| Decidedly Jazz Danceworks is going to be spreading a few "Havana nights" across Canada this season with ¡BULLA! A Loud Cuban Jazz Experiment, perhaps one of the troupe’s most ambitious productions to date.
Conceived and created by Hannah Stilwell and Kimberley Cooper, the project began close to a decade ago, when DJD began researching and exploring the connection between jazz and Afro-Cuban dance. Things took a definite direction in 2000 when Stilwell, having travelled to Cuba on several occasions, invited fellow choreographer Cooper to see the island for herself.
"We wanted to take the company to Cuba for a long time," says Cooper, "and we knew the Havana Jazz Festival was in December, so we set our goals on doing it."
Thanks to fundraising efforts and partnerships with St. Albert’s Arden Theatre, the Victoria Dance Series and Brock University’s Centre for the Arts, DJD’s dream became a reality last month, when the company headed for Havana for a five-week arts exchange and performance at the city’s celebrated festival. As well as performing DJD’s well-known piece 4:20 Special at the festival’s gala, the company of eight dancers and four musicians hired six Cuban artists to help create and tour ¡BULLA! They set up residence in a former convent in Old Havana and practised yoga daily prior to a full day’s rehearsals. In her time off, Cooper soaked up as much culture as she could.
"Creating there was sometimes difficult because everything was so overwhelming," says Cooper. "We would spend a day in class and then go out to dance at a nightclub, where we would learn the salsa."
An elderly couple even invited cast members for one of their weekly "swing dances," where Cooper and others discovered new forms in movement.
"Everything there is so spiritual and matter-of-fact," says Cooper. "Because this is in people’s homes, a part of everyday life, and so much about nature, it’s also a very different kind of spirituality."
She says adjusting to Afro-Cuban style was not easy. Although Cuban jazz rhythms originated in Africa like their North American cousins, they’ve made an entirely different evolution in Cuba since the slave trade. The dances of the Santería religion revolve around a multitude of saints or orishas, with a song or dance dedicated to each, while in the rumba, traditions vary from the relaxed yambu, to the complex guaguanco and the competitive male columbia.
While teaching their own style to their enthusiastic Cuban counterparts, Cooper and her team worked with four Edmonton musicians daily in rehearsals for ¡BULLA! And the musicians in turn worked in tandem with three Cuban musicians to create a hybrid of Canadian-Cuban original music. Led by musical director Chris Andrew and featuring percussionist Mario Allende, bassist Ruben Detoledo and Juno-nominated drummer Sandro Dominelli, the band’s music features percussion, piano, sax, flute and violin.
"It was such an amazing experience having live music in the room during rehearsals," says Cooper. "The Cubans taught us a lot of folkloric, and we had percussionists and singers all around us."
"I’ve never had that opportunity," adds Andrew. "I’m so used to watching a band explore and develop, and I look out there and see dancers developing movement to our music. I would write out the tune, and there would be adjustments from both musicians and dancers. It was challenging to take things to a new emotional place right away, but everyone was so open-minded and knowledgeable that it made things easy."
Havana’s world-renowned jazz scene is a musician’s Disneyland. As Andrew observed, Cubans are just starting to pick up on international influences in their music, particularly harmonic elements. Truly a fan of Cuban mastery in rhythm, Andrew will join the international cast and crew for March’s final rehearsals in Calgary, recording an album to be sold while they tour ¡BULLA! to a dozen cities, including Edmonton, Victoria, Fredericton, St. Catharines, Ontario and Beloeil, Quebec.
"Chris has written some really great music for this show," says Cooper, "and at this point I’m ready to just listen to it and explore all I’ve taken in. This is a big tour - I keep joking that the Cubans are really going to see Canada."
¡BULLA! A Loud Cuban Jazz Experiment will play the Jack Singer Concert Hall from May 31 to June 5. For information, call 245-3533 or visit www.decidedlyjazz.com. |
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