Nevada Ballet Theatre's Lambarena
On a recent warm spring evening at a local Las Vegas library, Nevada Ballet Theatre's dancers invited several hundred of their closest friends to join them for a stand-in-the-aisles-and-tap-your-toes version of "Lambarena," a ballet that serves as a tribute to the spirit of African dance and to Dr. Albert Schweitzer. "Lambarena" is a decidedly earthy piece, one that incorporates the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, traditional music from Gabon and West African dance movements, all rolled up into an energetic ballet originally choreographed in 1993 by Val Caniparoli (in collaboration with Dr. Zakarya Sao Diouf and Naomi Diouf) for the San Francisco Ballet. In keeping with the theme of the importance of community, the audience was indeed a diverse community, all enthusiastic participants in the experience. And what an experience.
Incongruous as it seems to have sultry, into-the-ground choreography layered on pointe shoe-clad ballerinas, it works. Actually, it does more than work. It offers a style and cadence that pulls the audience emotionally into the heart of the piece, rather than allow them to politely watch and analyze from a distance. The African concept of "community" infuses the work and wraps long arms around the audience, drawing them in to help celebrate.
Even so, "Lambarena" is not meant to be symbolic. It's meant to be enjoyed "for the sheer beauty of the movement" and to remind us of our connectedness as individuals to the whole. "Lambarena" is decidedly and deliciously earthbound. Traditional West African dancing has been described as polycentric. The body is meant to have several centers of movement - shoulders, chest, hips, legs - and the result is to feel the rhythm and music inside the body, allowing it to transport the emotion outward. The result is big, round, decisive movement.
"Lambarena's" choreography uses the full body and asks ballet dancers to loosen that traditionally rigid "corps" and feel the progression of the movement throughout, rather than focus on placement and form. The learning process for this kind of movement, however, was a challenge. As Bruce Steivel, Nevada Ballet Theatre's Artistic Director, said, "Val is very precise in his ballet." The dancers may be in pointe shoes but the choreography must look round, fluid and grounded.
West African dance encompasses many different styles but regardless of the specific African region where they originated - Liberia, Senegal, Mali, Guinea, Gambia, Congo, Cameroon, Ghana and more - all seek to celebrate the community and commemorate special occasions: rain or good crops, historical events, even the skill of a warrior. The dances are meant to tie the community together because everyone is encouraged to participate, from the very young to the elderly. Each is seen as having a significant contribution to the communityx and thus to the dance, to the telling of the tale.
And the music? Ethnomusicologist Ivan Lantos traveled with a National Geographic crew to Africa to record traditional Gabonese music and said, "This is some of the rarest music on the planet. Traditional Gabonese singing is predominantly polyphonic and polyrhythmic, which means that they do autonomous melodies and rhythms at the same time. You'd imagine that you've got a billion insects, gorillas, and mandrills shouting at once. The village music represents that same thing. There might be 50 women, each singing a different song, but the combined noise is audio perfection. Beautiful, insane and raw." Traditional accompaniment may include the mouth bow, harp, Kora (a complex chordophone), Balafaon (also known as the marimba) and of course, a predominance of percussion instruments like the Djembe, Sabar, Tama (Talking Drum) Kutiro and Djun Djun.
So where does Dr. Albert Schweitzer fit into this picture? Dr. Schweitzer was a concert organist who subsidized his medical career through his musical performances. After graduating, he went to Africa as a medical missionary. He so loved the people and the country that he moved to Lambaréné in French Equatorial Africa (now Gabon), establishing a hospital and spending the remainder of his life there.
This sense of fellowship is celebrated in "Lambarena" but it took concentrated effort to get there. As Bruce said, "We had lots of sore dancers from using round hip movements. It uses muscles that ballet dancers don't use."
The result is fantastic, not only in the choreography, but in the costumes and the colors as well. The colors - shades of brown, red, deep blue, orange and yellow - are warm and earthy. The costumes are further enhanced by the flowing, rippling fabrics, all based on the patterns and symbolism of West African cloths like Adinkra and Kente. No fluffy tutus here.
"Lambarena" is a wonderful combination of round, expressive, grounded movements and a feast of warm colors and interesting textures and patterns. The result is an inexplicable feeling of community for dancer and audience alike. Exactly what the doctor ordered.