Advocate for the African transnational context

An interview with 'Funmi Adewole Elliott

By Emmaly Wiederholt

'Funmi Adewole Elliott is a Nigerian artist, playwright and academic based in the United Kingdom. After spending a decade acting with African dance theater companies, time spent time in the academy, before recently embarking on a new way to found a non -profit organization that supports professional development and practice with an approach to the African Diasporic dance and creative health. Here, she shares her passion advocating the African Diasporic dance and her interest in post -colonial art forms.

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How did you get into the dance and what gave you a way as an artist?

The dance has been a passion of my childhood. I danced around the house to the cassette tapes of the Jùjú music. I also listened to the African -American funk and British pop. I would dance in front of television imitating movements. There were no dance classes to go to. I did this from eight or nine years until I was in high school. When I look back, I was a fairly isolated child. I grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, but I was born in Britain. I moved with my family to Nigeria when I was about eight years old. I couldn't speak the language and it took me time to learn, so music offered a path to the world around me. I was also writing poetry at that time. This period of my life molded my dance and acting approach. I promoted my passion to investigate postcolonial experience and self -directed study. Ultimately, it has led to my current research interests, such as 'dance as a profession', African cultural production and practice based on practice.

When I arrived at the University in the 80s, I connected with people in performing arts and creative writing. I did not go to college as a dance student; I went as a language student who studied English and French. I couldn't tell my parents that I wanted to change the theatrical arts, because they were already upset because I was studying languages ​​instead of medicine, so I learned through experience. I saw the essays, I took subsidiary courses and ended up as artistic director of the Poetry Club.

When I moved to Great Britain in the mid -20 years, I discovered that I had enough experience in the presentation to audition for African theater companies. They were the 90. African Dance Theater was based mainly on traditional dances. I didn't know many traditional dances. I grew up in a city, in Lagos. Although I visited my hometown with my mother and went to the festivals, my predominant dance experience was the urban social dance. What allowed me to work in this context was my ability to move between theater and dance. In many productions, if they needed a stories narrator, it was generally because I had experience in performance poetry. I would talk to the audience from the stage of the stage and join some of the dances that are held in the center of the stage. It was the combination of language, movement and social dance that formed the basis of my practice. I turned for about 10 years of rest before entering education. Now I have returned to independent performance.

Are there one or two pieces that feel emblematic of your performance career that you would like to share more?

I will mention a couple of shocking dance productions of which I was part. I acted with the Pan -African dance set in Yaa Asantewaa: Warrior Queen (2000). Yaa Asantewaa was a Queen of Ghana. She is a historical figure, and it was a great honor to interpret it. This was in 2000, for what a long time ago. It was one of the largest productions in which it was: the cast composed of a group of black-British song, the dance company itself, an orchestra and a traditional Ghana dance suit. Yaa Asantewaa was made by three women. I was Yaa Asantewaa is the word. I narrated the text and danced. That was a big one for me.

Another production that had an impact on me was Late reaction (2004) with the Cholmondeleys, directed by Lea Anderson. He made an interesting interesting choreography using the pedestrian movement in some pieces, so he could dance some of his choreographies, since I am not trained in modern Euro -American dance. Production marked 20^th Anniversary of the company. The opening night was not great, I had nerves, but after that I took off and began to enjoy production and bloom in the performance. The essay process was challenging, but through that production, I came to understand the contrasts between choreographic structures in western and African performance traditions, and the various ways in which movement can interact with music. I had to adapt the skills he had learned in African performance to choreography. It was a revealing physical translation process.

You have also worked on the kingdoms of dramaturgy, poetry and journalism. How have these linguistic practices reported their understanding of dance?

Although many dance presentations do not use words, dance as art generates many words. Everyone leaves a dance performance with their own experience because it has less fixed meaning than drama. When you see a choreographed dance that comes out of someone's idiosyncratic experience, you want to know their background. This opening to interpretation is one of its qualities that stimulates discussion. In addition, the history of dance is a powerful and identifiable way of generating social stories. Social dances leave the stories of a community. Knowing the social context of dance allows you to understand dance. There is something liminal in choreography. Due to my education in different cultures and spaces, I am intrigued by hybridization and why it is significant. The dance produces stories.

I am deeply interested in which dance and theater communicate, what mechanisms they use to communicate and in the dynamic relationship between the interpreter and the spectator during a performance. This curiosity is what leads me to dramaturgy and journalism. Like poetry, choreography thrives in symbolism and making the ordinary thing extraordinary. I see them as related art forms.

He has also worked extensively to study and advocate for the dances of the African diaspora. I read that you recently started a non -profit organization to support this work. Can you share more?

When I graduated in 1990 with my first title in Nigeria, I entered journalism and I was a television producer. I wrote as an independent professional for magazines and newspapers. When I arrived in Britain and entered an performance, I realized that much was written about the dance of the African diaspora. There was a wide variety of performance styles: Afro-Latin, Hip Hop, Capoeira, etc. that appeared in productions that were not covered in the press. This led me to convert my journalistic skills into the writing of dance.

When I got involved with the African diaspora dance association (ADAD), which is now closed, one of the things that others and I wanted was a magazine, which we started, called Hotfoot. We wanted work reviews and black performance stories to be documented. We wanted people to do an academic job in these dance companies. The basis of much of the choreography created in dance companies led by blacks came from social dances. I began to advocate for the dances of the African diaspora as a professional practice because the creative work that took place in this context was being overlooked. I wanted to make space for that.

I started as an independent scholar. I wrote my first academic article in 2003. I wrote some more articles before starting my doctorate in 2011. Even while I was a tour artist, I went to academic conferences. I worked as a dance teacher at the Academy for eight years showing a dance class based on Africans within a context of contemporary dance, before leaving this year. Working in generations, knowledge systems and countries has been extremely challenging. However, through the ideas I have obtained, I am convinced of the vital social role of African dance practices because they join these various spaces.

I have founded Fae Studios as a platform for my solo practice, dramaturgy and consulting, and promulgate arts, a new non -profit company. With Proact Arts, I am supporting arts and health projects, and professional development within African performance. I am in the initial stage.

I understand that you are particularly interested in the arts of Africa after independence. Can you share more about why this art is interesting for you?

Many countries in Africa obtained the independence of European countries in the early 60s, some in the 70s and others in the 80s, but most of them in 1960, the year in which Nigeria received the independence of Great Britain. The continent was really celebrating. There were massive canofrican festivals, which not only presented the works of art of African nations but also the diaspora. When Festac (Second Black Arts and Culture Festival) occurred in 1977 in Lagos, the people of Brazil and Cuba and all things landed in Nigeria. That festival hit me, watching performances on television.

In addition to the impact of Festac, I experienced the arts of Africa through culture and popular education systems after independence. Many African nations continued to use frameworks and institutions that were originally European: the university system, the school system, the civil service. But these have developed different ways of working from Europe. I do not believe that the knowledge that has occurred within the cultural and social institutions after African independence are recognized as significant or written in great depth, even within African scholarship. There are methodologies and forms of work that have been developed in this context need a greater unpacking.

In addition, I am interested in the arts of Africa after independence because they are part of my life. I grew up in lakes with popular music, unlike traditional dance and music, although I experienced some of that at school. My mother worked at a television station. Then I worked as an associated television producer, so it was in the poor condition when the film industry in Nigeria took a rise in the 1990s. In Lagos, he went to the galleries of visual art, reviewed books for the press and wrote as a freelancer for magazines. During my mastery in Britain, I began to investigate the arts in Africa after independence. These postcolonial art forms constitute a cultural terrain that is translocal and transnational. There are many of this land that we use and take advantage, but we do not speak or examine enough. We advocate the importance of pre -colonial African cultures, but not so much urban. The cultures and stories of the cities are also important.

What's still for you? Do you have a current or next project or approach on which you would like to share more?

I am in the process of creating one. My solo pieces tend to be a dance or movement theater and 15 to 20 minutes, but now I am working for an hour performance. I hope to have a work in progress to share at the end of 2025. It will be a poetic reflection on my trip.

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For more information about 'funmi, Visit www.funmiadewolelliott.com.

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