SAVE THE DATE!! “Raíces et Résistance” premieres Oct 2024 at Dance Mission Theater .
“Raíces et Résistance” (or Roots and Resistance in Spanish/French) is a collaboration between Arenas Dance Company, Duniya Dance and Drum Company, and Dance Mission Theater. Directed by Susana Arenas Pedroso and Bongo Sidibe, with dancers and musicians from Duniya Dance and Drum Company and Arenas Dance Company, this new show explores the vibrant, layered, and largely unknown social-political relationship between Guinea, West Africa and Cuba, forged by the transatlantic slave trade as well as the post-colonial cultural exchange that began in the 1960s. Bringing together their cultural expertises, their passion, their senses of joy and justice, Pedroso and Sidibe have created a unique performance built on storytelling and cultural collaboration. “Raices et Résistance” embodies the past as well as the present, a story of Black people defining themselves through dance and music, during and after the traumas of slavery and colonization.
After independence from France, Guinea elected socialist president Sekou Touré, one of the African continent’s prominent independence leaders. Touré aligned closely with Cuba’s Fidel Castro, and through this alliance came cultural exchange between the two countries. Artists were invited to festivals by the government’s of both countries, and national music groups in Guinea, like Bembeya Jazz, created music with heavy Cuban influence. This story informs the collaboration between Duniya and Arenas dance in “Raíces et Résistance.”
This project is part of a multi-year performance cycle. The first episode, “From Cuba to Guinea,” premiered Oct 2023 at Dance Mission Theater.
“Raíces et Résistance” is supported in part with funding awarded from Hewlett 50 and NEFA/NDP.
Arenas Dance Company 