Marche et improvisation

Recorded at the CND 1st December 2008

[dance masterclass with Elsa Wolliaston] 

“I awaken in the body each person’s rhythm. One needs to feel the strong point inside, which is also the weak point. It is in the awareness of this alternation that everyone can find that personal rhythm. Just repeating that Africans have rhythm in the blood is idiotic. The most one can say is that peoples that walk, Africans, Indians, listen to the body more closely. It is energy that gives birth to form, and not form that creates energy. It is hard for my students to learn how to discover this, for they sense where the thread of their life passes through and where, one day, it will break…” Elsa Wolliaston

Elsa Wolliaston begins this masterclass by working with sound during warm-ups, then chants, repetitive dances based on walking (leaving the hut, hunting dance, kakilambe), rhythm work with musician Jean-Yves Colson and improvisations.

Updating: November 2010