Maputo comes alive with Af
The continent’s artists boldly took on gender politics and greed at last week’s contemporary dance fest
It was strangely fitting that a work such as Panaibra Canda’s (Un) Official Language would come to be so symbolic of this year’s edition of the Danse l’Afrique danse! festival. The festival, cohosted with the Maputo-based Kinani dance biennale, took place from October 16 to 20 in several venues around Maputo’s city centre.
Canda’s work explored the tensions between the mother tongue and the colonial language while, through its unintended foibles, the work became a metaphor for the politics of collaboration — a theme hovering through this biennale.
Canda, a prominent Mozambican contemporary dance choreographer, who formed part of the country’s first wave of prominent contemporary dancers, was an artistic director of the festival.
For his piece he worked with two artists, Portuguese jazz singer Maria João and emerging Mozambican dancer Leia Mabasso. The result was a musical, academic and humorous look at the truncated dual identities produced, in particular, by t h e Mo z a mb i c a n ( p o s t ) c o l o n i a l experience.
In person, Canda comes across as a quietly spoken intellectual and on stage as an understated yet profound dancer. João, with her commanding presence and strong voice, however, diverted some attention away from him. Mabasso, despite the finesse of her movements, was constrained by the constantly occupied stage.
Though highly resonant, the piece, produced as part of the Pamoja p r o g r a mme t h a t l i n k s d i f f e r e n t parts of the continent through residencies, came to symbolise the difficult dynamics of the collaborative process that produced it — and, in doing so, held a mirror up to the entire festival.
Canda says this year’s Kinani event involved putting a certain amount of trust into the coprogramming with Danse l’Afrique danse!, as some of the works shown were still being created. “So with this edition we were expecting surprises,” said Canda.
This iteration of Kinani served as a regional stop to see Danse l’Afrique works produced in residency before this pan-African dance event moves to Burkina Faso next year, where it