Modern Moves director Ananya Kabir’s first article on the dance practice of Katherine Dunham has just been published in the Cambridge Journal of Postcolonial Literary Inquiry! This article is based on initial research she did in the archives of Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, in January 2014. This year, the Modern Moves team spent a week in the same archives and we are delighted to announce our intention to celebrate Modern Moves’ third birthday next year in conjunction with paying homage to Miss Dunham on the tenth anniversary of her death (21st May 2016). Look out for a signature Modern Moves event combining cutting-edge research and dance-floor flamboyance!
In the meanwhile, you can enjoy a rare clip of Miss Dunham dancing in her much-loved production L’Agya in our featured Video of the Month, and then read Ananya’s article, which discusses L’Agya in detail, on our Research Resources page. And the final section of our new Moving Story tells you about our visit to the Katherine Dunham Museum in East St Louis as well.
Publicity for Katherine Dunham’s famous monthly social in New York, ‘La Boule Blanche’– featuring Tito Puente, the Mambo King, and his orchestra.
It´s not possible to write a series on houses of African music for dancing in Lisbon without giving a special place to the most emblematic and internationally known place: B.leza, the survivor of the tradition of live music. Following the tradition that started in the seventies with Bana´s place, live music is the main raison-d´être of this mythical house.
The name chosen, “B.leza”, has an extraordinary symbolic meaning for Cape Verdean music: B.leza is the artistic name of Francisco Xavier da Cruz (1905-1958), a composer and musician who inspired the musical genre called morna (Cidra, 2010a). His house became the meeting point of artists, and he trusted in Bana to keep by heart his last poems (Cidra, 2010b). If we take into account that Alcides, Bana´s son, is one of the co-owners, we can understand how strong and deep is the relationship of B.Leza to the transnational links between Cape Verde and Portugal.
For all these reasons and more, B.leza can be considered an institution in Lisbon and it deserves an in-depth ethnography: the symbolism of the space, the artists that wrote the history of music, the personages that circulated and still can be found there, the dancing bodies that still respond to the ritual call of music… If we look carefully at B.leza´s dancefloor, we can see how all this long and deep history is embodied through the most pleasant and smooth of movements.
The tradition of live music in Lisbon
Bana was probably the first musician who opened a space in Lisbon for displaying his art and inviting other artists to play. It was in 1976, and the first name given to it was “Novo Mundo”, that later gave place to “Monte Cara” (Cidra, 2010b, INET-MD). Its final name was “Enclave”, the most remembered nowadays. Anyway, it was popularly known as “Bana” on behalf of the famous owner´s name. He put together live music, food and a dancefloor: this formula met with great success. Other well-known artists opened live music venues, such as Tito Paris and Dany Silva. In this context, José Manuel Saudade e Silva, a Portuguese gentleman who worked as a lawyer, fell in love with African music and enjoyed socializing with musicians. One day, he decided to gather some friends to open a new space devoted to this music and dance culture: in 1987 the dance club Baile was born in the ballroom of an ancient palace (XVI century) to give it new life. We are speaking about the emblematic Palácio Almada de Carvalhais. Previously, it had hosted the mythical Noites Longas (Long Nights) organized by Zé de Guiné, one of the fathers of Lisbon´s African nightlife. Among the legends that circulate around the dancing rooms, it is said that it was the place where Marquês de Pombal designed the reconstruction of the city of Lisbon in the eighteenth century! It was some years later, in 1995, that the house would be reopened with a new name: B.leza was born to become an icon that is still alive today.
Entrance to old BlezaBackyard of old Bleza
B.leza, an icon of African-ness in Lisbon
Those who were lucky to live during those times describe the old days with emotion and agree that there are no words to define what it meant: the ancient candelabras hanging from the high ceiling, the corridors where you could find the big stars of African music chatting and smoking, the impressive dancefloor, the mix of solemnity and decadence because of the passing of the years, and the magic of the ambience. It was the meeting point for artists of every genre and intellectuals, and it became the university of African music and culture for those who were interested in it. All the big names of African music played in B.leza: Bana, Bonga, Justino Delgado, Tabanka Djaz, Tito Paris, Don Kikas, Sara Tavares, Lura, Nancy Vieira, just to name a few. DJ Sabura, one of the DJs that you can find there making people happy every Sunday, speaks about the old B.leza as his place of initiation into dance:
“B.leza is a cultural icon of African-ness in Portugal, in Lisbon (…) It was a place that had a mysticism that transpired the walls. There were verses written on the walls, there were red giant candelabras of high value, there was a dancefloor in darkened wood, there was a giant ceiling (…) and apart from the main hall, there were all those narrow corridors where people went to smoke and chat. It was a place where you could find painters, writers, singers, musicians, everyone spoke about it…it was a really special place, and it had a spectacular energy. Everyone was there, look, my initiation into dance took place there, with the friends I met at B.leza.” (Interview with DJ Sabura)
Nevertheless, it was not only about music: from the first day, the vocation of the house was the promotion of African culture (and not only) in all its dimensions: there were also poetry recitations, film exhibitions, visual art exhibitions, and more. Although it has always been open to art from all PALOPs, Brazil, and beyond, B.leza’s fame rests on its special relationship with Cape Verde, to the point that the President of Cámara Municipal de Lisboa (local government of the city) said once that the house can be considered “one more island of Cape Verde”. The owners insist that B.leza is not a disco: it is a house of culture. In fact, the first thing that strikes any lover of African culture is that the house offers a luxury cultural programme for inexpensive (sometimes even merely symbolic) prices.
B.leza, a love story
If we go to the dancefloor, we can read this message on the wall: “In 1995, B.leza was born from a love story. In the noble hall of Almada Carvalhais Palace, the music from Cape Verde danced in Lisbon. Recognising the city as a natural space of encounter of the people that History joined together, B.leza hosted artists from Mozambique, Angola, Brazil and many others that made of the stage the pretext for life to take place. The Palace closed but the history didn´t end. B.leza (re)encounters now the river Tejo and its audience to receive old friends with a new house, and sing the poetry and magic of lusophone culture with them. Good evening, welcome to B.leza!”
MESSAGE ON THE WALL “B.LEZA, UMA HISTÓRIA DE AMOR”
What is this love story that this welcoming message tells us about? An interview with Sofia, one of the co-owners of the place, leads us to the answer. The magic of D. Jose Manuel Saudade e Silva´s dream was imperilled when he unfortunately passed away in 1994. It was then when his two daughters, Sofia and Magdalena, two strong-minded and determined Portuguese ladies, decided to carry on with their father´s dream as an act of love for him. The musician Alcides (Bana´s son) joined them in the adventure. And they succeeded, there´s no doubt! Now we know the mysterious love story that the walls of today’s B.leza tell us about…
The opening of B.leza was kind of a risky adventure, as the two ladies were quite young and they didn´t have much experience in the field. They didn´t know whether the house would come to life again. The inaugural night was a difficult moment for them. Fortunately, the success went beyond expectations. This is the way Sofia, one of the current co-owners of B.leza, remembers that day:
“We opened in 1995, with a bit of fear because it was something new for us to some extent (…) it was kind of surprising how it became so successful (…) Baile had been falling down in its final years, and we wanted to do something that represented a continuity while making it also clear that there had been a change. (…) I remember the inauguration day, it was 21st December 1995, we went back home to change clothes and come back, and before I phoned Fernanda, a lady that worked there with us in that time. I asked her: “how is it going, Fernanda, how is the house now?” because I was afraid that nobody would come in, those anxieties…she said: “girl, come quickly or you won´t be able to get in”. It was absolutely crowded, things went just great.” (Interview with Sofia co-owner of B.leza)
Exiled from the palace
Unfortunately, nowadays we cannot experience a night in the palace because the owner finally decided to sell the property and B.leza´s soul had to pack up and look for another home. The search was hard, as it was rather difficult to find a new place that could keep up with such high standards. During the period between 2007 and 2012, trying not to leave the B.leza community homeless, the co-owners organized parties that they called B.leza itinerante (itinerant B.leza) in diverse places such as Teatro de São Luis, Teatro da Luz, Maxime or Teatro do Bairro. After some years roaming around the city, B.leza found its new home: an industrial block beside the river Tejo. How to invoke the spirits of the ancient iconic B.leza in a cold and empty diaphanous industrial box with metal serpents running on the ceiling? The staff worked hard to feed the imagination of their loyal members and help them get over the trauma of palace exile.
“Our idea was bringing some elements that could bring people back to the former B.leza. (…) This space was too modern, too cold, and we tried to find elements that could bring in a bit of warmth and a bit of history to the place. So we went to look for velvet for the curtains in a warm colour (…) and old furniture (…) And it seems that we made it, because people say: “oh, those candelabras are from the former B.leza” and they are not! But we got to build that bridge.” (Interview with Sofia, co-owner of B.leza)
Smokers´ sofa areaBleza dance floorArea of chairs
Yes, if we go to nowadays´ B.leza, we don´t find ourselves in a palace. Anyway, we shouldn´t feel sad about it because the crystal wall that looks at the Tejo provides us with other kind of luxuries. For example, while dancing in a Sunday matinée we may be amazed by a sight like this one.
Sunset from Bleza
As the sun goes down, the lights that let see the silhouette of the bridge 25th April remind the dancers that critical episode in the history of Portugal that changed definitely the destiny of former Portuguese colonies. On the left of the bridge, the illuminated Christo Redentor (Redeeming Christ) seems to look at B.leza and protect the dancing community with his opened arms.
During the day, the walls recently re-painted in deep pink make the new B.leza impossible to remain unseen in a walk by the shore of Tejo in the area of Cais do Sodré. There´s no doubt you will find it if you´re looking for it!
Pink Bleza from the outside
But the most important ritual space is the stage: here the resident band plays every Friday and Saturday, and the living legends and new artists of the Portuguese-speaking countries (and beyond) jump on to display their art. The resident band of B.leza makes people dance every Friday and Saturday: Vaiss Dias (guitar), Cao Paris (drums), Paló Figuereido (bass), Kalú Ferreira (keyboards) and Calú Moreira (voice).
bleza resident band by samuel sequeira (from www.lisboafricana.com, by Samuel Sequeira)
On Sunday there is an extremely popular Matinée that starts with a dance workshop by some of the best-known teachers of Lisbon, followed by a session guided by DJ Oceano and DJ Sabura.
DJ Oceano and DJ Sabura Matinees Bleza
The organizer of these dancing Matinées is Magda, an incredibly nice and busy young woman (originally from Poland) and a source of never-ending original ideas for new events. She combines her role as producer of music and dance events with her role as doctoral researcher on African music at ISCTE (University of Lisbon).
She was responsible for some extremely interesting activities, including a series of colloquia with the main kizomba teachers of Lisbon. Another initiative that she developed and deserves special attention was the series of workshops named Kizomba comElas (Kizomba with them, a feminine “them”) that intended to bring under the spotlight the work of these female teachers that are usually regarded as secondary actresses in a context where male dancers rule.
kizomba com elas Catarina Paniagua
B.leza, the democratic dancefloor
One of the most striking aspects of this house is the extraordinary heterogeneity of its clientele. The dancefloor is inhabited by people of all ages, colours, looks, social classes, professions, origins and lifestyles. Indeed, this openness and diversity is one of the main characteristics of B.leza, and it is so because the politics for entering are not restrictive:
“We let everyone in, we don´t have any dress code to get in, people come as they want. If you come from the beach and you wear flip-flops, you get in wearing flip-flops. If you want to come with a shiny dress from head to toe… you just come as you want to come, as you like to come and as you have money to do it (…) There are car parkers, who got some coins today and come to drink their cup of red wine and dance all the night long and everything is ok, or even ministers, judges, the prince of Monaco came here one year ago to dance as any other client, Robert De Niro, Catherine de Neuve…everyone as long as they want to have fun are allowed in.” (Interview with Sofia, co-owner of B.leza)
Bleza matinee dancefloor
In this way, the dancefloor becomes a democratic ritual space where social inequalities of everyday life are temporarily suspended. In the words of the classical author Victor Turner, the hierarchical social structure becomes a horizontal communitas during the ritual (Turner 1967). At B.leza nights, the time of the dance is the moment to dream of a better world where everyone is the same…
REFERENCES:
Cidra, Rui (2010a) “B.leza”. In Castelo-Branco, Salwa (dir.) Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no século XX A-C. Lisboa: Temas e Debates/Círculo de Leitores.
Cidra, Rui (2010b) “Bana”. In Castelo-Branco, Salwa (dir.) Enciclopédia da Música em Portugal no século XX A-C. Lisboa: Temas e Debates/Círculo de Leitores.
Turner, Victor (1969) The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-structure. New York: Cornell University Press.
Livia Jiménez Sedano is currently member of INET-MD (Instituto de Etnomusicologia-Centro de Estudos em Música e Danca) and her work is being funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) of Portugal. She is a collaborator of the Modern Moves Project and will become a full member in September 2015.
Our Moving Conversation #3 brought together Paulo Flores, renowned Angolan musician and songwriter based in Lisbon, and Marissa Moorman, Professor at Indiana University. It definitely was an evening for thinking dancers and dancing thinkers, and plenty of unexpected treats for the enthusiastic audience. Our two high profile personalities in their respective worlds talked to each other about dance, music, diaspora, (post)colonialism, and other shared passions. To complete the transnational web, our resident DJ Willy the Viper from Paris spun a mix of tunes that paid homage to Paulo Flores’ music and that of his Angolan peers as well as their connections to the Antillean genres of zouk and kompa. In keeping with the Afro-Luso theme, the KCL catering team offered vinho verde cocktails and Angolan-inspired ‘salgados’. As Paulo Flores has recently opened a highly acclaimed restaurant in Lisbon, Poema do Semba (named after one of his most beautiful semba songs!), we were more keen than ever to be attentive to this aspect of our event… Read the full report below!
Moving Conversation #3 – 16th June 2015
Report by Ananya Kabir
The final Moving Conversation in our 2014-15 season brought together friends who had been talking to each other for many years already- but perhaps never before in English, in London: Paulo Flores, renowned Angolan musician and songwriter living in Lisbon, and Marissa Moorman, Professor at Indiana University, and Modern Moves advisory board member. Paulo is a leading proponent of the Angolan dance music genre semba, while Marissa’s book, Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola, has confirmed semba’s key role in the Angolan independence movement; moreover, its conclusion brings the analysis to the present moment via a discussion of Paulo’s music.
Why did Paulo, a member of the decolonized ‘generation of utopia’ (to quote his lyrics), decide to revive this genre? What are the political, social, and cultural contexts for semba’s rise during the decolonizing moment, its fall during the civil war, and its rise again in the age of globalization? What can the ‘secrets of semba’ (in Paulo’s words), tell us about the relationship between civil war, national identity, music, dance, and diaspora? What can the historian tease out of the artiste that his songs perhaps conceal under the veil of poetry? This Moving Conversation revealed all this, and more, to a rapt audience. In true Modern Moves style, they were also treated to dance showcases and a bespoke menu featuring Vinho Verde cocktails and canapés inspired by the Portuguese-speaking world’s signature ‘salgados’ (savouries).
Following the success of Cindy Claes’s and Ziloka’s dance offerings to the guests of our previous Moving Conversation, we opened with a dance creation, ‘Angola: A Dance Portrait’, which we had commissioned from the dancers, our Associated Researcher Francesca Negro from Lisbon and Antonio Bandeira. Their seamless movement from indigenous movements to colonial era carnival dances to the full range of contemporary Angolan social dances, delighted our unsuspecting guests and audience, presented a fitting prelude for a conversation that wove in and out of the traumas of decolonization, war, and diaspora on the one hand, and the participatory joys of social dance and music on the other.
We were plunged into these complexities from the very start of the conversation, with Paulo’s vivid, dream-like recollection of a foundational moment during his first visit to Luanda at the age of five. His Lisbon-based grandmother’s warnings ‘don’t go there, they will kill you’ rang in his ears as he tried to sleep in his Luanda-based father’s bed. Woken up by sudden noise, from the balcony he ‘saw a big colonial pink house with many people on the street, and a military guy whipping a black guy with no shirt on’. Sitting out the mourning period for Angola’s first president Augustinho Neto’s death, he remembered listening to a Muddy Waters record with his father with the sound really low, and wondering if they were doing something wrong.
The blurring between ‘here’ and ‘there’ shaped Paulo’s childhood. ‘I missed Luanda when I was in Lisbon and when I was in Lisbon I felt saudades for Luanda- my mother, aunts, grandmother.’ In Lisbon was the warmth and security of the women of his family; in Luanda, his DJ father with his vast collection of records from all over world—blues, bossa nova, funk, rock, and jazz, and exciting musician friends from Cape Verde, Brazil and Angola. Both were equally shaping influences on his music and lyrics. Another influence, he reiterated throughout the conversation, was ‘the generosity of the people’. And although he didn’t enumerate these, there were three other elements that fed his creativity: the hunger for cosmopolitanism, that fed into the young Paulo through his father’s musical tastes as well as the general Angolan appreciation of zouk music, particularly that of Kassav’ (the subject of course of our previous Moving Conversation); the deep awareness of Lusophone cultural connections between Brazil, Angola, and Cape Verde; and, of course, the city of Lisbon—the ravaged yet radiant muse of his ‘semba urbano’ (urban semba).
Marissa’s astute conversation skills and her deep knowledge of Paulo’s work meant that she could draw out all these issues without making it seem that she had heard it all before! Paulo was obliging and responsive, and a perfect ‘duet’ resulted, which took us through the most important elements in Paulo’s rich career: the decision to take up semba, the continuing necessity of Lisbon for the production of postcolonial Angolan music, the importance of intergenerational (and inter-genre) conversation between Angolan musicians, the need to talk after years of silence and self-censorship through the civil war years.
This duet was supplemented by an irrepressible kinetic vivacity on Paulo’s part. Refusing to be confined to his chair, he treated us to three a capella songs in full- two of which, ‘Boda’ and ‘Poema do Semba’ (in which he even inserted my name! what tribute!) are my personal favourites. Neither did he hesitate to illustrate his points with snatches of song and vocal illustrations of percussion patterns. Joking with the audience in Portuguese and English, he even demonstrated with his body how Angolans would react to a football goal to prove that ‘Angolans always dance’.
It was very satisfying to note how our set up of the Anatomy Museum coincided with Paulo’s improvisations to create stunningly layered effects: as when the video of his song ‘Amba’ flashed up on the screen, demonstrating through stunning monochrome images a capoerista in an Angolan wasteland spliced with Paulo singing, while Paulo himself got up to demonstrate the shared percussive matrix of semba and capoeira. Another memorable moment was when Marissa asked Paulo if people danced to forget or to remember—and he replied with a line from his song, ‘Sassasa’: ‘look at the song of the people—the people of the land who dance without knowing why they do so’ (‘o povo da terra que danca sin saber porque).
As Paulo said, ‘it’s better to sing rather than talk’, and the conversation ended with his singing to his adoring fans two full songs. No doubt energized by that gift, the audience responded with an animated question and answer session in which was re-emphasized some of the most important messages of the Moving Conversation—the striking global proliferation of diverse Angolan music-dance genres (kizomba and kuduro as well as semba), and, in particular, the significance of the body that dances to the song that is sung, to realize the full potential of music as therapy and healing.
Fittingly, the final question asked Paulo for his advice to artistes interested in healing the wounds of conflict through music and dance. Paulo’s response was typical in its humility, prophetic quality, and generosity: ‘I lived in pain for so many years because I could not change anything- I am a musician and people call me the poet of semba- but really what I wanted to do was to change the world- and I felt that at some point my music functioned like balm to people- when I sing about our reality, people put on the music and they feel really full and represented so for me it was a really great privilege.’
Using an anecdote about the camera and exoticisation, he requested the world to approach Angola with intellectual honesty, and to young Angolan artists to also be honest with themselves and listen to their own convictions and their heart. Marissa had the last word though by returning to the forgetting-remembering binary with a third possibility—that people dance Angolan dances to re-member, ‘to reconnect the parts’ as another alternative to ‘memory’ in their search for a viable postcolonial national identity that also participates in the global dance-music sensorium. This was a via media that, I’m sure, the self-declared ‘drunk poet of the senzala’ would approve of.
Following this intensely rewarding conversation, the audience was treated to yet another dance showcase from London’s Studio Afro-Latino student team led by Iris de Brito, and a superb set of semba, kizomba, zouk and kompa by our Paris-based DJ, Wilfrid Vertueux aka DJ Willy the Viper, that illustrated perfectly the transatlantic mix that has gone into Paulo’s life and sensibility. We were also spoilt by a guest set from John Armstrong, London’s veteran of the Afro-decks. As the audience of kizomba and semba lovers circulated with each other and our conversation partners, they confirmed yet again Paulo’s observations on international audiences dancing to his music: ‘when I began playing music for dance at concerts, it had a big impact, it was great, because people were dancing, and that’s the link, really, the way towards big change.’
On the 16th of June, our Moving Conversation #3 brought together Paulo Flores, renowned Angolan musician and songwriter based in Lisbon, and Marissa Moorman, Professor at the University of Indiana. Flores is a leading proponent and indeed reviver of the Angolan dance music genre Semba, which played an extremely important role in Angolan nationalism. Flores’ semba compositions have the rare quality of being both good to dance with and good to think with. His music is political, dealing with the hardships of Angolan life, the war and corruption, but it is political because it needs to be danced to. Marissa Moorman‘s book Intonations: A Social History of Music and Nation in Luanda, Angola tells the story of how Angola’s urban residents in the late colonial period used music to talk back to their colonial oppressors and, more importantly, to define what it meant to be Angolan and what they hoped to gain from Independence. It is to date the only book in the Anglophone world at least that satisfies the thinking dancer’s need to understand the historical and political context for the Angolan genres kizomba and semba.
This encounter between two high profile personalities in their respective worlds enthralled the audience with a frank and fascinating conversation about dance, diaspora, transnationalism and other shared passions. Paulo Flores sang two songs unplugged and we were treated by some amazing dance performances as well as excellent selection of tunes spun by our resident DJ Willy the Viper from Paris , with able support from DJ John Armstrong, ‘the encyclopaedia’ from London. Our guests enjoyed the music as well as a great selection of Vinho Verde and Angolan-themed canapés!
See a selection of photos from the event here on the Modern Moves Facebook page!
To celebrate Modern Moves’ second birthday, we organised a RESEARCH SHOWCASE ON AFRO-HERITAGE COUPLE DANCE on the 18th-19th of May, 2015 at King’s College, London. To toast this special date, we began the showcase with a specially commissioned range of spectacular dance performances: definitely sights not worth missing! The Modern Moves team, performers and fans enjoyed a night of innovative dance shows, rhythm loaded tunes, Caribbean cocktails, and delicious moves, including:
CALI-STYLE ACROBATIC SALSA with Camilo Soler Caicedo and Izabela Pilecka (Bogota/London)
‘SALSAMBA’ (mambo meets samba) with Arthur Araujo Gontijo and Aiste Kalabuchova Gontijo (London)
And, via skype: a mini Lecture-Demonstration on ARTISTIC KOMPA by Cliford Jasmin and Gaelle Cadignan Jasmin (Ecole Salsabor, Miami)
MM resident DJ Wilfrid Vertueux (DJ Willy the Viper, Paris) delighted us with his usual genre-spanning panache.
On the 19th, we continued with a day of discussions and presentations by scholar-dancers from the UK, Europe, and the USA: the full Modern Moves family.
Here is the programme as a souvenir!
10.00-10.30
Beyond the Binary: Rethinking Afro-diasporic couple dance (with an accent on the ‘Afro-‘)
Prof. Ananya Kabir, King’s College, London
10.30-11.45
Feminist dilemmas in social Salsa dancing, Chip McCLure, King’s College London
Salsa dancers and their transnational moves, Joanna Menet University of Neuchatel
Respondent: Dr Kathy Davis, Free University of Amsterdam
12.00-1.15
Paris kizomba dance floors: a new home for zouk lovers, Brenna Daldorph, Independent Journalist, Paris
Placing Lisbon n the transnational kitchen of Kizomba, Dr Livia Jimenez Sedano, INET-MD, University of Lisbon
Respondent: Professor Theresa Buckland, University of Roehampton
2.15-3.30
“Don’t Cross Main Street”: Salsa as a kinesthetic tool in understanding boundaries, Minkyoung (MK) Kim, University of Manchester
Insight exploration of salsa performance, Noelia Tajes, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance
Respondent: Dr Jonathan Skinner, University of Roehampton
3.45-5.00
Trans-continental and trans-genre: Preliminary considerations on the history of mazurka music and dance, Stefanie Alisch, University of Bayreuth
Patting Juba, Cakewalking, and Ragging Modernism in fin-de-siècle Europe, Dr Matthew Morrison, Tisch School of Performance, New York
Respondent: Dr Elina Djebbari, KCL
5.00-6.00: Closing Roundtable led by Dr. Madison Moore
Attendees on the 19th are welcome to use the lunch break to explore the Strand and riverside with their own lunch arrangements. After the showcase, we will close our day with a drinks reception and chance to talk to all the participants. The Modern Moves team looks forward to welcoming you to our special event!
‘That August afternoon the thermometer registered 101 in the shade and the hot wind roaring off the melting tar via through the windows of my flivver had me singing all the way to Memphis. I fancied I could smell the Mississippi, which for me is Southern American in a liquid form, signifying fried catfish, roasting ears dipped in butter, and watermelon in the cool of the evening, washed down with corn liquor and accompanied by the blues.’
Alan Lomax, ‘The Land where the Blues Began’
Reading Alan Lomax while crossing the Mississippi River. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
During the first three weeks of April this year, the Modern Moves research team travelled from New Orleans northwards to Chicago by rail and by road. En route, we stopped at Memphis, Carbondale, East St Louis (and St Louis) and Kansas City. We marvelled at intricately embellished mardi gras costumes in New Orleans, spent a week immersed in the archive of Katherine Dunham in Carbondale and managed a day with Alvin Ailey’s private papers in Kansas City. We enjoyed live jazz and blues throughout our journey even while absorbing their complex histories in museums in Memphis and Kansas City. We danced to live music in venues shaped by a symbiosis of music and sport — from New Orleans’s Rock n’ Bowl, where bowling alley, stage, and the dance floor share space, to Chicago’s famous Sports Bar Cubby Bear, across the road from the iconic Wrigley Fields stadium. We ate soul food at Oprah Winfrey’s favoured ‘Sweetie Pie’s’ in St Louis and compared Memphis ribs to their Kansas City counterparts, went grocery shopping in the back of a Chevrolet truck, and stopped at a McDonalds in the absolute middle of middle America (Iowa). We spent a night (inadvertently) in a Kansas City Casino hotel with the aptly-named nightclub ‘Voodoo Lounge’, that harked back to the New Orleans ‘Voodoo tour’ we went on at the beginning of the road trip and looked forward to the exhibition on Haitian Vaudou that we visited on our last day together in Chicago.
The Rock n Bowl, New Orleans. Image courtesy of Ananya Kabir
On our first day in New Orleans, some of us walked through Congo Square, where slaves and free people used to mingle, make music, and move together. Our destination was the Backstreet Museum (about which, more late in the Moving Story). Behind the museum– actually a former funeral parlour– was the St Augustine Church with a monument to slavery in the form of a fallen cross made of chains and shackles.
Congo Square, New Orleans. Photo courtesy of Ananya KabirThe shackles-cross at the Tomb of the Unknown Slave, St Augustine’s Church, Treme. photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
All around were beautiful houses of the Treme quarter originally built and inhabited by German immigrants to the city. The combination of European, Native American, and African/ African-American elements typified the way we learnt about the creole and Cajun culture of New Orleans and the hinterland of Lousiana—through walking its streets, appreciating its architecture, tasting its cuisine, and absorbing its soundtrack.
Frenchman’s Street, New Orleans. Image courtesy of Ananya Kabir
As far as the soundtrack went, we were very fortunate to enjoy an evening of frenetic live music and dancing at a ‘zydeco night’ at the Rock n Bowl. The two-step couple dancing was unbelievably ungainly and yet energetic and fun, and Ananya could use it to refine her hypothesis of ‘gaucho dances of the Americas’ (basic clue- see if you can spot a cowboy hat). Apart from this, in New Orleans we enjoyed different kinds of live music—jazz played by brass bands as well as more hybrid sounds and looks. The juxtaposition of Bourbon Street and the French Quarter with Frenchman Street and other venues for dance and music (such as Rock ‘n’ Bowl and the Hi-Lo Lounge where rare soul and funk was playing on Saturday night) clarified the spectrum of music and dance practices in the city known primarily for jazz, as well as the range of commodification practices within which an ‘authentic’ culture lives and proliferates. In this context the voodoo tour we did on our last evening in NOLA also vivified the ongoing relationship between historical, emotive, spiritual dimensions of voodoo and its susceptibility to sensationalism and commodification.
The New Orleans Voodoo Tour. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
Our days in New Orleans set the tone for the rest of this marathon research journey. Our intention was, literally, to follow the music and dance on its historical and spiritual trajectory from the melting pot of New Orleans to the great cities of the American mid-west, to feel the rhythms and the cadences of this rich history in situ, to supplement our work in archives and museums with the feel of the road, the changing geography of three vast states under unchanging wide skies, and the majesty of the Mississippi and the Missouri rivers that indelibly shape the land and its culture. In the process we learnt an immense amount about the ways in which race relations in the USA have been responsible for the music and dance styles we call ‘African American’, and how this process can enrich the research agenda of Modern Moves: to explicate the relationship between Afro-diasporic dance styles and the creation of the modern subject. This is a complex history of creolisation, appropriation and exchange that Eric Lott has summarised as ‘love and theft’, and to which we would add the ingredients of labour and leisure, work and play, sweat and style.
Backstreet Museum, New Orleans. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
In this Moving Story, each team member presents some reflections (and visual memories) of a favourite aspect of the road trip. We hope you enjoy reading about our experiences, which will take more formal shape as research articles in the near future!
ELINA DJEBBARI ON CARNIVAL CULTURE IN NEW ORLEANS
New Orleans was the starting point of the Modern Moves team’s journey through the US. While discovering the musical gems of the Crescent City, we also attended the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association National Conference held at Hotel Marriott in New Orleans (April 1-4). There we presented a panel entitled “Afro-Diasporic Social Dance and the Transnational City”. Interestingly enough, this panel unveiled our imminent journey from south to north, through the prism of cities that played a very important role in the development of worldwide acclaimed music forms such as blues, jazz and rock’n’roll.
In New Orleans, I was happy to discover the actual décor of HBO series Treme which gave a significant overview of the diversity of the multiple music genres that can be found in the heart of Louisiana. Walking down on Bourbon Street or Frenchman Street, live music is everywhere day and night, filling the air in a delightful urban polyphony. One can go from place to place to listen to a specific live band or just enjoy some street performances.
Brass band in Bourbon Street – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
At Blue Nile on Frenchman Street – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
The atmosphere is full of joy and the colourful plastic beads are scattered across the streets or hanging on the wrought iron balconies, a distinguishing feature of New Orleans architecture.
New Orleans wrought iron balconies and Mardi Gras paraphernalia – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
Thanks to a series of visits organised by the Conference, we were able to get a particular idea of some specifics performance genres peculiar to New Orleans, such as Mardi Gras Carnival and its different components. What struck me the most was certainly the flamboyant costumes of Mardi Gras Indians as well as the Second Line phenomenon.
Second Line workshop at PCA/ACA with Dancing Man 504 – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
The small but packed Backstreet Cultural Museum allowed us to get a glimpse of these fascinating performative forms, both conflating but in a very different way Afro-Diasporic heritage with elements from the New World: brass bands for the Second Line parades and Amerindian identification for Mardi Gras Indians.
Mardi Gras Indians costumes in Backstreet Cultural Museum – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
Full of new ideas about how we can address with even more complexities the issues raised by Afro-diaporic identities through music and dance, we left New Orleans on the threshold of the start of a Second Line Parade, swimming against the tide of the crowd with only one wish: to come back!
A usual Sunday for New Orleans, warming up for the Second Line – Photo courtesy of Elina Djebbari
MADISON MOORE ON BEALE STREET, MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE
Few streets in America are as festive and lively as Beale Street, the Rock and soul of downtown Memphis. Though today Beale Street is flanked by neon signs, down-home style bbq rib joints and live music venues, historically this bursting thoroughfare was the place where black Memphis did its shopping in a sharply segregated city.
A neon sign advertising a Memphis BBQ ribs joint. Photo Courtesy of Madison Moore.
Many of the places blacks shopped were owned and operated by Jewish and Italian immigrants who were pretty much the only ones willing to do business in the black community at the time.
One of many Blues Cafes on Beale Street. Photo Courtesy of Madison Moore.
Of course, Beale Street was also where good music was played and heard. We wandered around town in search of uplifting live music – a must if you’re in Memphis even if only for one night. Finding good music was a lot more challenging than it seems not because there wasn’t any but because there were so many options! Nearly every crevice of Beale Street had blues, soul, bluegrass and rock pouring outside.
Music in Memphis, 7 Nights A Week. Photo Courtesy of Madison Moore.
The sounds slathered the air like some of that good old Memphis bbq sauce. I immediately connected to a street band performing to a tiny crowd in a small garden. Two guitars, a saxophone, a vocalist and a drum kit hit us with some serious rock and roll. Man, they were on fire.
It’s always interesting to watch how people respond physically to certain styles of music. There was one guy in a bright orange shirt whose signature move was him getting on the ground like he was doing army style push ups, but the thing is he positioned his crotch so it went in and out of the tip jar every time he did a push up.
I left the band a five dollar tip but now I’m wondering how many pelvic tip-jar thrusts I would have had to do to equal five dollars?
LEYNEUF TINES ON THE SOULS(VILLE) OF STAX RECORDS
Soulsville, home of the legendary Memphis label, Stax Records. Founded in 1962 by Jim Stewart and Estelle Axton, it is infamously known for Southern soul music, the combination of rhythm and blues, gospel and funk. Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, Sam and Dave, the Staple Singers are some of the icons brought out during the period Stax Records flourished in the 13 or 14 classic years of southern Soul music.
The entrance, Stax museum
The drive into Soulsville itself was a curious mission. I was struck by the cab driver’s not so subtle undertones as he ridiculed then neighbourhood we drove through. The Stax legacy is tied strongly to the integrated effort of desegregation through music in a time of racial strife in Memphis and the South. Strangely the combination of our white taxi driver condescendingly joking about a majority black neighbourhood (to a carload of passengers spanning the race spectrum) and the apparent deprivation of a place called Soulsville left a rather muddled impression of Stax even before we arrived.
original church interior, now on view in Stax museum
The museum led me on a walk through different times and rhythms, including the different musical histories of gospel, blues, country and soul, within these the role of the church, the cotton field and the civil rights movement, the rise and demise of Stax with the death of Otis Redding and the assassination of Martin Luther, and the final takeover of the label by Al Bell. As one of only a few museums dedicated to soul music, there was many a heartfelt moment: seeing an authentic 101-year old Mississippi Delta church transplanted to the middle of the museum in order to show the beginnings of gospel roots and soul music (see the photo above); stage costumes and original instruments used in Stax hits (see below); even the dance floor from Soul Train. And the one moment I wanted to last forever, was when I found myself standing in front of ‘Eldorado’, the 1972 gold-trimmed, peacock-blue restored Cadillac of Isaac Hayes himself.
Costumes of Ike and Tina Turner, on display at Stax museum
Isaac Hayes’ gold plated Cadillac, on display at Stax museum
Not only did Stax’s name represent challenges to racial politics overall, but an integrated effort with profit into community building in Soulsville and wider Memphis, amongst the black community primarily. Yet, the hostile remarks of the cab driver towards the community, and the drive itself through a desolate and deprived community which houses this rich museum, left Stax seeming more a singular token out of time.
Of course what resounded was the question of whether black music would have evolved as it had, had the record label in such times been in the hands of black proprietors, and once stepping out the doors of the museum, the supposed integrated effort unsoundly resonated…
ANANYA KABIR ON ELVIS IN MEMPHIS
Memphis, Tennessee: a truly historical city for the development of popular music out of African American roots, Memphis is way more than Elvis’s Graceland, though we did pay our homage to the King, of course alongside The Rock and Soul Museum, Stax Records and Sun Records (both projects of white lovers of black music in a highly segregated city– see Leyneuf Tines’s account of Stax Records above). These museums, together with the legendary Beale Street (as described by Madison Moore above), expanded immeasurably our knowledge of the globalisation of Afro-diasporic rhythm cultures. They also provided us with a wider context for the phenomenon of Elvis Presley and a way to appreciate the deeper significance of the monumental kitsch that is Graceland.
Graceland. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
Elvis, who not only ‘sang like a Black man’, but, according to Ike Turner (another Memphis resident), was unique in also moving like a Black man’ seems a natural product of this crossroads of a city. Today almost desolate apart from the music tourist trail, Memphis and its beautiful art deco buildings and sweeping Mississippi waterfront emits an aura of the ruined sublime steeped in the sounds of an earlier time that still haunts the present through its persistent soundscape.
Memphis waterfront. Image courtesy of Ananya Kabir
In New Orleans I had already watched a hundred times the YouTube clip of ‘Crawfish’ from the early Elvis film ‘King Creole’, its vignettes of New Orleans architecture and the haunting call and response between Elvis’s smooth yet painful enunciation of the single word ‘crawfish’ and the melisima of the black woman’s call as she hawked her wares was a sonic preparation for what I understood through my Memphis education.
What did it mean for a young white man to act the part of ‘King Creole’? What dialogues of pain, yearning, anguish, desire for the other, and dissatisfaction with the self, were actually being articulated through that duet, ‘crawfish….’? And why the obsession with crawfish, what kind of a signifier of Louisiana life was this? (you will hear the word in many a Cajun and Zydeco song).
King Creole album cover. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
We drove into Graceland on a Graceland bus, watching a video of the King croon ‘Proud Mary’ (taking me back to my teenage years in Calcutta, when I had first stumbled onto the Credence Clearwater Revival version). The first thing that struck me about the interiors of the house was: ‘Oh my god, how inexpressibly vulgar!!!’ The interiors were indeed in terrible taste, gaudy and showy and over the top, the excess spilling out into the other elements of the Graceland tour– the Cadillacs in the Automobile Museum, the rolling acreage with his horses prancing in the far distance, the endless corridors of gold and platinum discs, and the glittering and bejewelled costumes (not too far from the mardi gras costumes we saw in New Orleans and that Elina Djebbari writes about above). But there was a terrible melancholia to it all– a fragility that to me was the story of race relations in the United States of America.
Graceland interior. Photo courtesy of Ananya KabirGraceland interior. Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabircorridor of gold discs. photo courtesy of Ananya KabirElvis jumpsuit .Photo courtesy of Ananya Kabir
I left Graceland with my head full of unanswered questions about race, music and dance in the broader framework of African heritage rhythm cultures and global music. In my field notes I mused, ‘The relationship of all this to dance also remains to be clarified but maybe the more kinetic materials of the Dunham archive will help us understand a bit more.’ Indeed, that was the case– but the details must wait for another (moving) story.
LIVIA JIMENEZ SEDANO ON A DAY IN EAST ST LOUIS (AND ST LOUIS)
On Saturday we drove through the long and straight Route 64 from Carbondale to Saint Louis, searching for the Katherine Dunham museum (we were spending a week at her archives held at Southern Illinois University Library in Carbondale, so it seemed the right next step to take). The Museum is situated in the heart of East St Louis, and it opened in 1977 with the adjacent Children´s Workshop: it was Katherine’s project to create a school of arts where the children and teenagers of this deprived neighbourhood could benefit from high-quality training to improve the life of the community. What impressed me the most is that it is actually much more than a museum: it is a dynamic project to keep Katherine´s message alive through promoting the empowerment of those who most need it and deserve it.
On the road to East St Louis. Image courtesy of Livia Jimenez Sedano
We were warmly received by the teacher of dance, who started telling us the story of this beautiful building and how her wish to become a dancer had been frustrated until Dunham arrived in 1977. Pointing at her arm, she explained that when she was young it was not possible to build a career as a professional dancer with her tone of skin, and then smiled remembering how Katherine came to break the rules. Her house was in the middle of the mythical route 66 that goes from California to New York, something more than appropriate for someone who passed the most part of her life on the road, plane and boat, travelling through the world.
That part of Route 66 that passes in front of the Katherine Dunham Museum
A few minutes later, Mrs. Leverne Backstrom, the curator of the museum, came to take us through Katherine´s dream. It was clear from the way both ladies spoke passionately about their cultural mission and their admiration for Katherine that this was much more than a job for them.
Safeguarding Katherine Dunham’s legacy, Photo courtesy of Livia Jimenez
The ground floor housed Miss Dunham’s wonderful series of African and Haitian artworks. We saw African masks, paintings, ornaments and musical instruments, among others. As Mrs. Backstrom told us, Katherine´s original idea was letting children play and explore by themselves these instruments and feel the music: the dynamic African museum. In the Haitian room, I couldn’t help asking our guide about Katherine´s films on voodoo rituals that I had been searching unfruitfully in the Carbondale archives. She answered that they were all upstairs, and my eyes lit up with great expectation…
Drums on display in the Dunham museum. Photo courtesy Livia JimenezOne of the many masks on display at the Dunham museum. Photo courtesy Livia Jimenez
On the first floor there were plenty of pictures, books, and other witnesses of Katherine´s professional trajectory. In one room we were shown a big cupboard full of…films!! The excitement didn´t last too long: as Mrs. Backstrom told us, none of these old films had been digitized and there was no founding to do it: a treasure that cannot be opened….for the moment, at least…..!
The treasure trove of films…. Photo courtesy of Livia Jimenez Sedano
The Children´s Workshop also has funding problems: as our guide explained to us, there´s no money to produce events, continue with some programmes that had to stop, paying taxes, and more. A girl of around 8 years old dancing and moving with pride in front of the building made me think that, in spite of all the difficulties, the project is still alive– as long as there are still children with a passion for dance, and a few dancers and other volunteers working hard to make it possible: but no doubt that political will would also be very helpful.
Katherine Dunham at her Museum- keeping the spirit alive. Photo courtesy of Livia Jimenez Sedano
This situation left me with a bitter-sweet sensation after leaving the museum, and with the hope that things will get better and Katherine’s dream will come true in the future. As we have learnt in this US trip, the best way to feel happier is through music, dancing…and Mama´s food! That´s why we went to have dinner at Sweety Pie’s in St Louis. Opened by one of the chorus singers of Tina Turner, the place is so popular that one needs to wait in a long line for about half an hour to reach the counter. The line is shepherded by a muscular bouncer who waits at the entrance as if it was a disco, and the place is full of families that enjoy gathering around massive amounts of chicken, beef and fish with sides such as sweet potato, black eye peas, corn or rice for a price of between 10-20 dollars. An intensive and complete day!
Sweety Pie’s merchandise, St Louis. Photo courtesy of Livia Jimenez Sedano.
SOME CONCLUDING THOUGHTS….
Building on the music of New Orleans and Louisiana, the sorrow of the blues, the ecstasy of gospel, and the rhythms and cadences of everyday life in the Delta as it came together in this crossroads of Memphis– carrying on to the blues of Kansas City that developed during its heydays as a gambling paradise on the road westwards– and ending with the big city lights of Chicago where we danced away the blues to salsa at a range of venues across the city– all these experiences now constitute our new soundtrack, memory bank, and food for thought!
‘Got my mojo working’… ‘ Photo of mojo bag courtesy of Ananya Kabir
This Moving Story was written and compiled by Ananya Kabir with contributions from Elina Djebbari, Madison Moore, Leyneuf Tines and Livia Jimenez. Thank you to the dream team for a wonderful three weeks on the road!
After last week’s visit to one of the classical African houses of Lisbon, A Lontra, today I propose taking us to a newer one. The landscape of houses for dancing African music in Lisbon is so dynamic, and the craze for dance is so strong that we can find new clubs opening even in the hardest times of financial crisis in Portugal. A good example of this is Kalema Club: each disco has its own personality, and Kalema attracted my attention from the first time I stepped into the house.
ENTRANCE DOOR OF KALEMA
Kalema Club is a warm and welcoming house with a capacity of a bit more than 100 people. It is situated in the northern zone of Lisbon, at Avenida Frei Miguel Contreiras 18C. The golden and earthy colours of the lights and furniture, the comfortable sofas where you can sit freely and the non-huge but crowded dancefloor make you feel at home since the moment you arrive.
GENERAL VIEWS OF KALEMA
Whenever you decide to go to the bar and ask for a drink, you will always find the beautiful smile of Zanatt, barwoman and co-owner of the club with Ricardo Rodrigues.
ZANATT SERVING A DRINK
One night in Kalema: ethnographic description
“Raluca, the promotor of Friday nights of Kalema Club is waiting at the door to welcome us with her shiny smile as we arrive. She is a really nice Romanian young woman who became a lover of African music in Lisbon. As she has great social skills, she has been recently included in the team of promotors of Fridays nights in Kalema. It means that we are on her guestlist and she invites us to sit on her table. The security man gives us a paper card of consumption. This is the most extended system in this kind of clubs in Lisbon: you don´t need to pay when you enter, and everything you ask for will be marked on your card. To anyone who is used to pay right in the moment of serving, this card system makes you feel that you are not spending money at all (until the moment of leaving, of course!). Before you leave, you pay the total amount and your card is stamped. This is the proof of payment that you must show to the security staff to be allowed to leave.
VIEW FROM THE STAIRS
After crossing the entrance door, as you go downstairs you can feel the beats of kizomba reverberating closer with each step. Once at the level of the dancefloor, we go to the table where some friends are sitting. After being introduced to the rest through the smile-and-kiss ritual, we can sit down as part of the group. We can now be considered part of the collective social subject “our table”. I look around and see that all the sofas are occupied by groups of people that chat together and lean their drinks on the tables beside. Everyone is dressed in a weekend fashion, in varying degrees of formality that don´t go to the extremes (neither suits-and-ties, nor sport shoes-and-jeans). All the tables and sofas are oriented looking at the dancefloor and, as the space is not big, it is possible to observe almost every corner from any seat. The dancefloor is never totally empty but never totally packed up, leaving space for dancing without accidents. Most people come back to their original tables of reference after each dance.” (Fieldwork Diary)
This continuous cycle of going to the dancefloor when favourite songs are played and coming back “home” afterwards made me remember what I had witnessed in other African houses such as Mwangolé or Sussussu. But…this is not what I was used to see in any of the typical kizomba parties I have attended here in Lisbon…
The riddle of Kalema
Kalema became a mystery for me since the first night I went there: I was very curious about was what I perceived as a striking mix of ambiences. As far as I have witnessed in my fieldwork until today, in a “typical African disco” of the old style (80s and 90s), we will find people drinking and chatting in groups sitting on sofas beside tables around a dancefloor. Most of the time they will be talking and watching people dance (what is usually called convívio), and only in certain special moments they will jump on the dancefloor. By contrast, in the houses and parties that kizomba school people prefer, most of the time they are not sitting: instead, they are dancing or standing around the dancefloor, so that chatting and drinking is much of a secondary activity. In these contexts (such as Barrio Latino on Thursdays or, more recently, B.leza on Sundays), chairs and sofas become an obstacle for the dance or an improvised bengaleiro (place to leave their coats and bags). Apparently, Kalema broke that rule: being frequented by a mix of kizomba school people and Africans, all of them shared the habit of sitting on the sofas in groups and talking. Why? What was going on? I decided to resolve this intriguing fact that made Kalema such a special place. An interview with the co-owners, Ricardo Rodrigues and Zanatt, finally led me to the answer.
THE DANCEFLOOR ON FRIDAYTHE DANCEFLOOR ON FRIDAY (from facebook, courtesy of Kalema Club)
History of Kalema
Kalema Club opened just a few years ago, the 8th November of 2013, as Ricardo remembered immediately. The place already existed, and it was known as Terra da Música. To give it a new life, it was essential to change the name, the decoration, and the ambience. Interestingly, Ricardo spent a part of his life in Cape Verde and opened a house that called RClub. He used to go to another disco that was called Kalema, and the name inspired him. “Kalema” is the name given to a strong swell that beats the Western African coast (what could be considered a metaphor for the emotional state in which people get into through dancing.) Apart from the beautiful sound of the word, one of the reasons why Ricardo chose this name is because, according to him, we can find this term everywhere in the PALOPs: a general reference of Portuguese-speaking Africa that is not specific of any country. In this way, it could make people from diverse African countries feel identified with it. The two co-owners are well knowers of the African nights of Lisbon: Zanatt, from São Tomé, has lived in Lisbon for a long time, and Ricardo, Portuguese, has a quite interesting history of relations with Africa. Their intention was opening up a new African disco with a special personality that could make it different from the others. The boom of kizomba changed their plans: school kizomba lovers started to come and introduced their social rules. As the house started receiving more and more clients of this kind, it became an unexpected social mix and it had to adapt to the needs of both types of public: a good balance of recent hits and old music, a combination of living-room-like space with kizomba workshops some nights. As a result, today we can find a quite interesting mix of nightclub cultures, social rules and dance styles that develop through crossed influences in a small-medium space.
Nevertheless, these cultural diversity provide with some difficulties to keep everyone happy. The first key point is the music: how can the DJ guide such a heterogeneous community through the night?
DJ KLAUS, THE RESIDENT DJ (from facebook, courtesy of Kalema).
For this reason, the solution found was the following: Kalema offers the possibility of experiencing a night more focused on kizomba on Fridays and a more “African night” on Saturday. At this moment, on Friday night we can find some of the DJs most appreciated in the world of kizomba schools and festivals joining DJ Klaus, the resident DJ. On Saturday, the invited DJs are specialists in African audiences; for example, DJ Zauzito was there for a noite do semba (semba night).
FLYERS OF FRIDAY PARTIES (from facebook: courtesy of Kalema Club)
Summing up, if you go on Friday, you may find a kizomba workshop or a show by a well-known teacher; if you go on Saturday, you may find something more similar to the nostalgic African discos of the 80s and 90s. Or you may find a surprise, as new realities are being created every weekend. What are the new shapes that African-ness is taking in Lisbon´s nights? Are we helping the blending of social groups and night cultures through the love for music and dance? The answers are waiting on the dancefloor of discos like Kalema in the next years, starting from tonight. We´d better not miss it!
Livia Jiménez Sedano is currently member of INET-MD (Instituto de Etnomusicologia-Centro de Estudos em Música e Danca) and her work is being funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) of Portugal. She is a collaborator of Modern Moves Project and will become a full member on September 2015.
‘Salsa, in Benin?’ This was the response of many of our London friends on hearing about the rich life of Afro-Latin music and dance in Cotonou– which was revealed to them by the Modern Moves research visit to that city in February. What better way to continue educating the world on this vital and long-standing example of transatlantic rhythm exchanges than to showcase it in London through a Modern Moves event? The recent London visit of our new Beninese friends and colleagues, the Paris-based musician Laurent Hounsavi, and the Washington-based dancer Steve Deogratias Lokonon, helped us plan precisely such an event. In September 2015 we will host Laurent and Steve in an exciting music and dance collaboration that will highlight the place of Cuba in the Beninese musical imaginary. More information coming soon!
Laurent Hounsavi launched his new album, ‘LatinAfrica’ at the Benin International Salsa FestivalSteve Lokonon interprets Charlie Donato’s ‘Abrele camino al son’ at the Benin International Salsa Festival
The first time I heard about A Lontra disco was the night that Luísa Roubaud, one of the best experts in the dance scene in Lisbon and a great colleague and friend at INET-MD (Instituto de Etnomusicologia), talked to me about it. We were enjoying a night out with some of her friends who used to go to African music clubs since the eighties. Having witnessed all the transformations of the last decades, they were making a contrast between nowadays´ kizomba fashion night life and the golden times they remembered in the 70s and the 80s. As memories started popping up, their eyes shone when talking about A Lontra, a mythical dance club that opened in Lisbon after the outbreak of the independence wars of Portugal’s former African colonies. The owners were a married couple that came from Luanda and landed in Lisbon in 1975, running away from the war of independence in Angola, like other more than 500.000 people after-25th April 1974 (see Machado 1974). These frequent visitors of A Lontra remembered that the couple consisted of an incredibly beautiful Black African lady (Dinah) and her husband, a White Portuguese gentleman (Carlos Correia). Just like in fairy tales, the beauty of Dinah was well-known and admired in the kingdom of the African nights of Lisbon. They insisted that I should go and speak to her to know the whole story from her lips. Since that day, I had been looking forward to meeting her and making her an in-depth interview. I had seen the front door with the old metal sign representing an otter (that´s the meaning of “Lontra”) many times when passing by Rua de São Bento, and it was the night of Saturday 28th February that I decided to visit the place.
DOOR OF A LONTRA
METAL ICON OF A LONTRA
As I entered and approached the bar to ask about the politics of consumption, an ageless beautiful lady dressed in an elegant black suit came along walking slowly to attend. At that very moment, I said to myself: “no doubt, there she is”. Indeed, she was the legendary Dinah. I was lucky enough to get an appointment for an interview to know more about the history of the place and its secrets.
A Lontra was opened in 1977, right after Angola achieved its independence. This means that it was one of the first African discos of Lisbon. Like all the people who went to Portugal running away from the African wars of independence, they had to restart their lives from zero. Until they could find a way to make a living, they depended on public subventions aimed at “retornados” (“returned people”) and on the hospitality of their extended family. As they were experienced in managing discos in Luanda (such as the ones they owned, Cave Adão and Veleiro), they decided to start up a new business in the same branch. It was directed in principle to an audience of “retornados” that missed Africa and their lifestyle there. Gathering for listening to their beloved music became an urgent need, and A Lontra came to offer a home to alleviate homesickness through dancing together. The following images show some of the original spaces of A Lontra.
FIRST BAR, A LONTRA
SECOND BAR, A LONTRA
DANCE FLOOR, A LONTRA
A Lontra is situated in an emblematic place (Rua de São Bento 157), less than 5 minutes from the Assambleia da República, the most emblematic political institution of Portugal. It was not long time before some deputies, as well as intellectuals and artists heard of A Lontra and came to satisfy their curiosity. This nucleus of the political, artistic and intellectual elite of Lisbon became a faithful group of clients: these were the golden times of A Lontra, between the 80s and the 90s. In those days, DJing was combined with live music. Among other treasures, Dinah still keeps a large chest full of old vinyl discs of African music:
THE CHEST OF VINYLS
SOME OF THE OLD VINYLS (WE SEE IMAGES FAMILIAR FROM OUR RECENT VISIT TO COTONOU!)
Dinah also possesses a beautiful collection of art handcraft bought during travels to Angola, which are also displayed in the disco.
ELEPHANT WOODEN CHAIR
FEMALE FIGURE IN WOOD
MASK IN WOOD
Another jewel that she keeps carefully is a collection of pictures of those days. Some deputies used to gather in A Lontra for a drink after their sessions in Assambleia da República. Sometimes, they held meetings in a private room that Dinah gently opened for them. It means that important decisions for the future of Portugal were taken inside A Lontra´s walls.
A LONTRA, A NIGHT IN 1996
Through the 70s and 80s, more African houses opened up in Lisbon. Dinah and her husband Carlos opened a second house in 1980, “Cave Adão”, following the style and fame of the disco they had opened in Luanda, and in 1989 Dinah opened the disco “Rainha Njinga” (an epical Angolan queen known for her fierce resistance to the Portuguese colonizers). The clientele changed through time, and A Lontra started being visited by more and more people from Cape Verde. Vinyl music changed to CD, and later to digital files in the DJ´s computer, and the styles and ambience of the house changed too. With the recent boom of kizomba music and dance throughout the world, A Lontra adapted to the new times and DJs started introducing the most recent hits of kizomba. This is an excerpt of the fieldnotes I took that night:
“The night starts with loud afrohouse music, what indicates that the audience will probably be mainly people in their twenties. As expected, young boys and girls start coming since approximately two o´clock at night. The first beats of recent kizomba hits make some couples jump to the dancefloor. There is a pair of couples doing school-like steps, but the rest are dancing free style. Two boys leaning on the bar encourage themselves and finally leave their glasses on the counter to go and invite some of the girls that gather in groups by the edge of the dancefloor, but they refuse. Only when one of them insists and pulls a girl´s arm she accepts with a facial expression of resignation. Anyway, she abandons him in the middle of the song. It seems that it´s a hard job for boys. Then the DJ turns to Brazilian and international commercial music, such as Enrique Iglesias´ “Bailando” hit. Girls go crazy dancing in groups and having fun. The moment of funaná creates a new atmosphere: there are not many people dancing in couples, but mostly girls dancing among themselves and joking with and through the music. There is a girl dressed in a stripped blue and white tight dress who dances in an amazing and crazy way, moving her hips and feet in every possible way without ever losing the beat. Dinah is looking at her from the counter and smiling with pleasure. Then the DJ moves to batuque and people get even crazier, shaking hips and bumping navels on the dancefloor. Popular music from Cape Verde, mostly from Santiago, is played for a long time and intertwined with musical blocks of kizomba and afrohouse.” (Fieldwork diary, 28th February 2015) (To know more about batuque music and dance in Lisbon, see the work of Ana Flávia Miguel and Jorge Castro Ribeiro, INET-MD)
In conclusion, A Lontra can be proud of being one of the oldest African houses of Lisbon still open today and of having witnessed the recent history of Lisbon. It has resisted the changing times through adapting to the social and cultural transformations of the city. The dance steps of artists, politicians, intellectuals, curious visitors and people of all ages and from every corner of the PALOPS, have written on its dancefloor the history of relations between Portugal and Africa for at least the last 38 years. But, unlike an old museum, music has kept A Lontra young and alive. When asked about the secret for this, Dinah smiles and says: “this is something you do because you love it”.
Livia Jiménez Sedano is currently a member of INET-MD (Instituto de Etnomusicologia-Centro de Estudos em Música e Danca) and her work is being funded by FCT (Fundação para a Ciencia e Tecnologia) of Portugal. She is a collaborator in the Modern Moves Project and will become a full member of the team in September 2015.
REFERENCES:
Machado, Fernando Luís (1994) Luso-africanos em Portugal: nas margens da etnicidade. Sociologia: Problemas e Práticas 16: 111-134
Featured image: Archival photo of A Lontra, a night in 1996
Friday 4th May 2018 Anatomy Lecture Theatre (day) and Great Hall (evening) King’s College London, Strand Campus, WC2R 2LS Five years of Modern Moves draw to a close. Celebrate with…
Our fifth Moving Group was dedicated to an exploration of tango music and dance, and it involved a double bill. First, we heard Dr Kendra Stepputat, ethnomusicologist from the University…
![4_Second Bar A Lontra[1]](http://www.modernmoves.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/4_Second-Bar-A-Lontra1.jpg)
