Kiandanda Dance Theater

Ici c’est Paris. Une belle retrouvaille avec mon pote et frère Delavallet Bidiefono, un artiste chorégraphe hors pair. Super de trinquer avec toi frérot.

Allô Paris, y’a quelqu’un de disponible pour partager un Leffe? Byb est dans la place.

https://congotalks243.com/the-story-of-the-kingdom-of-kongo-kongo-dia-ntotila-2/

Pour les amoureux de l’art de la scène, voici une formation pour vous. Si vous résidez au Congo Brazzaville, ne manquez pas de vous inscrire car les places sont très très limitées. A vous!

For several centuries, a religion called “Ngunza” has spread to the Kongo kingdom where the spirits of ancestors are invoked, spiritual teachings are provided, but also many therapeutic treatments against bad deeds.
The cult of ancestors constitutes one of the central elements of the spiritual life of the Kongo. It essentially consists of renewing the relationship between the community of the living and those of the deceased. Through the vibrations of percussion, chanting, or hand clapping, and body movements, the spirits are called and gradually come to possess the bodies of the Ngunza mediums. Trance is another essential element that prepares the physical body to transcend into the metaphysical body.

Courtesy picture from the upcoming film Project Conflux.

There is so much to learn from the Kongo Bantu spiritual and religious cultures. To put it in a general context, African spiritualities use the body as a vessels to convey numerous problem solving or destructive energies. We present as art on stage while the body is evolving in motion patterns, but really, it's not dance, it's ...
Dance artist: Byb Bibene.

Courtesy pix by Yerba Buena Garden Festival.

Some time ago the company director Byb Bibene was a guest choreographer at the University of Texas Rio Grande to set work on these beautiful beings. The work revisited the traditional dance cultures of the Republic of Congo. It's was quite an outstanding experience. Dance crosses cultures, ages, space, and time.

Courtesy pix by Cati Gómez of UTRG

The world of dance in the Republic of Congo has so much potential. Dance artists often know each other and are very creative each in their appropriate group. You can feel the passion they have for their art at rehearsals. They compose using what they have in the environment to make beauty, raw and purified. It's a true community.
Here a meeting with group leaders to discuss a common project.

A dancer trained in multiple dance genres becomes so versatile and may navigate different worlds of dance. The dancer is not in a box to stay. Staying is a choice, getting out is an option on the table. However, in the box or outside the box is all beautiful and attains the same purpose.

With dancer artists Byb Bibene, Anna Seymour, and Thomas Tyger Moore.

Courtesy photo of Dance OMI Residency.

Community dance is so freeing and full of joy. The dance is shared and allows participation. Everyone is engaged. The proximity breaks apart from the stage setting where there is no intimate connection with the viewing community. You dance under the lights only to capture the applause, the minor reactions and the mingling past show.
Here dance artist Byb Bibene and drummer Rocssy Mahania engaging the audience with dance and drum rhythms from the Congo.

Courtesy pix of Marco Senghor's event organizing team.

Within the genre of contemporary dance, there are diverse aesthetics. The body forms draws the movements usually from a traditional form and gives it a new identity. It is a self interpretation of the questioned and analysed traditional form. It is a rebel move.
This is KDT project titled Tranzition with dance artist Chelsea Ware.

Pix by Alan Kimara Dixon

Project [Re]member is a look back to the histories of the African resistance against slavery. The project investigates the history of the rebellions and victories of captured Africans in the slave ships during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean. With a particular focus on the history of one of the maroon's leaders Nganga Nzumbi, the project strives to recover and celebrate the names of numerous African men and women who led resistance revolts to break out to freedom.

With dance artists Uzo Nwankpa, Nkan Eledua and Byb Bibene.

Courtesy pix of Counterpulse.

Nganga Nzumbi, Gaspar Yanga, Queen Nanny, Quao, Kwadwo, Dandara dos Palmares, Aqualtune, Zumbi, Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman... many other African power figures who fought slavery to live free. They became the Maroons and forms free African communities in the Americas.
It is our duty to remember and celebrate them. They paved the way for our liberties, they showed us the meaning of sacrifice, sacrifice for your people against of forms of slavery and subjugation.

Project [Re]member is a look back to the histories of the African resistance against slavery. The project investigates the history of the rebellions and victories of captured Africans in the slave ships during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade and the plantations in the Americas and the Caribbean. With a particular focus on the history of one of the maroon's leaders Nganga Nzumbi, the project strives to recover and celebrate the names of numerous African men and women who led resistance revolts to break out to freedom.

Pix by MS

There is power in color. Colors affect your emotions, colors affect your energy, colors affect mood, colors affect your personality. The choice of color should be intentional. Therefore, understanding the meanings of color is a salient task to do before making that choice. Wait, your choice of colors have both an impact on you the dancing body and your viewers.

Pix by Robbie Sweeny

Age is a number that tells your time, age is your history in the making. In this intergenerational offering the younger dancer was 8 and the older was in their 60s. The rest, in between. Each telling their story, each living the story, each offering their heart, but all together. Isn't that a community of people? Isn't beautiful to celebrate the wealth of our differences?

Project 350 & Millions of Moving Targets

Pix by Robbie Sweenie

It's not a cry it's a laugh. An image can betray and mislead because a still shot may also be a non action image. To successfully interpret a role is to successfully live the role on a stage in a timely count. That's the way a dancer establishes the kinesthetic empathy with the viewers. The dancers emotions become theirs, it's a "selfish" oneway relationship at the moment until the curtains are up and the viewers' faces are revealed under the lights.

Dance artist: Luc Ibata Okalobe and Byb Bibene.

Pix by Fatimata Vetu

Dance is theater without an audible voice. Its sounds are quiet and yet so loud. Dance tells you what you need to hear and feel, and you feel it. Music is the cherish on top but you know what, the joyful bodies have their internal music. How do we know this? Well, these still shots invite you to the joy and celebration of the moment, don't they?

Dance artists: Latanya D. Tigner, Byb Bibene, Rashidi Omari and Krystal Bates

Pix by Bob Hsiang & Mark K.

In creative dance making all traditions are broken. Well, let's say all traditions are challenged and married. We displace the norms and create mariages. Mariage of instruments from different universes, mariage of bodily movement drawn from the traditions of the movers, mariage of sound and sensibility. In the end, it's a painting on the wall for the viewers to interpret and recreate their world. Isn't that art?
Music artists: Kiazi Malonga and Chris Evans. Dance artist: Latanya D. Tigner.

Pix by Bob Hsiang

Let's talk about beauty. Well, beauty is subjective. However, all dancing bodies possessed by the right dose of mpeve (no implicit english translation) are beautiful.
Dance artists Bibene and Babingui portray just that.

Pix by Fatimata Vetu

The dancing body is a web of information and memories. Its expression is undoubtedly influenced by the environment. The intensity of the its energy draws from the space it mostly evolved in: the scents, the streets noise, the meals consumed, the public transportation means, the market place, the school, family dynamics, the nature of friendships, the way we party, the music in the streets, people, the joys and the struggles of your environment have an unforeseen impact in the way each body or a group of bodies move. It's beyond training, it's beyond the dance, it is the dancer.
Dance artists Bibene and Babingui portray just that.

Pix by Fatimata Vetu