Dance-artist Francesca Pedullà and musician Eric Acakpo work together since more than 10 years, teaching, creating contexts for cultural and artistic exchange and performing in Benin and abroad.

Their artistic and pedagogic collaboration focuses on the fundamental spiritual and social roles in which dance and music are vested in Benin’s culture. Their attention is captured by the structure and phasing of ritual as a performative act where the body, the rhythm, the voice, the gesture and repetition become instruments of evocation, portals for connection and access to collective memory. These processes translate from the persona to the collective and although structured, leave space for improvisation.

During the workshop, we will discover the universal bio-mechanical and subtle rhythmic principles on which some traditional motifs are built. 

We will step further by learning some traditional dances and relating them to their context (content, meaning, spatial relation and dialogue with the rhythm)

Moreover we will use the gathered experience to move towards creative collective and personal re-elaboration. 

 

Link: Ancient kinetic wisdom Berlin 2019