Woloba
at Arie Crown Theatre, through December 31
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Both are evening-length narrative ballets closely tied to their cultural origins; both are family shows. But there the resemblance ends. Woloba (“The Big Forest”), a dance-opera written, directed, and choreographed by Abdoulaye Camara with assistance from Muntu artistic director Amaniyea Payne, is based on a Senegalese folktale and performed in Mandingo. But the broad acting and a synopsis in the program make it easy to understand. A baby girl, Khadi, is stolen from her parents by a forest demon. Many people search for her, and after several years a courageous hunter finds her, battles the demons, and returns her to her parents. By this time she’s grown into a beautiful woman, and falls in love with Ngnonsomana; but her parents marry her to a rich man, Bakari. He turns out to be unworthy, their marriage is annulled, and she’s free to wed Ngnonsomana; the final hour of the show is devoted to celebrating their wedding.
Of course ballet originated in French court dances of the 16th century, performed by and for the aristocracy; and in 1892, when The Nutcracker was first danced in Saint Petersburg for the tsar, the audience was overwhelmingly aristocratic. In both substance and form it favors the hierarchies of the court: the story transforms the main characters from bourgeois nobodies to aristocrats, and the final act is structured like a court scene. The values it upholds are selfishness, indolence, luxury, and isolation, not surprising given the original audience. What is surprising is The Nutcracker’s immense popularity in the last 40 or 50 years. Or maybe it’s not surprising in a culture that pushes consumption so hard. Moreover, patrons of this Nutcracker can indulge themselves and feel good about contributing to charity at the same time.
Both The Nutcracker and Woloba end with a celebratory suite of dances. The viewer’s representatives in The Nutcracker, the tsar’s representatives, are Clara and her prince, who don’t dance but watch. Ballet is not only aristocratic in its origins, it’s an exclusionary form by nature: almost no one has the body, the training, and the skill to dance on pointe, to extend the limbs and hold them at impossible angles. On some level ballet is about achieving certain preordained and otherworldly ideals. To do African dance well also requires great skill and a lifetime of training. But it’s not exclusionary in the way ballet is: it doesn’t require a certain type of body, it doesn’t require youth. It doesn’t require the dancer to fill preconceived forms, but allows her to give her own character to steps of her choice. Unlike ballet, in which many dancers achieve the forms but lose the spirit of dancing, it cuts to the chase, cuts right to energy and personality. Woloba celebrates people, celebrates community, in every way, from its overt messages to the high level of participation by all the performers to the way it includes the viewer. As my daughter said when we left Kennedy-King, it wasn’t just for black people, it was for everybody.
