Trip to Ethiopia to work with Adam Benjamin and
the Adugna dancers
April 7th - 25th 2003
Project Report
Jo Parkes
INTRODUCTION
On April 7th 2003, I went to Addis
Ababa to work as an assistant choreographer to Adam Benjamin, independent
choreographer and co-founder of CandoCo. Adam had been commissioned to make a
piece on the dancers of the Adugna project. Adugna are a group of sixteen contemporary
dancers, who used to live and/or work on the streets. They now work as dancers/community arts practitioners in Addis
Ababa. They work with hundreds of people on community projects each week and
often have choreographers travel to the city to create pieces with them as
performers. Each dancer supports their family on the income from their work,
most of them being the sole earner in large families. Most live in the
shantytowns of Addis Ababa.
Andrew Coggins, Royston Maldoom and Mags Byrne
of Dance United set up the project and the dancers have completed a
professional training programme, validated by Middlesex University. The dance
project is one area of work of the Ethiopian Gemini Trust, an NGO established
over twenty years ago, to work with families with multiple births. Among other
areas of work, there is also a documentary film programme, GemTV, also made up
of young people who formerly lived or worked in the streets of Addis Ababa.
Adam went to Ethiopia make a piece with the
Adugna dancers and with eight disabled dancers (the Adugna Potentials) whom he
recruited and has worked with over the last two years. Children with
disabilities have a difficult life in Ethiopia. In rural locations they are
considered to be a curse and often left to die. In the city, they have often
been separated from their families and placed in camps, as their families
cannot afford to support them. They have little chance of finding work. Through
funding from the Embassy of Finland in Ethiopia, the disabled dancers are now paid
for their work with Adugna and three more female dancers have been added to the
group.
My flight was funded by the Lisa Ullman
Traveling scholarship fund, my expenses by Newham Sixth Form College, The
Ethiopian Gemini Trust and The Gulbenkian Foundation through the Assistant
Placement Scheme, administrated by Dance UK. The project is supported by the
Embassy of Finland in Ethiopia.
The following report has two sections. The
first is a daily journal of the project. The second is an evaluation of the
outcomes of the project and suggestions for future developments.
DAILY JOURNAL
Pre-departure
Preparations
Two months of preparation - injections,
organizing and re-organizing flights, buying sterile needles in case of
emergency, getting the right insurance - are coming to their conclusion. It is 1pm on the day before I leave and I am
almost packed. I take my first malaria pill. Three hours later I am standing in
Boots with a basket full of diarrhea treatments, stomach settlers, suntan
lotion, blister plasters, films etc when my body starts to tremble, my head
goes light and I start to be violently sick. This lasts for several hours.
Preparations delayed somewhat….
Day 1
Monday, April 7th
Traveling
It is 2 am. A call to NHS direct and trip to
the emergency chemist leaves me clutching an alternative malaria treatment. Get
home and finish the packing that I couldn’t do while I was being ill.
It is 9am and I have had two hours sleep. I am
calling a homoeopathist to see if I can get a homeopathic malaria treatment
couriered to my house in time for me to catch my flight.
10.30am and the taxi is arriving in 15 minutes.
A knock on the door and my malaria treatment arrives. I get the taxi and get to
the airport where I declare war on mosquitoes. I buy every chemical agent
available to kill them - sprays, plug-ins, and repellents. I get on the plane.
I have now not eaten for 24 hours and not slept for more than three hours in
the last thirty. Needless to say, I am not the cheeriest of traveling
companions. I grunt at my neighbor, prop my head on a pillow and fall into a
deep sleep.
Day 2
Tuesday, April 8th
Arrival
Almost twelve hours later we are about to touch
down in Addis Ababa. As we near the ground in the darkness I see buildings and
stationary planes rush by the window. The wheels are in landing position and we
are feet from the ground when suddenly the pilot pulls the nose up and the
plane begins a steep, hair-raising (and stomach plunging) climb back into the
dark skies. At this point the British government is busy bombing Iraq and my
mind leaps to terrorism. I spend an anxious few minutes wondering if we have
been hijacked. Then the pilot’s voice crackles over the PA system: “Ah yes,
sorry about that. We were about to run out of runway so thought I’d better go
around and take a crack at it from the other side…” I start to feel anxious. It
is 2am in the morning and I am in the middle (or more accurately the east) of
Africa…alone. I am about to spend three weeks living and working with two
people who I barely know. In the last twenty-four hours I have been violently
ill and been involved in an air incident. It does not bode well for my stay in
Ethiopia.
Yet competing with the anxiety is a rising
sense of excitement…this truly feels like living.
We land; I get my bags and find my smiling
driver without incident. As we walk to the car, I find myself in a small crowd
of beggars. Wrapped in white cloths against the brisk night air, with a
mind-boggling array of crutches, stumps, shriveled limbs, injuries and
wide-eyed children, they follow me to the car. One clutches my bag, offering to
carry it. The driver snatches it away. This scene will be repeated many times
in my stay in Africa. It is the beginning of a perpetual anxiety - who to give
to, how to give, how much to give…. I thrust a few notes into a few hands and
the driver quickly speeds away. Welcome to Addis Ababa.
I arrive at the guesthouse and Adam has left me
a note, helpfully reminding me to brush my teeth with bottled water. And so the
dodging of the dodgy stomach begins…
10am - I wake and Adam and Rosa (Rosa Verhoeve,
unidentified lump in the second bed in my room, soon to be revealed all round
fantastic woman and project photographer) have gone to work. I am nervous. I
hear banging in the kitchen and poke my head around the door to receive my
second warm Ethiopian greeting. Shoayay, our ebullient and enthusiastic
cook/mother for our time in the guest house, a short, round woman with an apron
and wide smile clutches my hand and kisses me on the cheek three times. Her
beautiful, smiling assistant Genet, (who will wash clothes by hand in the bath,
back-breaking work which will make my white t-shirts whiter than I have ever
seen them) comes in and gently offers me her hand. The Gemini trust have put us
up in their guesthouse and we will be treated like royalty for our stay.
At lunchtime I am collected by the dynamic
American project manager, Leah Niederstadt, who will make life easy for the
duration of the stay - responding to every request with speedy efficiency.
After a brief lunch (eat with your right hand, it’s impolite to eat with your
left, don’t lick your fingers, it’s impolite to lick your fingers, don’t have
ice, make sure the seal on the water bottle is not broken….) we arrive at the
dancer’s rehearsal space - Kasanchez.
We walk up a rocky, uneven lane (how do
disabled people manage this?), through the corrugated iron fence of a compound
and towards a breezeblock structure, with a large open entrance on one side.
This will be our rehearsal space in the afternoons. I squeeze past the watching
children and Adam and I perch on wooden benches to watch the dancers run their
material from the morning session. I am a little nervous, still tired from my
journey and illness.
Adam and I are slightly uneasy together - we
need to find a way of working. For a while we sit and watch. I tentatively
suggest making the material travel and Adam is generous enough to go with the
idea. We split the group and start to combine the material to make sections.
Suddenly I am in the thick of choreography. Incomprehensible names rain down on
me - I try to get them by latching them to familiar things - Alemu, like the
car rental firm, Mekbul, like McDonalds! I smile and nod a lot. Good. Good.
Students step forward to translate. I ask them to join certain sections.
Microscopic moments of focus on individuals in the chaos of people - too many
people in a tiny space. Dusty floor. Clumps of children watching. Who are
dancers who are watchers? Smiling faces. Twinkling eyes. Every time I finish
with one pair someone shouts out to me “Jo, will you come and look at this?”.
And the names. The names! Unpronounceable. Indescribable. I will never get the
names…
Adam takes over the session, beginning to
combine the two sections that we have made. A moment for me to step back. He
thins out the movement, taking out several people. He has three people learn
one’s movement material. The section starts to get clearer and suddenly I feel
a sense of relief. We can work together. I am going to learn something from this
man. It will be worth the cost and the effort it took to get here. I fit in
here - I can do this.
We get home to be greeted by Shoayay and
fabulous home-cooked dinner. After dinner, I ask Adam to go through the
dancers’ names with me. I write them all down phonetically. He describes each
one as we go through the list. I can barely picture two or three of them.
At night, I experience for the first time the
nightly dog chorus. Howls and yelps rebound around the house as the
neighbourhood dogs’ tune-in for their nightly chat. My mind is filled with a
collage of wild and dusty pictures and sounds: speeding cars, crunching roads,
brittle, loud laughter, crutches flying through dusty air, goats by the
roadside... Each night of my stay in Ethiopia I will experience this. A rush of
images playing double speed on my retina as I try to sleep. Sensory overload.
Day 3
Wednesday, April 9th
Getting into the groove
Our driver collects us at 9am. Today my skin
feels paper-thin and the images of the city leave me short of breath and
fighting tears. Small children run up to the car at traffic lights, begging or
trying to sell tissues to us. Trucks whiz by them, missing them by inches. One
child’s eyes are full of redness and swelling. The blind and the lame lie next
to dusty, rocky roads.
The dancers counter the images of the city.
They are so bright and able - I feel challenged by their capacity to create and
learn. Adam and I plan a session but the warm-up massage leads gently into a
movement improvisation and I watch Adam follow the moment. The students make
sensitive duets based upon manipulating each others’ bodies. Over lunch we
discuss the afternoon. I am trying to find a way to support Adam in his
process, while not making him feel that he has to try my ideas or be distracted
by me. I try to ask him questions, which will help him to discover where he
wants to go: What of the movement generated so far really interests you? What
do you think the piece might be about? “The piece is about not having a voice,
not being able to speak, then being able to speak.”
In the afternoon Adam asks the dancers to tell
each other their stories, refining them down and down until they are two
sentences long. The students tell each other the stories and vote whose they
think are the most interesting. I have to record their votes - the way the
students pronounce the names sounds nothing like my phonetic spelling from
Adam’s pronunciation. The names, the names… It is strange to listen to stories
in a language that you don’t understand. I find delight in watching the
responses in the faces of the listening dancers, in the melody of each
storyteller’s voice, in the articulacy of their gestures. Sometimes the air is
electric. I want to know what is being said…
In the evening Adam and I talk about the
project. There are so many performers it is difficult to work in detail. I
suggest that we might want to split the group, making three smaller groups. I
find myself offering to lead on one of the groups, perhaps working with them to
make a dance video, which might convey some of what the project is about. I
feel undecided about this course of action. I know I will enjoy the challenge
of making a piece and the project seems to need both of us working in
leadership roles, but I came to Ethiopia to learn from Adam and observe him and
I feel that if I am working with a separate group this will not happen. He is
aware of this and brings it up. We decide to try it and see - we can look at
work and feedback in the evenings. I reassure myself that our working
relationship will endure after the trip so there may be other opportunities for
me to observe him work.
Day 4
Thursday, April 10th
Unexpected inspiration
Adam suggests that I film the journey to work
for the video. We hope to give an impression of the bone-shaking, mind-blowing
experience of that daily trip. What seems like an easy suggestion is actually
very difficult. As a hangover from the communist era, people are wary of video
in Ethiopia, thinking they may be being spied upon. This issue is intensified
when the camerawoman is a “ferengi” (foreign person) as they are justifiably
alert to exploitation. We are anxious. Adam places a T-shirt over the camera to
disguise it. I dip it behind the seat as we pass soldiers. We pass typists
sitting on the street waiting to work, men shoveling sand, the railroad tracks,
swarming with people walking, sitting, trading goods, having their shoes
cleaned by young boys and girls…. Three lanes of traffic surge by a goatherd,
moving a small cluster of scrawny goats across the bald grass verge, hunting
for a few green shoots.
In the morning Adam and I split up to coach the
material that we have already made with the dancers. I pretty much know their
names by now (hours of repetition, poring over my journal and asking as they
warm-up) and have found a collaborative exchange in making material with them.
It is a delicate balance - I am trying not to create too much new material,
shifting the dance away from what Adam is making, but want to refine the
movement and test some ideas. Each time I finish with one couple another calls
me “Jo, look at this“. As I select one
couple, looks of disappointment flash across the faces of three others. The
enthusiasm is heady and exciting - I wish my dancers and students in London
were this eager. I feel like I barely have time to breathe and certainly don’t
manage to watch Adam work.
By the afternoon, I am exhausted. Over lunch we
have planned that I will take two groups outside to work so that Adam can have
some space (physical and mental) with the third group. This is definitely the
“assistant” role - I am trying to clear a space for Adam. Fortunately my
experience as a teacher allows me to find a way to set twenty people to work on
different things simultaneously, yet usefully. I work on finding songs and
music to accompany the dance with one group and use my mini-disk player to
record stories with the second group. I feel, however, that I am doing what I
know, that this is not a steep learning curve for me.
And then it happens…crowd control turns into
one of the most memorable afternoons of my stay in Ethiopia. This is the joy of
working in unusual locations with unusual groups of people - when you think you
are on the most familiar ground is when you are most surprised.
I ask one group to find a song, which connects
to any of the stories that they had told the day before. We are crouched on a
patch of grass in the compound. I am moving between two groups, dodging the
fierce afternoon sun. Children play noisily on nearby swings. Andualem, one of
the Adugna dancers, suggests a song and suddenly ten voices raise in a melody
about motherhood. The drums ripple as the cora picks out the tune. Melodic and
yearning, they sing, calling and responding, harmonizing. In my stomach, I feel
a deep sense of excitement - tears well in my eyes. I have never heard music
like this and it speaks to my heart. I have had difficulty connecting with one
dancer, Genet, but as she sings her pure, true voice rises above the others.
She looks at me directly for perhaps the first time and we smile. From now on
music will be how we connect. On my last day in the country, I will record her
singing this very song.
I move inside a rough shelter made of wood and
blue plastic to work with the second group to uncover more stories about their
lives. I have a minidisk player and one dancer who has an injury is keen to
take on the role of sound recordist. I teach him what little I know about the
equipment and hope for the best… I ask
the dancers what they each did before they began dancing - selling cigarettes,
carrying loads of metal from the market, selling second hand clothes… I have a
sense that the dancers have told these stories many times before. They are well
rehearsed.
Then it happens. One disabled dancer, Hiwot,
tells me about her brother. He died recently. I can tell she is sad and that
there is a story there, but am unsure whether I should ask or not. I don’t want
to upset her, but she seems to want to share her story. I tell her about
loosing my grandfather who was very dear to me and ask what happened to her
brother. In the midst of tears, she tells me about growing up with him, the
games that they used to play, how he got sick and the doctors did nothing so he
died. He was twenty-six. The mood of the group shifts and others start to tell
stories. Tariku tells about the time that he entered a soldier’s camp to get
food and was so hungry he did not notice that he had walked into the middle of
a fierce battle in the civil war. “To this day he does not know how he walked
through the bullets” Mekbul translates. Minyahil wanted to be like the fancily
dressed men in his area - the suits, the shoes, the swagger. I laugh. I can see
it in him. He found out that they were thieves and was on the brink of joining
them when he found out about the Adugna project and got involved in dance.
Tilahun, a disabled dancer, was in a camp for disabled people where he got
education, food and clothing, but he was not allowed to see his brother. He
decided to leave the camp and the security that it provided so he could be with
his brother, from whom he was split when his grandmother died. Rosa and I laugh
and cry with the dancers. Leah comes to tell us that the session is over, but
somehow the stories keep coming and we can’t stop. Rosa and I share our own
stories and the dancers ask us questions. Adam pops his head in. It is time to
go. Still we don’t stop….
At home that evening Adam, Rosa and I are like
children. We trip around, making stupid jokes, laughing until we cry, until our
stomachs hurt. This banter will become a feature of our stay. I think it has to
do with being in such an extreme situation, seeing such things and hearing such
stories - a kind of release. Adam and I talk late into the night. I talk to him
about my sense of unease at encouraging Hiwot to talk about her brother. I am
concerned about exploiting her - upsetting her for the sake of getting a good
story. It is good to have someone experienced to discuss such things with - I
spend so much of my time teaching less experienced artists it is good to have a
chance to learn and challenge myself. We discuss dance, the world, our
respective careers, and the challenges of being a choreographer…. I realize
that my learning on this trip will happen in these moments as much as when I am
formally working.
Day 5
Friday, April 11th
Venturing out
My first trip out alone. After rehearsal, I get
a cab to go to Gem TV to meet the production crew for the video shoot. GemTV is
also part of the Ethiopian Gemini Trust, a media company run like Adugna and
also populated by young men and women who formerly lived and/or worked on the
streets. I feel that I have been very
protected since I got to Ethiopia - always a driver to take me from place to
place, always a student at my side to chaperone me, never walking alone… I am a
little nervous.
No need to worry - the cab driver is lovely and
when we can’t find the unmarked compound of GemTV he asks at least five people.
One jumps into the car to show us the way. The driver speaks a little English
and tells me that he is from the neighboring country Eritrea, with which
Ethiopia is at war. He has to move house every few days to avoid being caught
and sent back.
The production meeting goes well. We show each
other our past work and agree on a schedule for shooting. I have never directed
a video before - I usually work with a director, so I feel a little out of my
depth. What have I let myself in for? I figure I came to Ethiopia not planning
to make anything myself, so anything I make is better than nothing…right?
By the time I get home, I feel like I have all
the dust of Africa up my nose. Adam has been busy thinking in his time alone.
He has formulated a plan to fundraise to build the Adugna project a dance
studio. The Kasanchez studio is small, dusty and has a concrete floor. Several
of the dancers have severe injuries caused by working every day on concrete.
Clearly they need a space that allows them to function at the level of
professionalism of which they are capable. As we sip beers, Adam, Rosa and I
talk about how we might raise such money, how much money, to build what…it
feels entirely possible and the right course of action. Adam wants to use the
video I am making to raise money, showing it at a fundraiser where Rosa will
exhibit her photos. I spend several hours planning shots and locations - the
ante has been upped and I am under pressure.
In the evening, we go to the Sheraton to see a
Senegalese rap group perform. As we drive up to the hotel it takes my breath
away. It is the most ostentatious building I have ever seen, all gold pillars,
marble and fountains. This is one of the hardest things to deal with in Addis
Ababa - the contrasts. Virtually next to the hotel is a shantytown. I go to the
toilet to hide the hot tears which spring to my eyes…I am angry, sad,
embarrassed to be there. I am not sure I can stay. When I come out four of the
dancers have arrived (their entrance paid for by the Alliance Francais with
whom they are doing a project). With them there the concert seems tolerable and
we end up dancing until the early hours - definitely discovered some moves
which will make their way into my next piece. That Mr. Benjamin can sure burn
up the dance floor! By 9am the next day Jo, an English friend of Adam’s, living
in Addis Ababa, will have written an article for the local newspaper on what
happens when choreographers go dancing!
Day 6
Saturday, April 12th
Tourists and location scouting
Our first “day off”. The morning is spent
buying souvenirs and seeing a little of the city. In the afternoon, Rosa and I
go out with Mekbul to scout for locations. When I get out the video camera the
local children cluster around me and begin to perform their “gangsta” rap
moves. I have footage of children in the east end of London doing the same
thing - a universal gestural language… I laugh and play with them and find
great locations. It is good to be walking in the city.
Day 7
Sunday, April 13th
Day of learning, day of humility
I am tired and I do not want to go out. Rosa
and I have arranged to meet two of the disabled dancers to visit their homes.
We both desperately want to go, but we are exhausted and the lure of a day
spent lounging is strong. We haul ourselves to the Kasanchez compound to meet
Tilahun and Morca. Again - when something seems choresome is when the most
intense experiences present themselves.
We film Morca and Tilahun on the way to
Tilahun’s house on the outskirts of the city. I feel glad that we invited
Minyahil, the injured dancer who has become so inspired by technology - sound
recording and the camera. I think he might make an excellent filmmaker. He
likes to take risks and pushes difficult moments to get shots. I know that
without him we could not have shot this footage - two white women, two disabled
boys and a video camera worth a year’s salary in a difficult area shooting
footage with anxious people. Nice move Jo!
At Tilahun’s we are met by his two brothers.
The younger one was a bouncer in a club (he had to threaten Minyahil once for
refusing to pay for a broken glass!). He was getting into fights a lot so he
gave up and is now unemployed. He and Tilahun share a room, with one double bed
and two chairs. No water inside. Nowhere to cook. Tilahun’s elder brother was
put into prison for seven years - “disappeared” in the middle of the night because
he was a member of the opposition party. He is now released and living with his
girlfriend around the corner. This is
the first time in their lives that the brothers have been able to live close to
each other. They are clearly very happy.
The tiny room is painted a beautiful bright
pink and, despite there being no identifiable place to wash (aside from a jug
and bowl), they are all dressed in immaculate clothes, looking like movie
stars. Their pride overwhelms me.
We all go for drinks and they explain that the
black strings around their necks are to indicate that they are Christians. They
ask me what religion I am and I say that I was brought up Christian, but don’t
really have a religion. For the first time since my Grandfather died over five years
ago, someone asks me why I don’t believe in God and I am embarrassed that I
don’t have a clear argument. They are so convinced by the truth of their
religion I don’t know what to say. I don’t believe because I haven’t really
thought about it that much…
Day 8
Monday, April 14th
The arrival of Tereffwerq
Adam has a stomach bug and an early morning
meeting, so I lead the warm-up. I feel a little nervous, as it is the first
time that he has seen me work with the whole group. We have decided to make a
whole group piece after all - combining the material that we have made and then
I will shoot my sections separately after Adam leaves (Rosa and I are both
staying on after the end of the project - ostensibly to travel but this will
soon be consumed by a desire/necessity to keep working. It seems impossible to
leave the intensity of the experience with the dancers).
At the end of the day we meet Tereffwerq. Since
we arrived in Ethiopia, we have heard about this girl in a wheelchair -
profoundly disabled - who wants to join the project but whom no one can reach.
Today she arrives. Her dad wrestles her
wheelchair out of the back of their old VW car. The chair is old enough to be
in a museum. Tereff, short for Tereffwerq, which means ‘border of gold’ is
smiley and open, clearly intelligent and able to understand English. We agree
to have her work on the project. It is one of those moments, so familiar from
my work at NewVic, when you know the easy course of action would be to ask her
to watch and to include her next time, but you know that you will never do
that. You know that she may never return, that the moment is now and that this
may shift her life immeasurably. Adam asks me if I agree to include her in the
performance and I nod. Of course…
Day 9
Tuesday, April 15th
Tereff’s day
I lead the warm-up so that Adam can dance with
Tereff. We need her to begin dancing with the group fast, so dancing with him
seems the obvious way in as his experience will help her to learn and become at
ease more quickly. She does not want to
leave her wheelchair, so she dances in it. The room has an air of tension and
excitement in it. The Adugnas and the Potentials are so used to dancing with
each other that they have become a little complacent. This is new. They have
never danced with someone in a wheelchair before and Tereff’s delight at moving
and being with the group is infectious and attractive. Soon the pair work
becomes a group improvisation and Tereff is dancing with the group.
Adam has lots of work to do, so has asks me to
start working with Tereff to integrate her into the performance. I feel a
little pressured, as I am trying to get the pieces together for both he live
show and the filming on Friday, added to this Leah needs to borrow two dancers
to go to the funding presentation at the Finnish Embassy. I try to take a deep
breath and concentrate on one thing at a time. I have a very competent group,
so I let them get on with rehearsing while I work with Meseret and Tereff. It
is slow going, as Meseret needs to learn to work with the wheelchair (which is
old, unpredictable and has sharp edges) and she is tentative. We make some
material that lacks risk. Adam comes
over. He quickly take she material and starts to teach skills of working with
the wheelchair. Suddenly I am learning fast. As I move on to work with my group
other dancers start to play with Tereff and suddenly the wheelchair is being
integrated into the group. Adam does some fast teaching about empowering Tereff
to make choices - not pushing her,
offering her the opportunity to be moved and letting her lead the movement. It
would be good for the group to be able to discover these things slowly, but we
have to create a piece fast, so teaching them directly seems the only choice.
In the afternoon, Adam and I work to combine
the sections into a whole piece. Again, I try to read Adam’s creative flow to
work out the best way to make suggestions. I ask him questions to help him
think. He looks gray and sick so I try to do the running around - being dynamic
to keep the group moving, standing up and moving people when he gives
instructions. In the evening, we spend several hours with me moving around
pieces of paper with the sections of the piece on them, trying to work out the
order. It is fun to structure a piece with someone. This is the part of the
creative process, which usually feels the most difficult and lonely for
me.
Day 10
Wednesday, April 16th
Putting the piece together
I lead the warm-up again and Adam gets Tereff
to leave her wheelchair and work on the floor. The rooms holds its breath and
tears glisten in lots of people’s eyes as she laughs with delight. It feels as
if she has been dancing with us forever. Yet I know from her writing that this
is the first time that she has had an opportunity to be with a group of her
peers, that she has been frustrated at always being shut away at home and not
being able to express herself or use her intellect. He father glows with
happiness and pride when he drops her off. He clutches my hand, shaking it
vigorously and stumbling over his thanks. I am embarrassed. I don’t want his
thanks. Tereff has brought something incredible to the group. I try to explain
this but he just clutches, shakes and thanks me. We thank each other. Another
of those moments of which my trip has been full - warm, human exchanges, deep
emotion expressed openly….
Extracts from Tereff’s writing, which we
included in the piece:
After ten years I began to crawl without help.
They bought a plastic alphabet for me and I
began to join the letters to communicate.
In the future I want to feed myself and dress
myself with money that I have earned myself.
We continue putting the piece together. I feel
able to step back a little as Adam constructs the piece. He is feeling better
and has regained his dynamic energy. It is interesting to watch him work under
pressure. He is very patient with the dancers, explaining what he wants
quietly. My energy is louder, more explosive, so I watch their responses. Perhaps
there would be a different way for me to work.
The structure works pretty much as we had
planned, although the end does not and we do not have time to work it out…
Day 11
Thursday, April 17th
The show
We arrive at the school where we are to show
the piece. There are no stage lights. We get Leah to get Tedi, the Adugna
technician to bring portable lights and spend the day constructing the piece.
This requires extreme patience from me. Adam works quickly, but without an
overt sense of urgency. He experiments with ideas, layering sound of the
movement and structuring transitions between sections. I enjoy watching him
work and feel I am learning about trusting your instincts, improvisation in the
creative process and tips and techniques for building soundscapes and linking
movement. Still - I have to bite my tongue as Adam focuses upon what feel like
details to me when we have yet to complete the piece. I would be sketching
everything roughly and getting to the end then going back for details if I had
the time. Again - it is good to experience a different process, to consider
other ways of working which are not natural for me. I try to support him,
jumping in with ideas when he seems stuck, applying his instructions, coaching
dancers. Ten minutes before the curtain goes up we don’t have an ending and
there are still no lights. We draw the curtains across the stage and quickly
make an ending as the audience come in.
The audience sits on hard chairs in a school hall, crammed together - an odd mix
of school children and dignitaries. The dancers dance beautifully. You would
never guess at the frenzy of the last few hours. The lights are working
patchily and the dancers start to redirect them as people move so that they are
lit. Lights veer wildly around the stage and dancers are sometimes brightly lit
from one direction, sometimes in darkness. The effect is sometimes
breathtakingly beautiful and sometimes cringingly bad. The audience does not
seem to mind.
I am sitting next to Tereff’s dad. As she first
enters the stage, he begins to cry. He cries for the next twenty minutes as his
daughter lights up the stage. The energy in the room seems to revolve around
her. The hairs on my arms and neck stand on end as I see her find her medium,
her sphere, a fish in water… Her dad looks at me, clutches my hand and begins
to thank me profusely. I thank him back and so it goes on. At the end of the
piece the audience leaps to its feet. Many are crying. Integrated work is so established
in the UK, it is easy to forget how new and usual it is to these people’s
eyes…and how revolutionary a concept it is for them.
Day 12
Friday, April 18th
Going solo
Adam has gone - whisked away at some unearthly
hour and I am left alone to shoot the video, which I hope will help raise money
for the Adugna studio theatre. We spend the day rehearsing shots in the studio
- just seven dancers and our crew from GemTV. It is a relaxed and easy day. I
feel inspired by having seen Adam work, but also pleased to get to lead a
section of the project myself. I am solely in charge of a shoot for the first
time and trying to remember all I have learned from watching the excellent
directors with whom I have collaborated before. I am tired though - being in
Addis is a difficult experience even without working this hard - coping with
the stares, the begging, the sight and the sounds, the heat, the mud…
Day 13
Saturday, April 19th
Shooting
We arrive at Kasanchez and there is a problem.
Somehow we have not managed to let everyone know, who needs to know, that we
are going to use the space. One of the dancers has a class and his students
will be arriving soon. We wait around for an hour and persuade one Adugna to
teach his class outside. I feel terrible. I feel that my work is being placed
above his and I want him to know that I do not feel that my work is more
important than his. But I have to leave Ethiopia soon and we have to shoot the
section…. It goes well and we get out fast. So far so good.
The afternoon goes less smoothly. We are
shooting outside the compound and have to cope with the inevitable crowds of
people. The ground is filthy and rocky and the dancers don’t want to roll on
it. I get down on the floor to roll to persuade them to do it. I have long since
got over any squeamishness I may have about dirt - I have been rolling in acres
of it since I arrived. With the dancers ready to go (they behave like complete
professionals - never complaining, giving fantastic performances in burning
sun) we start to shoot and then the fun starts!
About fifty to a hundred people have gathered
around to see the shoot. Mothers start to push their children into shot, trying
to get them on camera. The dancers and I line up to try to defend the space of
the shot, but it is impossible. We pay one of the biggest guys to keep people
out of the shot, but he keeps wandering backwards into the shot. I squat down
like a quarterback, facing away from the shot, ready to tackle any stray child
who tries to run into the frame. I have no idea how the dancers are performing
or if Tedi from GemTV is getting the shots. I just hope for the best. Mothers
keep pushing children into the shot, other adults, trying to help us, start
throwing stones at the children to get them out of the shot. I am encouraging
cruelty to children. HELP! Bob, the fabulous English director supporting the
GemTV guys, acts as a child decoy, chatting to crowds of kids, wearing his
baseball cap and making an exhibition of himself. I fluctuate between tearing
my hair out and laughing out loud. If we don’t get anything at least I will
have good stories to tell….
Day 14
Sunday, April 20th
A test….
It is Palm Sunday and the students taking class
at Kasanchez have palms folded into beautiful designs around their heads, on
their fingers, on their wrists. It turns out that today is the day that I will
need to call upon all my Christian spirit to generate enough patience to
survive. Tedi has brought the wrong camera, so we have to wait for an hour
while he gets the right one. He seems a bit absent.
When he returns we start shooting. Today is a
tight schedule and we have the most difficult sections to shoot, left until
last so that I have established a working relationship with Teddy. The dancers
are leaping around in burning sun. The weather in Ethiopia has become erratic
as the rainy season seems to have started early. For hours the sun burns us up
and then suddenly there is a downpour. We wait it out…. I am learning patience,
learning to be more relaxed about problems…we will get what we get…
As the shoot progresses, I find Tedi seems not
to be listening very hard and when I watch shots back the dancers are sometimes
wholly missing. Then Bob tells Rosa that today is his “chat” chewing day. Chat
is the Ethiopian drug of choice and suddenly everything becomes clear. I decide
to watch every shot back and occasionally act as camerawoman myself.
As the day wears on I get a bit snappy - it
seems like an impossible task to get the shots. The dancers dislike my choice
of location - an area of decayed fencing and rubbish. I think it is beautifully
poetic, speaking of decay, the transience of life - they just think it is dirty
and shows Addis in a bad light. I can see what they mean and understand that
they want their city to look good, so we move. And it then it starts to rain.
It pours. We wait…
Finally, I get almost all the shots and we
finish. The dancers have been patient beyond belief - professional to the last
and Tedi too has driven on through the day without once complaining, being
wholly supportive.
At home, I decide not to watch the footage back
as if it is not as good as I wanted, it might make me want to continue working
and I really need to stop and take a day or two off before returning to work
next week. I collapse…
Day 15
Monday, April 21st
Tears
I am exhausted and it takes Rosa three attempts
to get me out of bed. Today we have agreed to go to Alert Hospital, a home for
adults and children with disabilities, situated about forty-five minutes away
from where we are staying. Morca, one of the disabled dancers, lives there; and
he and Tilahun have been doing some dance with a group of about eleven young
boys there - a project initiated on their own. I am touched by the invitation
to go to Morca’s home and by their enthusiasm. I want to support their
independent work, but the urge to lie down and sleep is strong…
The camp is dismal. Long rows of bunk beds,
black cloths at the windows blocking the light, personal possessions in little
tin boxes. The excited children are dirty and, as they hug me, I hold my breath
for the smell. I hug them back tightly. There are hundreds of pictures on the
walls, mostly drawn by hand, lots of them drawn by Morca. This is the camp that
Tilahun left in order to be able to live with his brother.
We walk around the camp. Everywhere we look are
smiling faces - adults and children, eyes watching us intently. I am struck by
the fact that no-one seems to have anything to do. They sit and watch us or
walk with us. Pop music is piped through tinny speakers. Morca and Tilahun have
bought us Coke and Fanta, they have prepared for our visit in detail. They take
us outside and on a muddy field they show us the work that they do with the
young boys. They warm up carefully and then plunge into a series of activities.
I recognize exercises, which Adam uses regularly. The children balance
precariously on each other, they are sensitive and athletic, paddling through
the mud and ignoring the beating sun. I am moved beyond words. The children are
so proud of what they are doing and Morca and Tilahun are so confidant - an inspiration for them. I dance with the
boys, doing a blind leading exercise…it feels like the best dance I have ever
had.
On the way back in the minibus with Mekbul,
Rosa, Tilahun and Morca, I cry. It is the first time I have cried in front of
the dancers, but I just can’t stop. The children, the dirt, the boredom, their
joyous movement, the power of Morca and Tilahun’s work….
In the early evening, Tedi, Rosa and I get
shots of Addis for the video. We work out that if I show Tedi the shot and then
Rosa and I walk away it is possible to shoot without it becoming a circus. The
tiny Tedi often finds himself surrounded by big burly men, but diffuses each
situation with humor and his good natured banter. He is a true professional and
it is nice to see him in his element.
Day 16
Tuesday, April 22nd
Quite a journey
Rosa and I set off for our one night of
relaxation at Lake Langano - a lake about five hours to the south of Addis.
Mekbul is our chaperone and we have hired a car and a driver. It feels like a
vast relief to have finally finished working and to get to relax. Little do we
know…
To make a long story short - the car breaks down,
we think we may have to hitch, hours of negotiation with lorry drivers and
locals, Mekbul negotiates a ride to the lake with the driver of a passing
battered VW bus, the car driver tries to persuade us that he can get us another
car, we get in the VW. Rosa: “I don’t mind picking up other people on the way
as long as I don’t end up with a goat on my lap…”
Day 17
Wednesday, April 23rd
Quite a journey - chapter 2
After a night of relaxation (swimming, baboons
and HUGE bugs), the VW bus arrives almost two hours late (again - we were
preparing to hitch as Rosa‘s flight is leaving tonight). The five hour journey
back to Addis is accompanied by the one tape that the driver has (and lots of
chat chewing by the drivers…) Let me tell you, if I ever hear early Madonna,
Whitney Houston or Boy George again, I think I will have to kill myself…
Day 18
Thursday, April 24th
Farewells
I go to see the Adugna dancers to say goodbye.
I am excited to hear that they are already implementing some of the things that
Adam and I have suggested. They are developing integrated teaching teams, more
integrated classes and several integrated projects, including one with Morca,
Tilahun and Mekbul at Alert. I am again overwhelmed by the intelligence, skill
and motivation of the dancers and the vision and efficiency of Leah. Ask and
you shall receive…
I say goodbye with a heavy heart - promising to
return soon…
Day 19
Friday, April 25th
Home
At 4.45am the car arrives to take me to the
airport. It is raining so hard I can barely see the driver or the guard. I tie
a plastic bag on my head - an Ethiopian form of protection against the rain,
learned from the students. There is a hair-raising drive to the airport with
the driver vigorously wiping away the mist on the windscreen and forgetting to
turn the wheel while he does it. We career through puddles and the car surges
sideways. We accelerate and slow sown in surges. It would be ridiculous to have
survived shooting the video, the journey to Langano and the daily dice with
death of riding in taxis to end up in an accident on my last morning and I
start to pray to some higher force. Maybe that’s why the Ethiopians have such
strong religious beliefs….
On the plane I look at the rushes from the
shoot. I did not dare to do it before. They are good. I am relieved.
I arrive home and feel like I have landed in an
alien world. I can’t understand why there are no dogs barking and miss the call
to prayer, the heat of the end of the day, the dust and the fumes. England
looks cold and gray, damp, lacking the
depth and intensity of color, sound, smell and experience. Boring and plain.
I immediately start negotiating my return to
Ethiopia…
Thanks
I would like to thank all those who supported
this project financially: Lisa Ullman Traveling Scholarship Fund, Newham Sixth
Form College, The Ethiopian Gemini Trust and The Gulbenkian Foundation, Dance
UK and the Finnish Embassy.
Thanks to NewVic for releasing my time, to
Dance United and to the Gemini Trust for agreeing to my participation. Thanks
to Leah Niederstadt for amazing efficiency and support.
Thanks to Rosa Verhoeve for tireless support
and inspiration and of course to Adam Benjamin for making this inspirational
experience possible and for all I learned. Above all, thanks to the dancers for
sharing their intelligence, talent and experience and for welcoming me so
warmly and receiving my work with such enthusiasm.
PROJECT OUTCOMES
Project outcomes for me
- a profound experience
- a driving ambition to further my work on
similar arts development projects
- a strong mentoring relationship between Adam
and myself, which has been sustained on my return and will develop through the
post-production phase of the video
- choreographic development - learning from
supporting Adam and applying those lessons
- development as project leader/teacher - again
learning from alternative approaches embodied in Adam’s work
- the opportunity to make and show my own work
(the video is to be screened in a fundraising event at The Place)
- the opportunity to develop my work - I have
been invited back to coach the piece for a performance in October and hope to
make a small group piece of my own while I am in Ethiopia
Future developments arising from the project
- completing and presenting the video
- assisting Adam and Dance United in
fundraising for a studio/theatre
- returning to continue integrated and
choreographic training with the dancers
- returning to rehearse the piece and hopefully
to make a new piece of my own
- Potential collaborations between the project
and NewVic, the college at which I work