Black Dancing Body - an evening of film, dinner and live performance Circomedia, Portland Square, Bristol   The programme kicked off  with AfriKa Eye’s showing of the film Dance Got Me (Ingrid Sinclair  • 2006 • 52 minutes)  a documentary about Zimbabwean choreographer Bawren Tavaziva.Bawren was an unemployed African teenager breakdancing on the streets of Zimbabwe’s townships. Today, his UK-based contemporary dance company performs at London’s premier dance venues. His bold, energetic and highly emotional work is inspired by love, life and identity. Backed by his own music, a fusion of African, raga and hip-hop, the film covers Bawren’s roller-coaster transition from one culture to another and his embrace of both. The film poses the questions what are the riches street culture has brought to contemporary dance, what does it mean to be African and what is it that Westerners find in Tavaziva’s work that they may have lost?There was a question and answer session with both the star and director after the screening, followed by food and then two pieces performed by Tavaziva Dance — ‘Sinful intimacies’ (which deals with the taboo/unspoken subject of female homosexuality in the black community) and ‘Kenyan Athlete’ which shows the beauty of African and classical ballet forms working together, highlighting how our heritage can affect how we ’see’ movement and posture.   Francis Angol followed with ’The Subjective Body in Dialogue’ (15minutes)a solo performance that explores some of the fundamental attributes of the Movement Angol’s language of contemporary African dance, presence through embodiment, and working within the paradigm of the subjective self.

Biogs:Bawren Tavaziva - Choreographer - Born and raised in Zimbabwe, Bawren was selected at 18 years old as an apprentice for Tumbuka Dance Company in Harare, touring Africa and Europe for five years. In 1998 he moved to the UK where he has performed with Phoenix Dance, Union Dance Company, Jazzxchange, Carol Brown and Sakoba. Bawren’s choreography has been commissioned by Union Dance Company, ACE Dance Company, Tumbuka Dance Company, Ballet Black, Srishti and State of Emergency Ltd’s 2001 and 2003 Mission National Tours. Bawren is also a talented musician, and has commissioned music for Phoenix and Union Dance Company and for all his own works. In 2004, Bawren’s choreography was selected as one of 5 finalists in the prestigious Place Prize, sponsored by Bloomberg. As a result of his choreographic success, Bawren formed Tavaziva Dance in 2004, touring nationally and internationally, and becoming in 2005 a Regularly Funded Organisation of Arts Council England. In 2007 Bawren choreographed the Sampad/Tara Arts national touring production Motherland, other recent projects include creating new work in India and Canada (COBA and Dance Immersion). Bawren’s most recent works include an out-door site specific piece ‘Beautiful People’ commissioned by the Withoutwalls Street Arts Consortium and Heart of Darkness which toured nationally in Autumn 2009.

An evening of film and discussion as part of AFRIKA EYE’s Black History Month Programme. The Watershed,  includesda film showing of Movement (R) evolution Africa (USA 65min, 2007)  followed by a discussion with the film makers, practitioners and researchers.  The film is an astonishing exposition of choreographic fomentation (incitation),  in which nine African choreographers from Senegal to South Africa tell the stories of an emergent art form and offer diverse and deeply contemporary expressions of self.  The discussion forum was led by Jeanette Bain-Burnett, Director of ADAD, and contributors included Rachel de Garang and the Dance Dialogues team of tutors, artists and practitioners, as well as the Afrika Eye film team who highlighted some of the key aspects of making a film of this nature.