
DATES OF THE TESTS:
a. DANSA: February 23rd. Khassonke Djoun-jounba and jembe ensemble celebratory dance that
exemplifies grace, agility, rhythmic complexity, and social unity.
b. WOLOSODON: March 22nd. Woloso means, “Born in the house of the King”, and expresses the power
and place of this historically casted group in service to the reigning Patriarch, or jatigi patron of the artist.
The dance and song, while expressing solidarity, lampoons casted society, and utilizes pelvic virtuosity to
entertain, embarrass, and receive favors from prominent patrons. Today it one of the most popular
secular dances performed by all of the major national and private dance companies, and exists as a
satirical reminder of one’s place within the strict codifications of pre-colonial and colonial Mande society.
c. SANDIA: April 26th
The dance of the jaliya praise singing group. Originally they were sacred keepers of all speech,
genealogies, oral histories, constitutions, and powerful negotiators between clans.
4. Social Engagement, Service Learning and Research Projects:
Each family will partner with their bantering family to engage in a service learning project in association
with either Adopt-A-Doctor (Kouyate/Sangare), Djoumanzana Orphanage and Community Centre
(Coulibaly/Sissoko), Sekou Camara Primary Source Library (Keita/Camara), Cultural Preservation: Radio
Jekafo/Troupe Fakoli (Traore/Diarra), Jinijela Garden Project
(Diabate/Soumare)
Each team is required to do research on their topic, make and sustain contact with their project
coordinators, deliberate on the assessed need and realistic perimeters for the project, identify a method
of engagement (ex. the creation of a radio play that addresses the need, write a song about the issue,
record it, assist in fundraising initiatives through performance, contact an ambassador for diplomatic
pouch assistance), and present this research to the class, with a clear plan for how this project will utilize
performative values and creative expression. Dates TBA.
http://www.1beat.org/
The Presentations Rubric
-40 mins in length
-Visual Component: powerpoint or other visual presentation. could be an excerpt
of a film. must have a visual component with speaking points
-Performative Component: there must be a musical component
-Collaboration Development Component: Must hand in your research with
indications of who did what work and demonstrate that everyone shared the work
-Content Requirements:
*must research musicians of the family name or bantering family
name.
*must be some indication of how the family will use performance for
activism in their final project
*must indicate that you have made contact with your social
engagement contact person (Sekou Camara, Seydou Coulibaly,
Djibi Coulibaly, Seydou Traore, Ray Rickman)
*must present the reading
*must incorporate a way of evaluating whether the class has
learned the information presented
*must incorpate Malian culinary traditions
*must turn in to TAs: a group paper that will 1) indicate what
outside research has been done about the reading topics and
musical traditions presented, 2)outline the social engagement
component, 3)include the script and pedagogical methodology of
your class presentation
5. FINAL EXAM/PERFORMANCE:
May 12th @ 3pm call. 5pm performance on Lincoln Field. Raindate is May 13th @5pm
Final Exam Performance:
You are required to be at all rehearsals for the final. Each dance is given 7 hours to perfect steps, set
choreography and to do all staging.
T: 5/1 @12-1pm #1
@6-8pm
#2
H: 5/3 @12-1pm #2
@6-8pm #3
F: 5/4 @12-2pm #3
@2-4pm #1
S: 5/5 @9-12
#1
@12-3pm #2
Sn:5/6 @4-7pm #3
T: 5/8 @12-1 #1
@6-8pm Run all dances with Musicians
H: 5/10 @4-6pm DRESS REHEARSAL
S: 5/12 @ 3pm Call/ 5pm Performance
CELEBRATE!!!!!!!
Course Mission and Description
The mission of the class is to build a mindful, respectful community, inspire civic engagement, create
egalitarian exchanges between the diverse Brown population and West African artist-activists, and to
further leadership skills through collaborative research- to- performance projects that utilize the power of
performance to raise awareness and educational practices that serve to sensitize thought into action.
Through the attainment of physical virtuosity students will learn Mande cultural concepts of
“communitas”, generosity, strength, flexibility, responsibility, civic-mindedness, and cultural awareness.
This semester we will be working with Professor Thomas Coburn towards a comprehensive investigation
of Contemplative Inquiry and its relationship to the principles of Mande performance.
Professor Coburn Writes:
“A serviceable generic definition of contemplation and meditation is “disciplined interiority.” Such a
definition does not deny the variety of contemplative and meditative practices across cultures, around the
globe, and throughout history, but it invites us to think about these practices as a genus, as variations on a
theme. That theme is inwardness, the intentional focus of attention on our inward life and on the present
moment. It should therefore be understood as a counterpoint to where we usually place our attention,
that is, on the outer world, the natural and social environments in which we live, with all their attendant
stories. Contemplation and meditation draw us inward, often in ways that turn out to be consequential
for how we engage the external world. While contemplatives often live solitary and reclusive lives, many
have been engaged in movements of social and political transformation. A great many techniques and
practices have been developed in different cultures as part of the inner discipline of contemplation. This
course will introduce you, in very preliminary fashion, to some of them”.
As a research- to- performance course we will examine the vast contributions made by Mande culture in
West Africa and upon the contemporary art stage. With an emphasis on embodied theory and praxis we
will examine the tensions between Traditional and Contemporary practices.
We will look at how these traditions are:
1. Manifested in contemporized expressions,
2. Mobilized across borders, and
3. Crucial to building a strong cultural aesthetic which functions to create a viable cultural
Our work is to engage you in the rigorous and detailed physical decoding of this vibrant tradition that
emphasizes concepts of youthfulness, brightness, luminosity, coolness, stability, flexibility, strength,
balance and communal healing. These traditions demand that we build the necessary strength, flexibility,
and endurance needed to efficiently work in the style and vitality of West African Dance, Music and
Performance.
Collaborative research, participation in the RHYTHM OF CHANGE Festival, and collaborative research will
facilitate a heightened sense of communal learning, Mande pedagogy, and cultural meaning.
By the end of the semester you should be able to clearly identify, understand, apply or perform:
1. Three specific Mande dance traditions with their accompanying musical and oral performance
traditions.
These dances and rhythms will be taught as highly codified languages, with specific phrasing structures,
spatial focus, qualitative affinities and alternating centers. Each movement and rhythm can be studied in
respect to its slight variations of intonation, syncopation, and qualitative choice.
By learning selected songs, folktales and proverbs alongside Mande physical traditions, we hope to
engage each student in an “embodied” approach to history, to assist you in understanding the high
functionality of Mande Performance, and how these traditions resonate in our own cultural expressions.
2. The relationship of Contemplative Inquiry to Mande culture aesthetics as they apply to your overall
awareness, kinesthetic intelligence, and respect for yourself, each other and Mande pedagogy.
Notions of improvisation, spontaneity, “ephebisim”, and “getting down” will be taught in light of their
relevance to preserving and maintaining cultural values. Form, Style and Stance are studied as symbols for
social interaction and spiritual growth, as are the conventions of call-and-response, repetition,
competition, improvisation, syncopation, multiple meter, "coolness", and balance. Dances will be studied
as they correlate to concepts such as:
1. The transmission and maintenance of sentiments and traditions,
2. Theory of dance as a social safety valve,
3. The cathartic element or dances of derision,
4. Group exaltation and search for "the sacred",
5. Cultural and moral education,
6. Agents of healing,
7. Elements of competition: theories of boundary display, negotiation,
8. Dance as ritual drama and builder of "communitas",
9. Motivator in the work place,
10. The creative "other" (transplanted idea from the West)
Concepts of movement include:
Bio- mechanical functions or bone actions: flexion, extension, rotation, circum-duction, inversion,
eversion, pronation, and supination.
Spatial equations: the planes, transverse, points in space, spatial directions, spiraling, the dimensions
(one. two. three), carving/shaping, weight shifts: under-curving/chase, over-curving/glissade, near,
medium and far reaching kinesphere.
Movement considerations: Adduction, abduction, sequential, simultaneous, swing, fall and recovery,
arched, spoke-like, peripheral, gestural, postural, gathering and scattering, central initiation, multi-unit or
single -unit torso, bi-lateral, uni-lateral, symbolism dance, work motifs, Contemporary Dance terms.
Commonality and CORE elements of Mande Dance and Music:
West African considerations:
REBOUND, DOUBLE and TRIPLE BEATS in the body, Up-beat dancing/the lift, leaps: preparation, thrust and
recovery. The idea of heating up the step will be taught as we go to the drum. Notions of marking the
beat, maintaining one’s balance, displaying one’s coolness: “hot on the inside and cool on the outside”,
are taught as linkages to cultural tenets. We will consider how the energetic flow, weight centers, spatial
focus, temporal considerations, and qualitative choice explore the relationship between form and
function.
a. The percussive concept of performance where tonality, chord progressions and temporal components
are played with attack, energy and precision.
b. Multi-metric playing and dancing where ¾, 4/4, and 6/8 time signatures are “played” simultaneously.
The dancer responds and “plays” the multi metric rhythm with corresponding architectures of the body.
One model: Articulations in various centers respond to the resonation of the particular drum sound.
(example: joun- joun corresponds to the feet, being the lowest register and therefore grounding the
dancers in keeping time and into the earth. The konkonee and bass tone of the jembe respond to the
pelvis action, while the tones and accompanying jembe keep the heart center moving, and the slap
sounds from the jembe respond to jumping and high accents in the arms, head and peripheral gestures.
c. A-part playing and dancing
d. Call and Response
e. Dances of derision.
FAMILY RESEARCH PRESENTATIONS:
These research presentations must include information from the readings or social concerns that you
might already have with Africa, such as the achievement gap, nutrition, endemic disease, IMF,
deforestation, political unrest, fight for limited resources, FGM, AIDS, colonialism, neo-colonialism, or
other issues identified by the IRIN web news, you are to make a researched piece of educational theatre
addressing these issues. Write songs, poems, and stage newscasts, scenarios from the web, movement,
satire, masquerade or other performative traditions.
MARCH 6thth. Keita and Camara
(History as Performance)
* Niane: Sunjiata An Epic of Old Mali.
*Camara: The Epic of Sunjata: Structure, Preservation, and Transmission
*Keita: Outcast To Ambassador. Life and Times of Salif Keita.
MARCH 8th. Sissoko and Coulibaly
(Mande Music)
Charry: Mande Music. Chapter One
Conrad, David C. A State of Intrigue: The Epic of Bamana Society.
McNaughton: The Mande Blacksmiths, preface through the end of Chapter 4.
MARCH 13th. Diabate/Soumare .
(Cultural Economy/Cultural Policy)
Required Readings:
Articles on Cultural Policy Debate:
#2,3,4,5,9,12,15.
March 15th: Sangare/Kouyate
Munson, Ingrid: The African Diaspora: A Musical Perspective. Read chapter on Oumou Sangare.
DeLuca and Kamenya: Representations of FGM in Finzan, A Dance for Heroes.
Brett-Smith, Sarah: The Making of Bamana Sculpture: Creativity and Gender.
Laye, Camara: Guardian of the Word. Trans. James Kirkup.
Duran: Birds of the Wasalu
March 20th. Diarra/Traore
(Embodied Art and Initiation)
Required Readings:
Ezra: Art of the Jo Society.
Male: The Jo and the Gwan.
Thompson: An Aesthetic of the Cool. West African Dance.
Sada Sissoko: The Koteba. Bamana ritual play, dance and theater.
McNaughton, Patrick: The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. Ch.#1
SELECTED TOPICS TO BE EXPLORED For Research: (examples)
I. The Meaning of “Mande”
a. Myth, Space, Place and Legend
b. Ethnic groupings and Regions.
While these cultural regions and groups have remained “fluid” through centuries of empire building, wars,
migratory shifts, religious movements and economic influences; new technology and recent globalization
have made an immense impact upon the survival of traditions and cultural values.
Mali is divided into 8 major political regions as established by the French system of governance. These
groups are fluid but remain in association with certain regions to this day.
Regions:
#1 Kaye: Khassonke, Soninke, Kagoro
#2 Koulikoro: Bambara
#3 Mopti: Dogon, Peul, Bambara, Bozo, Bobo, Marka, Songhay and Tukulor
#4 Timbuktu: Tuareg, Songhay, Maure
#5 Gao: Songhay, Tuareg, Maure, Peul
#6 Sikasso: Senufo, Bambara, Minianka, Dyula, Bobo, Wasalunke
#7 Segou: Bambara, Peul, Bobo, Bozo, Marka, Minianka, Maure
#8 City of Bamako: originally a small Bozo village, but now the most populous city with all cultural groups.
c. Topography and environment
d. Mande Diaspora
e. Casted groups in pre and post-colonial society.
(Blacksmiths, woloso, horon, nyamkalan).
Pre-colonial Mande society organized itself into specific groups or castes. In the established divisions the
noble caste is called the horon. These sedentary agriculturalists formed allegiances with great warriors
and military strategists which evolved into a ruling caste.
The second group, jonw, and woloso are now an obsolete slave caste, but still respond to their pre-colonial
status through the continuity and accumulation aspects of the dance. Woloso were second generation
slaves who were born in the house of the king, and were at times in positions of great power through the
jon kuru or jon futu associations that represented the indentured servants to their masters. The third
important “casted” group we will be studying are the nyamakala group, or specialized professionals.
Blacksmiths, bards, and leather workers pass their arcane knowledge down endogamously, from one
generation to another. The bards or wordsmiths learn their trade over years and years of mentorship and
training, as well as in the occult practices to heighten the development of their performance. Traditionally
they have been referred to as “griots’, “jesere”, or” “jeli”” jeliya”, “jeliw”. This group of hereditary bards or
wordsmiths trained in the art of negotiation, praise and flattery for their patrons, historical and anecdotal
tales, genealogies, historical documentation of great deeds and events, as moralizers and counselors of
disputes, and keepers of tradition. In pre-colonial times they wielded great power to sway political action,
as they were the voice of the kings and great noblemen. Their services were of primary importance in
sustaining, transforming, and spreading Mande culture throughout all of West Africa through their power
and authority of the word. Like the “jeli” our research will be presented in a performative format similar to
Mande epic tradition heightened in energetic value. Contemporary counterparts still exemplify the basic
premises expounded in their written and performed texts. (example: The Jata Band)
f. Clans and familial bantering relationships.
Example: “Traditionally each clan has bantering relationships with different clans. These are called
‘senekun’ or “sinankun”, and exist as social contracts between people that allow individuals to hurl insults
back and forth in benign and often public settings. Retribution takes the form of additional insults, and it is
all done with great laughter and applause.” (Patrick McNaughton). Many of these insults refer back to
ancient acts of either heroic or cowardly nature that have been passed down from generation to
generation. Satire and the hurling of insults between clans are the glue that keeps Malian people together.
Travel on the Durnees or Soutramans (taxis-buses), affords numerous occasions for social interaction. A
form of impromptu theatre evolves between the odd thirty or so people who are crammed inside one of
these buses. The fact that the buses have peripheral seating with everyone looking at each other creates a
circle of possibilities. At any one moment you might hear someone ask what your family name is. Upon
answering, the insults begin and laughing takes over the entire bus as these insults gradually become
more outrageous. There are many jokes about the Coulibaly clan, as well as all clans. As a “Coulibaly” you
could be told that you are the best farmer of beans, therefore a “bean eater” who blows a lot of hot air
into the atmosphere. The “bad slave” jokes are endless and usually end in slamming one’s father: “your
father has sex with monkey faced-women”, or even more outrageous insults. NEVER INSULT THE MOTHER.
She is sacred, next to God.
II. The Nature and Relevance of Mande Oral Epic Traditions: (partial list)
a. The Sunjiata Epic: as it exists as literature, history and performance.
b. The Ghana Empire and epic of the Wagadu Kingdom.
c. Hunters epics. Samory Toure, and the Songs of Seydou Camara.
d. The Bamana Kingdom of Segou and Kharta e. Askia Mohamed (Maiga)
f. Somono Bala (Bozo, Somono)
III. Life Cycle and Life-Crisis Ceremonies of the Bamana
a. Naming Ceremonies and Baptisms
b. Circumcision
c. Fiancée and Marriages
d. Jina-don healing ceremonies
e. Funerals
f. Agrarian ceremonies
g. Secret societies and Divination
h. Power Associations
IV. Bamana Masquerade. Yaya Coulibaly and Sogoba Tradition
V. Contemporary Festivals in Mali. The Biennale Festival of Art and Culture, Festival in the Desert, Chi
Wara, The Photography Biennale, Dogon Sigui, Sanga Choreography Competitions.
VI. Women and Children’s Rights and Health Issues.
VII. Mande Dance and Music Traditions.
VIII. Mande Film and Still Images
VIV. Contemporary Artists and the World Music and Dance Circuit.
X. NGO’s and recent Globalization Issues.
Other readings: (A more thorough bibliography will be put up on the web-page)
Bamana Folklore
Conrad, David C. A State of Intrigue: The Epic of Bamana Society.
Courlander, Harold with Sako, Ousmane. Heart of the Ngoni: Heroes of the African Kingdom of Segu.
(Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982) 178 pages
Music Traditions:
Charry, Eric. Mande Music: Tradition and Modern Music of the Maninka and Mandinka of West Africa.
(Chicago:University of Chicago Press)
Novels by Mande Diaspora Authors:
Sembene, Ousmane. God’s Bits of Wood. (Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1960)
This is a novel about the 1948 strike on the Bamako-to-Dakar rail line.
Ba, Amadou Hampate. The Fortunes of Wangrin. ( Indiana University Press). 1973.
Power Associations:
McNaughton, Patrick. The Mande Blacksmiths: Knowledge, Power, and Art in West Africa. (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1988), 241 pages
Political:
French, Howard W. A Continent for the Taking. The Tragedy and Hope of Africa.
(New York: Vintage Books, 2005). 263 pages. Howard French is a former correspondent for the New York
Times, who witnessed firsthand some of West Africa’s most devastating recent history. This will give you
an interesting view of why Mali, like most of West Africa, is still struggling with Neo-colonialism.
Aesthetics and Philosophy
Alphonse Tierou. African Dance is Life . A spiritual and philosophical look into the nature of African Dance.
Thompson, Robert Farris. Flash of the Spirit. (New York, Vintage Books, 1983)
This is a great introduction to Mande aesthetics as they respond to music, textiles, architecture, sculpture
and dance.
Thompson, Robert Farris. African Art in Motion. (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1974) 275
pages.
This is the granddaddy of West African Art books. The ideas presented, while recently disputed, are still of
immense value in how to look at African art and it’s relevance to embodied practices.
The Sunjata Epics
These three different versions will give you an overview of this important oral history.
Laye, Camara. Guardian of the Word. Trans. James Kirkup.NadiN (New York: The Noonday Press, 1954)
Johnson, John William. The Epic of Son-Jara: A West African Tradition. (Bloomington: Indiana University
Press, 1986)
Niane, Djibril Tamsir. Sundiata, an Epic of Old Mali. Trans. G.D. Pickett. (Essex:
Longman 1965)