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Showing posts with label Q'dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Q'dance. Show all posts
Jan 7, 2016
Sep 17, 2010
MY EXILE is in my head
MY EXILE
IS IN MY HEAD
Inspired by Wole Soyinka’s prison notes - "THE MAN DIED."
Conception, choreographed and performed by Qudus ONIKEKU.
Original music performed live by Charles Amblard. Video conception and performance Isaak Lartey. Light designer Guillaume Fesneau.
Production : YK Projects
Coproduction : Le CENTQUATRE and CULTURESFRANCE
with the support of: Centre National des Arts du Cirque, Centre National de la Danse, Bates Dance Festival Maine - USA and DRAC Ile de France
...More than a word, exile is a condition. It is a place, a knowledge, a narrative, but most importantly, it is a psychic space which is obvious to those who inhibit it, those who must engage and wrestle with it because only by so doing can they come to terms with it. Exile is poignant because it is bracketed by loss, it is not so much about movement, relocation or departure as it is about loss: of territory, of the familiar and the familial, of certainty, but most frighteningly, by the grave probability of the loss of memory.
Exile is a rupture, the cessation of things previously taken for granted, the collapse of a world of relative certainties, and therein lies its stings. It also underlines the inescapable desirability of belonging. It may be questioned, even ridiculed, but only those who have experience such loss can understand the rootlessness - and ruthlessness - of existence in the shiftless, treacherous territory of exile. Exile offers a refuge, but no consolation or pride. Every engagement with the lived experience of exile finds its most persuasive explanation not in fascination for there is no such thing as fascination for exile, but rather in the individual quest to come to terms with the fact of exile.
Every such effort is an attempt to explain exile more to oneself than to others. Through art the exiled is able to escape the burden of circumstance, even the temptation of bitterness and recrimination, and instead question, explore, ruminate, and attempt to repossess fragments of that which is lost. Through art the exile may return, in a manner of speaking, by reconstituting the past, participating in the present, as well as envisioning a new world.
Olu OGUIBE
( Nigerian artist, art historian and poet exiled in USA)
Through this piece I intend to deal with personal questions of home, belonging, non-belonging and exile. Above that, I also thought about creating a new homogeneous work, adaptable for conventional theatres as well as alternative spaces. At the moment, I am confronted with questions of other art making processes, through multiple improvisations; how DANCE, CIRCUS, LITERATURE, STORY TELLING, MUSIC AND VIDEO ART, could organically come together almost as a coincidence. An approach that involves the performers' bodies and the audience's eyes, the music we produce and the space that reunites us.
All these converging forces involved in this research laboratory will at the end become the incarnation of the performance in any given space and time. It is a challenge for us to think of a collective and new art making process, with an indefinite character, to create a deliberate contrast to the traditional incarceration of our works in-between four walls, and perhaps a response to the changing social and economic realities of the art world.
Qudus ONIKEKU
Sep 8, 2010
My trouble with Contemporary African dance
Dance in Africa has since been expressed in many interpretive styles and techniques, but now, in this post-modern day, there are two types of contemporary dance in contemporary Africa; the European-inspired and the non-European-inspired. The former is also known as contemporary African dance while the latter is simply contemporary dance. This magical aggregation takes me back to the wonders of my discovery of a certain elementary mathematical magic, which says anything multiplied by one remains itself, but anything multiplied by zero is zero. DILEMMA! So no matter the size, 1000 X 1 is still one thousand, while 1000000 X 0 evaporates to zero. Just like mathematics, what then characterizes this contemporary dance makeover is not so much in the style, nor subject, nor audience, but a fundamental idea of Africa and the age and circumstance at which it exists.
Contemporary dance in Africa – in my definition – is not a specific dance technique, but a genre of dance performance that employs systems and methods that could be traced to traditional Yoruba-total-theatre of the 50s (also known as Yoruba folk opera). Contemporary dance however, draws on here-and-now influences, as well as newer philosophies of movement that depart from traditional dance techniques, by deliberately omitting structured forms and movements or NOT.
African dancers, the other dancers
More than a word or mere geographical expression, Africa has become an enigma, a place, a succession of depressing event and a human condition which makes dreams and hopes evaporate to zero. Africa has since turned to Europe’s latest invention which has with time, incessantly distorted from a place of fantasy to exotic beings, from the future project to a shore of material civilization, landscape of contrasting images and extraordinary experiences. Now that these plenty fantasies are disappearing as our communal history come of age, and gone are those days; those days that the contemporary African never saw, those days that is never part of our contemporary history books, those days when Europe never existed in our narratives, I’m talking about those days we let to be ruined by European sophistication, re-made by Europeans and significant for the persuasion of the European thinkers, students and visitors.
The choice of African in contemporary “African” dance is therefore, with a touch of derision and as well canonical. Aside the fact that it suggests a honest geographical location and a common historical narrative, it also makes the unforgiving blunder of plunging into an ideology that thrives on reductionism, which seek to reduce the African peoples, all 1 billion of us - no matter our various cities, nations, cultures, religions and other rhetoric of identity that isolates us from one another, it doesn’t matter, it suggests that – we can all be shrivelled into a geographic, moral and cultural pod. Many thanks to such aggressive manner of addressing the other, now it is possible for artistes and other creative minds to imagine from Europe – and other infected corners of the globe – a factual or fictitious African personality, an African scenario, an African dance or an African mode of living, and be entirely understood without consequences. Before I am misread, I distinguished between Africanism and Pan-Africanism.
It was during my days at the circus school in Chalons en champagne that I initially came into a direct contact with such aggression tainted by a reversed Afrocentric prejudice. Between 2001 and 2006, I travelled widely throughout Europe – especially in France – as a dancer in Heddy Maalem’s company. The feeling that gets to one during those period of tours were somewhat ennobling, for the relationship I had with people and western culture were timed and based on an artificial construct, which I will later realize fully and totally despise when I will decide to stay in France for my studies. I found it rather too difficult to grasp the point or the least sense, behind any individual, claiming to have a legitimate knowledge of who I am, even, before taking time to meet me, though it never bothered me, for I couldn’t just claim responsibility for other people’s ignorance. As a result, it took me a long time to eventually realize that rather than ignorance as I had dismissed it to be, it was in fact, power that was at play in première degré.
The Power of stereotyping
In today’s world, supremacy is mostly associated with knowledge than it is with military or economic power. Knowledge in this term therefore, means rising above immediacy, expanding beyond space and time, beyond the self and the local, into the foreign and distant. Africa, as the object of such knowledge becomes intrinsically vulnerable to analysis and risks to be repeatedly analysed through such misdirection; that even in 4000AC, Africa will still be referred to as the future continent, this “Africa” then becomes a fact which, with time transforms itself into a standard image. Hence, to have such prejudice over me is to dominate me and have authority over me. To have such authority suggests that I have less autonomy over my identity and individual destiny. It will become extremely difficult to analyse – or approach – my works as an artiste without referring to Africa or a colonial time past, but on the other hand, my contemporaries who happens to be Europeans don’t talk about their reality and situation in relation to colonialism, slavery or other vices in our shared historical inheritance.
I found it rather curious and snobbish that all other guises are often ignored, all other forms of insular reflection and whatever that could have possibly condition the being of our works, ignored. The experience of growing up with different cultures at parallels, being educated at the borders of a world at war, and conflicting interests. Growing up at a period when pop culture and globalization is getting to its immorality peak. All these don’t tend to matter. Hence that trademark: African, in contemporary “African” dance is pregnant, pregnant with ambiguous meanings, pregnant with a non forgiving gaze of the “other”, impregnated by an uninformed self appraisal, misguided by the early foreign eyes that saw it, told its story and showed its story to the world through rational caricature, and in a funny way we in turn see ourselves through such portraits.
This consciousness will from onward augment my need for a distinguished identity, with a peculiar voice, my personal history must be understood – at least by myself – and be rationalized within the context of a larger historical and social experience. Until then, anything I multiply myself with, will still remain my-whole-self, for every other thing is ONE. I require no alibi for my un-civilization which might appear un-African.
Contemporary dance in Africa – in my definition – is not a specific dance technique, but a genre of dance performance that employs systems and methods that could be traced to traditional Yoruba-total-theatre of the 50s (also known as Yoruba folk opera). Contemporary dance however, draws on here-and-now influences, as well as newer philosophies of movement that depart from traditional dance techniques, by deliberately omitting structured forms and movements or NOT.
African dancers, the other dancers
More than a word or mere geographical expression, Africa has become an enigma, a place, a succession of depressing event and a human condition which makes dreams and hopes evaporate to zero. Africa has since turned to Europe’s latest invention which has with time, incessantly distorted from a place of fantasy to exotic beings, from the future project to a shore of material civilization, landscape of contrasting images and extraordinary experiences. Now that these plenty fantasies are disappearing as our communal history come of age, and gone are those days; those days that the contemporary African never saw, those days that is never part of our contemporary history books, those days when Europe never existed in our narratives, I’m talking about those days we let to be ruined by European sophistication, re-made by Europeans and significant for the persuasion of the European thinkers, students and visitors.
The choice of African in contemporary “African” dance is therefore, with a touch of derision and as well canonical. Aside the fact that it suggests a honest geographical location and a common historical narrative, it also makes the unforgiving blunder of plunging into an ideology that thrives on reductionism, which seek to reduce the African peoples, all 1 billion of us - no matter our various cities, nations, cultures, religions and other rhetoric of identity that isolates us from one another, it doesn’t matter, it suggests that – we can all be shrivelled into a geographic, moral and cultural pod. Many thanks to such aggressive manner of addressing the other, now it is possible for artistes and other creative minds to imagine from Europe – and other infected corners of the globe – a factual or fictitious African personality, an African scenario, an African dance or an African mode of living, and be entirely understood without consequences. Before I am misread, I distinguished between Africanism and Pan-Africanism.
It was during my days at the circus school in Chalons en champagne that I initially came into a direct contact with such aggression tainted by a reversed Afrocentric prejudice. Between 2001 and 2006, I travelled widely throughout Europe – especially in France – as a dancer in Heddy Maalem’s company. The feeling that gets to one during those period of tours were somewhat ennobling, for the relationship I had with people and western culture were timed and based on an artificial construct, which I will later realize fully and totally despise when I will decide to stay in France for my studies. I found it rather too difficult to grasp the point or the least sense, behind any individual, claiming to have a legitimate knowledge of who I am, even, before taking time to meet me, though it never bothered me, for I couldn’t just claim responsibility for other people’s ignorance. As a result, it took me a long time to eventually realize that rather than ignorance as I had dismissed it to be, it was in fact, power that was at play in première degré.
The Power of stereotyping
In today’s world, supremacy is mostly associated with knowledge than it is with military or economic power. Knowledge in this term therefore, means rising above immediacy, expanding beyond space and time, beyond the self and the local, into the foreign and distant. Africa, as the object of such knowledge becomes intrinsically vulnerable to analysis and risks to be repeatedly analysed through such misdirection; that even in 4000AC, Africa will still be referred to as the future continent, this “Africa” then becomes a fact which, with time transforms itself into a standard image. Hence, to have such prejudice over me is to dominate me and have authority over me. To have such authority suggests that I have less autonomy over my identity and individual destiny. It will become extremely difficult to analyse – or approach – my works as an artiste without referring to Africa or a colonial time past, but on the other hand, my contemporaries who happens to be Europeans don’t talk about their reality and situation in relation to colonialism, slavery or other vices in our shared historical inheritance.
I found it rather curious and snobbish that all other guises are often ignored, all other forms of insular reflection and whatever that could have possibly condition the being of our works, ignored. The experience of growing up with different cultures at parallels, being educated at the borders of a world at war, and conflicting interests. Growing up at a period when pop culture and globalization is getting to its immorality peak. All these don’t tend to matter. Hence that trademark: African, in contemporary “African” dance is pregnant, pregnant with ambiguous meanings, pregnant with a non forgiving gaze of the “other”, impregnated by an uninformed self appraisal, misguided by the early foreign eyes that saw it, told its story and showed its story to the world through rational caricature, and in a funny way we in turn see ourselves through such portraits.
This consciousness will from onward augment my need for a distinguished identity, with a peculiar voice, my personal history must be understood – at least by myself – and be rationalized within the context of a larger historical and social experience. Until then, anything I multiply myself with, will still remain my-whole-self, for every other thing is ONE. I require no alibi for my un-civilization which might appear un-African.
May 9, 2010
ARTiculate – So, as I was saying…
I will begin by saying performance for what it is doesn’t really mean much to me, even though I will admit without remorse that I am a performer anytime any day. Dance should entertain, in fact it must ENTERTAIN, but only a half witted fool will want to be a feel good element, dancing merely to entertain. So why then do i dance? For whom? For the audience? For myself? For the critics? or just to be part of a larger discourse of arts and humanity, to preserve life and preserve myself in the rising madness of a world we have no control over. The feeling of interaction is very important for me, not the kind of interaction that is embedded on a conversational style though, it is in fact a revelation of words left unreconstructed and unspoken, or a ‘coming to terms’ with worlds left un-reconciled in strains of my life. My personal experience as a living thing and my development as a strong dancer all come together to manifest themselves on stage, for that is the best place I could reconcile between my beliefs, my paranoia, my deliriums, my expectations and my existence.
I strongly subscribe to an art that reaches out to the audience as an experience rather than a storyline, whose goal is not to catharsis therefore, but rather, shock and psychic wounding; attempt to confront the audience with its own horror, to immerse it in the excretions of its own prevailing brutalities, the sanious nightmare of its 'condition hamaine.' Hence you could not say what the performance was about, only what it did to your psyche and to your mind. You could not summarize it therefore; you could only experience it. Still it is kind of difficult to close oneself up on a notion of liberty and indocility that doesn't come with regulations.
I am very interested in aesthetics and forms. The abstraction and patterns that are behind the actual structures of a work of art, matter to me tremendously, whether it’s in the music, in the video, in storytelling, in the mood, in rhythms or the emotion I pass through to the audience. It seems to me that I’ve always tried as much as possible to find means of enforcing my expression through different media and find parallels for them, without necessarily reconciling between them. The idea of narrative is very important, but not such that expresses itself through straight and easily comprehensible “storyline.” I segment my narratives and try to break them up with question marks, quotation marks, brackets or semicolons. I latter place them side by side as a means of juxtaposition, which gives each phrase its own individual significance even if it makes no sense as a singular entity, but I let my audience draw the sense from the entire structure of the piece.
It is not so much about finding a logic between point A to point Z of the entire structure, that is not what I really care about, it is the relationship between A to D and how it relates to C and T and so on, that I care about, to try as much as possible to establish a logical co-existence between them, and to sustain these separate worlds and forms. This doesn’t signify that there couldn’t be some forms of antagonism between them, that’s why I said “try as much as possible” to make sure that probable co-existence happens.
At other moments however, I also feel that, that doesn’t really matter, so far there is an organic or – as a matter of fact – inorganic flow that flows between them, I’m not just a slave to perfection, that’s not my preoccupation you must know. I attack my creations with a strong need to let something out. I turn myself inside out and what could be absorbed by my audience is the self/the perceived/the influenced/and the imposed identity of the embodied body, and to be able to ignite conversations between the past and the present, the ancient and the new, the child and the man. Therefore, I trust in my intuition when in the studio, it is very impossible for me to rationalize or explain things, as to why this and why not that, I let things explain themselves to me and not me trying to attach an explanation to them, and sometimes it takes a very long time to receive that explanation.
To take for example, there is no way – that I know of – for me to reconcile between my interest in pure dance, my public space performances and my various writings, which are usually in relation to views about social relationships that involves power or authority. But I know that I have a need to be able to articulate what I’m doing in words (written or spoken) and to be able to express myself in other means, to create a common space for our collective human experience. Which in my own case, are mostly traumatizing experiences, because it has to do with tragedy and loss and dispossession and pain and alienation. The sufferings that all these brings to ones existence is precisely what I am trying to grasp with. Rather than forming an enclosure around my existence, rather than reconciling or trying to find an explanation, one just has to let them operate and diffuse through possible means of performance or writings.
My role as a creative artiste or interpreter, is to therefore allow these sinister byways continue, to see them operating together and allowing them to play off one another, and to be able to record that in some ways, so that the canon of interpretation applies in different entities, whether it’s in poetry, performance or other forms of writing. All these at the end have to do with memory, with notions of co-existence. Realizing that our experiences are not exclusive, that we all live in a world where different things happen at the same time. The effort for me lies in my ability to hold them up together, rather than pretending to be a solver of problems.
I have sat in my father's balcony as a kid; watch the vendor pass every morning with new set of news papers, at least ten different brands, all with a minimum of fifty pages of "news" and "information" to be consumed and wallowed in. Now I muse over the utilitarian purpose of further news in art, of what realm or quality of information do we intend or pretend to pass through our art, and where will it last? In the same garbage can those ‘news’ papers end each day after few headlines read? Does that vendor really pretend to be an authentic information career or just another man seeking his daily bread? What about an art that spans from a school of dance philosophy, that seek to explore the body vocabulary, through physical and mental discipline, to traverse its spiritual and poetic universe which makes it possible to stage this transformed body as a place of resurgence, a place for the repossession of lost ancient memories, of new habits and as a place of refuge for the construction of a conscious thinking, capable of attaining liberation from the material world, and able create worlds, which is what fiction is all about.
Jan 28, 2010
Open letter to whom it may concerm.
L’ojo ojosi, omode kii siju soke wo agba *In ancient days, the young ones never look into the eyes of
the elderly
T’agba ba nrojo, omode won a pa lolo ni When the elderly speaks, the young ones keep quiet
L’ojo ojosi awon agba I nwuwa ibaje In historic times, the elderly keep away from bad habit
Ti won ba se’baje a o sigba fun won ni… If they ever do badly, we will open the calabash for them…
… Beautiful Nubia.
Every generation is supposed to begin its journey from the shoulders of the previous and thus every revolt begins by a deception. We the Nigerian youth don’t need an oracle to foretell how much our elders have failed us. In fact our entire existence is wrapped around such malediction. Without coincidence and in spite of conventional opinion, our Nigerian dance scene has been less than unfortunate in its guild legislation and its leadership. A basic element of this misfortune is the seminal absence of dignified artistic upbringing with intellectual rigour in the social and cultural thoughts of our founding fathers; more suicidal is the weight of reality in this contemporary development of a dance industry suddenly (mal)growing at a period when there is a tendency to pious materialistic woolliness that clothes self centred opportunists who are so in love with themselves.
Sir, yes you sir, you of the new national order. How close are we to the theatre practice the veteran, Hubert Ogunde proffered? Sir how faraway are we from where we started? We are aware of the national state of affairs and we are sincerely not asking you to invent a scientific system of making movie magic. Walahi! that will be too pretentious. Even if you don't have the will power but what happened to your voice? Will you please clean your hands with a white handkerchief to see for yourself on whose side is the devil? Sir confess, all you profoundly cared about is to make yourself materially formidable and make all the money that is possible for mortals of your dishonourable calibre to make in a booming dance commerce. We are aware that there is new money out there and how come new money doesn't require new bloods? ...Same tactics? Same disguise? - look but don't see, speak but don't say, touch but don't take - Ah fear God, how much grammar must we speak to be able to take responsibility of our lives? How much more shall we dance to be the captains of our destiny?
Is it not from the way a child whistles that the elderly may determine how well he can play the flute when given the chance? We see your eyes and ears wide open when you pass by the artists village, so you can see for yourself that the pigs get fatter and the artists go on diet while you zoom off in your extravagant Jeep. Can you afford to stop by the mainland bridge on your way to the ISLAND - take a frank gaze into our slums and see if you can bear the sight of misery? But the flip-side of reality is that, in there resides invisible treasure. As the treasures of our all mighty dance practice you precede rot into garbage, we will at least continue to recycle our garbage into treasure, 'no food for lazy men' you once told us, but now we ask, what future is there for foodie men? What future is there for a dance market that produces aggressive millionaires than selfless pioneers of the practice, and in such misdirection, only the cowards who gave in to the humiliation of good life, the poor-at-mind who lost history and profound conviction eventually become the visible in public (VIP).
We the orphans of Ogunde are now on our feet; we will be babysitted no more, now you got the chair. Never mind it's a hot seat. If you answer our questions painstakingly, this won't last for long we promise, but if you refuse to hear our voice in dialogue, you will have to hear it in protest one day soon. NO SIR, we are not fighting anybody, we are only fighting an ideology and a logic of existence that place those with filthy papers above those with the skills and experience, talent and energy. We recognise the début of your courageous saga, how you fought for dance practice to be recognised and not tainted with indignity. It is also remarkable how you fought your way to become the you-know-who of the new order. But now with the sudden mood swing freezing up the down-fall of raindrops, we harbour doubts in our mind. Our good shepherd please let the merry-go-round.
Your courageous words still dance in our guts, you made us throw stones at the government and ‘those people’ you said they were bad, you said artists must take responsibility in engaging them in discussions for logical development, you lied to us Sir -Yes, you know you lied - you know that nobody bears ‘the government’ or ‘those people’. These are invisible constructs put in place by you to cover your shame and make another dimension for what is true. Based on our mal-education we pretend to attack the wind in our works, speaking to those intangible anti-people miles away from our venom, people we cannot affect physically, psychologically or even economically, once again we are pretending not to be aware of the precise names of those tangible human faeces that prop up the public shit-cans and other high places. We want to be good sheep and perhaps one day soon it will be our turn. Yesmanship it is called Sir, a long time accomplice to corruption.
Finally, if the head of a fish smells this bad, then the fish's body must be rotten, in your works you speak in the name of humanity but how humane are you to those closest to you? Just have pity on us if you claim to be at the forefront of what we both believe in. Don't take this personal in order not to create a narcissist wound, we fear your anger and spirit of eye-for-an-eye, but here we are in a world of personified institutions where the person behind a cause becomes more visible than the cause itself. Voilà, there lies the problem of modesty and cynicism.
Signed Q’dance ALAJOTA.
For The Republic of independent artists
the elderly
T’agba ba nrojo, omode won a pa lolo ni When the elderly speaks, the young ones keep quiet
L’ojo ojosi awon agba I nwuwa ibaje In historic times, the elderly keep away from bad habit
Ti won ba se’baje a o sigba fun won ni… If they ever do badly, we will open the calabash for them…
… Beautiful Nubia.
Every generation is supposed to begin its journey from the shoulders of the previous and thus every revolt begins by a deception. We the Nigerian youth don’t need an oracle to foretell how much our elders have failed us. In fact our entire existence is wrapped around such malediction. Without coincidence and in spite of conventional opinion, our Nigerian dance scene has been less than unfortunate in its guild legislation and its leadership. A basic element of this misfortune is the seminal absence of dignified artistic upbringing with intellectual rigour in the social and cultural thoughts of our founding fathers; more suicidal is the weight of reality in this contemporary development of a dance industry suddenly (mal)growing at a period when there is a tendency to pious materialistic woolliness that clothes self centred opportunists who are so in love with themselves.
Sir, yes you sir, you of the new national order. How close are we to the theatre practice the veteran, Hubert Ogunde proffered? Sir how faraway are we from where we started? We are aware of the national state of affairs and we are sincerely not asking you to invent a scientific system of making movie magic. Walahi! that will be too pretentious. Even if you don't have the will power but what happened to your voice? Will you please clean your hands with a white handkerchief to see for yourself on whose side is the devil? Sir confess, all you profoundly cared about is to make yourself materially formidable and make all the money that is possible for mortals of your dishonourable calibre to make in a booming dance commerce. We are aware that there is new money out there and how come new money doesn't require new bloods? ...Same tactics? Same disguise? - look but don't see, speak but don't say, touch but don't take - Ah fear God, how much grammar must we speak to be able to take responsibility of our lives? How much more shall we dance to be the captains of our destiny?
Is it not from the way a child whistles that the elderly may determine how well he can play the flute when given the chance? We see your eyes and ears wide open when you pass by the artists village, so you can see for yourself that the pigs get fatter and the artists go on diet while you zoom off in your extravagant Jeep. Can you afford to stop by the mainland bridge on your way to the ISLAND - take a frank gaze into our slums and see if you can bear the sight of misery? But the flip-side of reality is that, in there resides invisible treasure. As the treasures of our all mighty dance practice you precede rot into garbage, we will at least continue to recycle our garbage into treasure, 'no food for lazy men' you once told us, but now we ask, what future is there for foodie men? What future is there for a dance market that produces aggressive millionaires than selfless pioneers of the practice, and in such misdirection, only the cowards who gave in to the humiliation of good life, the poor-at-mind who lost history and profound conviction eventually become the visible in public (VIP).
We the orphans of Ogunde are now on our feet; we will be babysitted no more, now you got the chair. Never mind it's a hot seat. If you answer our questions painstakingly, this won't last for long we promise, but if you refuse to hear our voice in dialogue, you will have to hear it in protest one day soon. NO SIR, we are not fighting anybody, we are only fighting an ideology and a logic of existence that place those with filthy papers above those with the skills and experience, talent and energy. We recognise the début of your courageous saga, how you fought for dance practice to be recognised and not tainted with indignity. It is also remarkable how you fought your way to become the you-know-who of the new order. But now with the sudden mood swing freezing up the down-fall of raindrops, we harbour doubts in our mind. Our good shepherd please let the merry-go-round.
Your courageous words still dance in our guts, you made us throw stones at the government and ‘those people’ you said they were bad, you said artists must take responsibility in engaging them in discussions for logical development, you lied to us Sir -Yes, you know you lied - you know that nobody bears ‘the government’ or ‘those people’. These are invisible constructs put in place by you to cover your shame and make another dimension for what is true. Based on our mal-education we pretend to attack the wind in our works, speaking to those intangible anti-people miles away from our venom, people we cannot affect physically, psychologically or even economically, once again we are pretending not to be aware of the precise names of those tangible human faeces that prop up the public shit-cans and other high places. We want to be good sheep and perhaps one day soon it will be our turn. Yesmanship it is called Sir, a long time accomplice to corruption.
Finally, if the head of a fish smells this bad, then the fish's body must be rotten, in your works you speak in the name of humanity but how humane are you to those closest to you? Just have pity on us if you claim to be at the forefront of what we both believe in. Don't take this personal in order not to create a narcissist wound, we fear your anger and spirit of eye-for-an-eye, but here we are in a world of personified institutions where the person behind a cause becomes more visible than the cause itself. Voilà, there lies the problem of modesty and cynicism.
Signed Q’dance ALAJOTA.
For The Republic of independent artists
Nov 26, 2009
I Must Set Forth – Qudus Onikeku
This piece was curlled from a blogger called DIHS - Enjoy what he got to say about my work...
“Where is your home?” … “As in, where are you based?” … “Where do you spend most of your time living?” … ‘ooooh! Facebook!’ Qudus Onikeku was born and raised in Nigeria. But where is his home? He sits, crossed legged, and speaks as if having a personal conversation. He would like to know, where is home? Maybe, he says, home is our bodies. And with that, he begins to sing a song, one that is not American.
Credit: Arthur Fink Photography
Qudus’ strength is evident from the beginning. With incredible attention to detail, his torso, arms, hands, fingers, toes are all under his control. He moves quickly with his core, moving this abdomen in and out, knees bent, hovering. Rolling, crawling and reaching he moves swiftly around the stage. He places his hands at his center as if holding a ball and gyrates around it with his entire body, circling around his home. At times the movement is too fast for the eye to fully perceive. With acrobatic precision he reaches back to perform an uncountable number of back flips and the sweat that flings from his body paints the air ten feet above. The entire scrim fills with the image of Qudus dancing, with short cuts of him hopping or swinging his body around a darkened space. He stands, sweating, and takes off his shirt. This is Qudus. This is his body. This is his home.
Qudus’ strength is evident from the beginning. With incredible attention to detail, his torso, arms, hands, fingers, toes are all under his control. He moves quickly with his core, moving this abdomen in and out, knees bent, hovering. Rolling, crawling and reaching he moves swiftly around the stage. He places his hands at his center as if holding a ball and gyrates around it with his entire body, circling around his home. At times the movement is too fast for the eye to fully perceive. With acrobatic precision he reaches back to perform an uncountable number of back flips and the sweat that flings from his body paints the air ten feet above. The entire scrim fills with the image of Qudus dancing, with short cuts of him hopping or swinging his body around a darkened space. He stands, sweating, and takes off his shirt. This is Qudus. This is his body. This is his home.
Credit: Arthur Fink Photography
What did you expect to see after the informal beginning?
Were you able to feel the intensity of his movements?
Have you seen any other dances that express how one’s body can be one’s home?
Is your body your home?
You can see what Qudus is up to at his blog: http://qudus.blogspot.com/
Different Voices, August 7th, 2009
Schaeffer Theatre, Bates Dance Festival
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. USA
I imagine some of you saw I must SetForth... in Lagos on the 8th of November, although not the exact version with all its technical requirements, still can you attempt to answer DHIS' questions?
Join I Must SetForth... in the following venues and dates.
Bonneuil sur Marne on 4th and 5th December and in Studio 104 in Paris on 20th December, and at La Villette. Paris on 26th January 2010
What did you expect to see after the informal beginning?
Were you able to feel the intensity of his movements?
Have you seen any other dances that express how one’s body can be one’s home?
Is your body your home?
You can see what Qudus is up to at his blog: http://qudus.blogspot.com/
Different Voices, August 7th, 2009
Schaeffer Theatre, Bates Dance Festival
Bates College, Lewiston, Maine. USA
I imagine some of you saw I must SetForth... in Lagos on the 8th of November, although not the exact version with all its technical requirements, still can you attempt to answer DHIS' questions?
Join I Must SetForth... in the following venues and dates.
Bonneuil sur Marne on 4th and 5th December and in Studio 104 in Paris on 20th December, and at La Villette. Paris on 26th January 2010
Sep 15, 2009
By his dance steps, you shall know Qudus
Curled from The Guardian Life Magazine, Edition 202,
Cover story for September 13 - 19, 2009
BY CHUKS NWANNE.
Born and raised in Lagos, dancer Qudus Aderemilekun Onikeku now considers himself a complete Lagosian, even when his parents originally hail from Abeokuta, Ogun State. “Until the age of 17, I had never stepped my foot out of Lagos. Despite my Abeokuta and Ijebu heritage, I still consider myself a full-time Lagosian.”
Cover story for September 13 - 19, 2009
BY CHUKS NWANNE.
Born and raised in Lagos, dancer Qudus Aderemilekun Onikeku now considers himself a complete Lagosian, even when his parents originally hail from Abeokuta, Ogun State. “Until the age of 17, I had never stepped my foot out of Lagos. Despite my Abeokuta and Ijebu heritage, I still consider myself a full-time Lagosian.”
Qudus’ journey into the artistic world started at the age of five when he began to feel the hyperactive pulse and curiosity that sustains his adrenaline up till date. “I could vividly remember seeing a guy do a back flip during inter-house sport in my primary school. It’s not as if I’ve never seen better acrobats on TV, especially during Olympics games, but seeing someone close to me do it, gave me the audacity to attempt it again and again.” After series of falls, with injuries sustained, Qudus found himself jumping up and down in flips. “My flips sometimes raise the blood pressure of my mum and concerned elders around. This perhaps was the most honest period of performance for me, and in all I do, I still try to do everything to retrace that path again,” he enthuses.
With his kind of energy, Qudus described his primary school days as brilliant, yet he considers his hooliganism more dominant in those days. “I got pardoned most times for my brilliance,” he recalls. “It was a moment I really had to confront my energy by easing it on something external; the issue of positive or negative was not in my mind.” The decision by the mum of the young positively-rascal boy to move him from public to private school at the age of eight, finally paved way for the making of the Qudus of today. “I was taken to Brown Memorial Nursery and Primary School, Lagos; that was where I began to lose my old bad habits. After the entrance test, I was taken to Class Five instead of Four; I was glad that I would be finishing before my mates.”
Reality dawned on Qudus when he dropped from his usual first position in his former school to seventh. “This calmed me a whole lot; I realised that success is not served with crispy fried chicken and strawberry milk shake.” With the dream of becoming a Chemical Engineer at the back of his mind, Qudus approached his secondary education with more seriousness. “I once heard my siblings chat about how the oil workers live large. But that half-baked dream was flushed away when I discovered dance in my senior secondary. But instead of taking art courses, ego would not let me stay away from sciences. Yet, the only remarkable moment of my secondary school days was the fact that I was an active member of the Music and Theatre Art Club, where I was later the dance captain.”
By the time Qudus made up his mind to study Theatre Arts in the university, he met brick walls. “It was absolutely impossible to switch from the sciences to the arts, even when you can practically prove yourself; that was how I lost interest in the Nigerian educational system.” Left with no other option, Qudus began to seek knowledge in all possible angles. At a point, he became a regular at the French Cultural Centre workshops. He had a stint with the Lagos State Council for Arts and Culture, before joining the renowned repertory dance troupe, Gongbeat Arts, where he remained until he got a job with an Ibadan-based dance company, The Alajotas, at the age of 17. “This was an essential period for both my artistic and intellectual upbringing. With Alajotas, the stark beauty of being away from one’s family confronted me; I began to gain the individuality I’ve continually been denied”.
Meeting Heddy Maalem at the French Cultural Center in 2004, gave a lifeline to Qudus’ dance career. “Heddy happens to be one of my mentors presently. He approached me for a contract proposition and since 2004 till date, I’ve been a permanent dancer with his Dance Company based in Toulouse – France. During tours with Heddy, I would engage him in a whole range of discussions. He is a father figure to me and I trust him. He was the one that gave me the idea of studying in a Circus Arts School, when I explained to him how I had let down my merit list admission to study Mathematics and Statistics at the University of Lagos in 2003.”
After few research on Circus Art Phenomenon that began to take over the performing art scene of France, Qudus finally decided to give the idea a trial in 2006. “I went for the selection at the National Higher School of Circus Arts, and fortunately, I was selected amongst the 19 successful ones out of the over 120 that took part in the process. On getting to Lagos, I shook my networks a bit and I got the full scholarship of the French Embassy for the two years period of my studies.” After three years of acquiring knowledge in the field, Qudus has resolved to return home to begin his one-man dance revolution.
“While in Chalons en Champagne in my little apartment all alone for three years, I dreamt, I wrote and I talked to myself; sometimes, I recorded my words. The gateway to the dance revolution in Nigeria was clear in my head. The more I remained abroad, the more I get closer to the Nigerian reality.” In 2007, Qudus started with Do We Need Cola Cola to Dance? project, touring round Africa. By 2008, he planned making ewaBAMIJO the next step, but was really busy with traveling. “The same thing was about to happen in 2009, but I said to myself, ‘this must not go past 2009.’
During my previous returns to Nigeria from time to time, I would find myself in the midst of poets, musicians, comedians, writers, journalists, photographers, painters, sculptors, actors as well as dancers. But I realised that, there is no genuine link bringing all these art genres together in Nigeria. “In this present day, where boundaries are beginning to fall away between visual, performing, graphic and literary arts, Nigerian artistes are still feeling comfortable in their various corners. Most of my works have never been about just dance. No, you will always feel the space of visual art, music, new media etc in my works. So, this is what informed the notion of having an interdisciplinary arts festival.
“The international arts scene is really getting really vicious, lacking fresh air and very boring. With ewaBAMIJO, we are doing everything possible to make the Nigerian arts scene begin to set a new pace, with fresh breeds, inspired by whatever happens on Lagos streets, and will in turn affect whatever happens in the arts world.” According to the dancer, the idea of ewaBAMIJO is to negate all conventional ideas and misconceptions of what the Euro-American power players think our art-face should look like. “We are not here to romanticise our beliefs; we are here to create something entirely different that fulfills our socio-economic and socio-cultural needs.
With this edition, we want to renovate the theories and praxis of contemporary art in our part of the world, to depart from the all pervasive discourse and fantasies of the art world.” Organized in partnership with the Creative Arts Department of the University of Lagos, ewaBAMIJO is scheduled to open October 27 through November 4. YK Projects, organizers of the event, has unveiled plans to make the event a bi-annual international festival. “We are not replicating or competing with other big arts festival already existing in Nigeria, but we seek to be a support and intellectual backing for the growing art network for Africans; ewaBAMIJO is more like a principle than any other thing. For that reason, we are going into a full partnership with the Creative Arts Department of the University of Lagos. All the events linked to ewaBAMIJO shall be taking place around both venues.”
To Qudus, ewaBAMIJO will make all the difference. “We want to set the pace for ourselves to start. We don’t know how we are going to do it, but we believe in the power of dreams. We shall continue to dream until we see the change we hope for. ewaBAMIJO is not just about dance, it’s about the power of dream, its about hope, its about the dance industry, its about creating a sustainable dance market for the dancers yet to come, its about doing what we believe in and about inspiring confidence in those who could stand up against those bad habits that have hindered our collective development as a people.”
Aug 5, 2009
What's in a NAME?
This piece is Inspired by the book i'm reading presently
WHY YOU ACT THE WAY YOU DO. By Tim Lahaye.
When we cry, we don't get blind by our tears, our tears may hurt but they also purifies our vision. I am an artiste, and i am a mortal, i am not perfect and i have weaknesses, i'm aware that i could to be the nicest person on earth and i can be the most cruel as well, so everyday of my life, every night i ask myself "what have you made of today?" my retrospect never leave me in regret, i believe strongly in destiny and there is nothing like coincidence, everything happens for a purpose that i don't bother to question.
In examining myself, since the time i was able to do so, i have come to terms with myself, i am that i am, i am Qudus, Qudus is my name, and does this mean more than what it sounds like? i don't know, does it have further significance to who i wanna be? i don't know but it has become a belonging that i have an ordeal to shield. My name is a huge responsibility and i like people to attribute respect to it, so this is why i respect myself.
Qudus is choleric and Taurus and Nigerian, a muslim, the last son of Onikeku and an Artiste and heterosexual and all the things that forms my identity, singularity and the definition of my name. Qudus is quick, active, practical, strong willed, and very independent. Qudus is decisive and very opinionated, He finds it easy to make decisions for himself and for others. Qudus is an extrovert, but not nearly intense, Qudus thrives on activity, He does not need to be stimulated by His environment, but rather stimulates His environment with His endless ideas, plans, goals and ambition, Qudus does not engage in aimless activities for He has a practical, keen mind, capable of making sounds, instant decisions or planning worthwhile projects. Qudus does not vacillate under the pressure of what others think, but takes a definite stand on issues and can often be found crusading against some social injustice or subversive situation. Qudus is not frightened by adversities; in fact, they tend to encourage Him. His dogged determination usually allows him to succeed where others have failed.
Qudus' emotional nature is the least developed part of Him, Qudus does not sympathise easily with others, nor does he naturally show or express compassion. He is often embarrassed or disgusted by the tears of others and is usually insensitive to their needs.
Qudus invariably seeks utilitarian and productive values in life. Not given to analysis, but rather to quick, almost intuitive appraisal. Never take Qudus on in a debate unless you are assured of your facts, for He will make mincemeat of you, combining verbal aggressiveness and attendance to detail. Qudus is extremely competitive and forceful in all that he does, he is a dogged researcher and is usually successful, tends to look at the goal for which he is working without being subdued by potential pitfalls and obstacle in His path.
Equally as great as His strengths are his weaknesses. Qudus is apt to be autocratic, a dictator type who inspires admiration and hate simultaneously. He is usually a quick-witted talker whose sarcasm can devastate others. Qudus is a natural born crusader whose work habit are irregular and long. Qudus harbors considerable hostility and resentment though he learns to control His anger.
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOURSELF?
I RECOMMEND YOU READ THIS BOOK TOO.
Ma Salam.
WHY YOU ACT THE WAY YOU DO. By Tim Lahaye.
When we cry, we don't get blind by our tears, our tears may hurt but they also purifies our vision. I am an artiste, and i am a mortal, i am not perfect and i have weaknesses, i'm aware that i could to be the nicest person on earth and i can be the most cruel as well, so everyday of my life, every night i ask myself "what have you made of today?" my retrospect never leave me in regret, i believe strongly in destiny and there is nothing like coincidence, everything happens for a purpose that i don't bother to question.
In examining myself, since the time i was able to do so, i have come to terms with myself, i am that i am, i am Qudus, Qudus is my name, and does this mean more than what it sounds like? i don't know, does it have further significance to who i wanna be? i don't know but it has become a belonging that i have an ordeal to shield. My name is a huge responsibility and i like people to attribute respect to it, so this is why i respect myself.
Qudus is choleric and Taurus and Nigerian, a muslim, the last son of Onikeku and an Artiste and heterosexual and all the things that forms my identity, singularity and the definition of my name. Qudus is quick, active, practical, strong willed, and very independent. Qudus is decisive and very opinionated, He finds it easy to make decisions for himself and for others. Qudus is an extrovert, but not nearly intense, Qudus thrives on activity, He does not need to be stimulated by His environment, but rather stimulates His environment with His endless ideas, plans, goals and ambition, Qudus does not engage in aimless activities for He has a practical, keen mind, capable of making sounds, instant decisions or planning worthwhile projects. Qudus does not vacillate under the pressure of what others think, but takes a definite stand on issues and can often be found crusading against some social injustice or subversive situation. Qudus is not frightened by adversities; in fact, they tend to encourage Him. His dogged determination usually allows him to succeed where others have failed.
Qudus' emotional nature is the least developed part of Him, Qudus does not sympathise easily with others, nor does he naturally show or express compassion. He is often embarrassed or disgusted by the tears of others and is usually insensitive to their needs.
Qudus invariably seeks utilitarian and productive values in life. Not given to analysis, but rather to quick, almost intuitive appraisal. Never take Qudus on in a debate unless you are assured of your facts, for He will make mincemeat of you, combining verbal aggressiveness and attendance to detail. Qudus is extremely competitive and forceful in all that he does, he is a dogged researcher and is usually successful, tends to look at the goal for which he is working without being subdued by potential pitfalls and obstacle in His path.
Equally as great as His strengths are his weaknesses. Qudus is apt to be autocratic, a dictator type who inspires admiration and hate simultaneously. He is usually a quick-witted talker whose sarcasm can devastate others. Qudus is a natural born crusader whose work habit are irregular and long. Qudus harbors considerable hostility and resentment though he learns to control His anger.
HOW MUCH DO YOU KNOW ABOUT YOURSELF?
I RECOMMEND YOU READ THIS BOOK TOO.
Ma Salam.
Feb 28, 2009
My EXILE is in my head!
Hey hear me out,
I think i found another title for my next creation, i decide to change its title again from HOME SERIES, now i want to call it "EXILE" or better still "MY EXILE IS IN MY HEAD" hmm... I find it really exact for what i want to say, especially these days i feel so much away, a self exile, its like i am on a sabbatical expedition yet my chord is always tilting towards Nigeria, at times i feel i need a divorce with that nation, i feel its just too much of a burden to carry on a responsibility i don't think i could fulfil its needs right now, but that kind of divorce don't last me a week most times, there is a constant voice in my head, this voice rages at me, it barks at me, i feel it calls me silly names for being this guy that will not just be at peace and let things go away unnoticed, let life pass through me and just enjoy where my head leads me along with my dancing feet.
I think i found another title for my next creation, i decide to change its title again from HOME SERIES, now i want to call it "EXILE" or better still "MY EXILE IS IN MY HEAD" hmm... I find it really exact for what i want to say, especially these days i feel so much away, a self exile, its like i am on a sabbatical expedition yet my chord is always tilting towards Nigeria, at times i feel i need a divorce with that nation, i feel its just too much of a burden to carry on a responsibility i don't think i could fulfil its needs right now, but that kind of divorce don't last me a week most times, there is a constant voice in my head, this voice rages at me, it barks at me, i feel it calls me silly names for being this guy that will not just be at peace and let things go away unnoticed, let life pass through me and just enjoy where my head leads me along with my dancing feet.
A work in progress. (i must setforth at sunset)
I feel i still don't understand why i tend to be political, but other times i tell myself "but that's not being political", not being able to succumb to the lure of those that oppresses me, in relation to views about social relationships that involve power or authority is not being political, not having the temperament of keeping quiet when there is a moral or racial or political or social injustice and rationality doesn't mean I'm political, does it? So i think this EXILE still reside in myself, one that exist out of whom my parents never thought of. One that makes me have a continuous love/hate relationship with my people, my country and my race. At times i get so mad at myself after i might have done something really radical, because i never want to sound too wise nor foolish, i don't want to make deliberate enemy, and those that knows me can testify to my cool head, but presently i feel I'm on a crossroad, where i have to decide where i belong, because in this world, its all about where you belong, who are your pals, who do you identify with, what's your race, culture and religion, what are your beliefs similar to mine. AND I'M SORRY I TEND TO DISAPPOINT EVERYONE.
But like every man, i also love good life, i love those things that makes me feel like a complete man, i also want success, i also want to promise a good life to my family, wife and kids and beloved ones, for it is them we do all these for at times, when we claim not to be greedy and selfish. However, am i ready to belong? that is the question Q. and the answer A for now is NO... NO... NO. I think what killed me in my first life was fraternity, cults, peer groups, alliance to oppress, beliefs that tramples on the lesser people, those that bunch up to rule the world, i think they were the ones that killed me in my initial life, i hate them so much, and i tend to do everything to make them hate me so much.
Yet I'm aware of their curious eyes watching out for me, pinned above my head and they want me to believe that its raining, amongst them lies those that sing far away songs to sooth my dance steps, amongst them are the play boys, finding my body really sexy to award me a top bid, amongst them are those clever ones who validates our artistry with a prize and trophy, amongst them are those who promise us heaven for the gratification of their own affairs... I'm strongly aware of all these curious eyes, and I'm in EXILE, far away from the space they occupy, far away from their belief, away from their reach, they will only hear the echo and feel the vibration, because my own success and (r)evolution will not be broadcast on CNN; le monde might not hear about it, jeune Afrique will walk pass by me without knowing, the big brothers of Africa and the arts will search for me in Europe and America and perhaps in Asia, but they will not find me, cos i might just be in a little room in Mexico, or Santo Domingo, i might be just under OLUMO rock, just by myself and my conscience, for i want to live a life of pride and honour, i want to be as modest as i can be and be arrogant enough to tell even the person feeding me right now how wrong he is, when i feel he gets it wrong.
My exile is in my head i think, now I'm beginning to realise, its not about being in France or in the states, nor anywhere foreign to Nigeria, for even when i am in Nigeria, i still feel far away from the Niger area, its not much about others, its more about me i think, i don't ever regret this life i didn't choose for me, i don't feel sorry for myself, this is just the path at which i find my tent, and my sole quest now is... Survival, i know i have to seek for other means of surviving the massive weight of this pessimist world that promises to crush me, other means of living healthy and alive in the midst of all my antagonising foes and generous benefactors. talk with crowds and still keep my virtue, walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, neither foes nor loving friends will hurt me no more, all men count with me, but none too much; i must survive this life, live my dreams up to my desired world, and find my liberty within the midst of all my antagonising foes and generous benefactors. I must definitely survive and set forth only after my sunset.
Q'dance (my new name!)
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