This is a new video of Mediani drum, dance and chants made in Bamako Mali West Africa. It sounds almost identical to Guinea (Guinee) style mendiani as well.
Dancers and singers (Ami Doumbia left and Malodone right) from the award winning Santogoula community center and local group in the Sabalibougou district of Bamako chant traditional songs and perform traditional based West African dance choreography in Bamako, Mali while accompanied by Aruna, Brulye, Siaka and Kaliefa, 4 different gerations of Mali drummers.
This clip is from an up and comming video.
            
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Mali Mendiani drum and dance demo3 comments to Mali Mendiani drum and dance demo |
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Hello Michael,
Great website! I found the dance movies and I just love these two dancers, they’re so pure! The softness they dance with is just beautiful. If you make a dvd from their dances please let me know. I hope the dancers and drummers in it will get payed forr it then?
Thanks for posting,
Warm regards Inge
Hello Inge,
I have not made a DVD of the dance yet. I do have 4 CD’s of music I made there available on earthcds.com (enter mali then you will see my series music of mali, etc.). As a matter of fact I send all of the profits from the CD’s back to the musicians. By the way, since you asked I am curious, do you send money you make from your dance class back to your teachers in Africa??
Sincerely,
Michael
Hi Michael, late reply but great you do that!:)
I don’t know how exactly you mean your question.. but I’ll try and explain how I think it works, or how it works for me.
When I buy a dvd and I use something from it, I’ve already payed the artist through paying the dvd.
When I do dance classes, and I use something from it, I have already paid for the dance class.
As a teacher, at least that counts for me, you share your skills and you give what you can teach and learn to other’s, and then it’s theirs to use. I’ve had fabulous teachers saying that what they teach us is then ours to grow from, to use it and to spread the knowledge(no fear based holding on to knowledge).
I’m a teacher trained at Uni where I’ve had great teachers sharing their skills with us. All my contemporary, jazz and African background comes from there. Teachers in West- Africa and New York also taught me more skills and knowlegde by joining their classes. What I do know is ‘my style’ as far as that exists
To be honest, if I had to pay my dance teachers for what I would use, I wouldn’t even know who to pay. It’s a combination of many classes during many years. I know, however, that there’s a difference in being capable of creating your own vocabulairy (choreo’s & classes), or depending on other teachers to get steps to teach because you don’t have that training and know how.
However, I don’t think it’s much, or only, about the money but more the respect and recognition. It’s like mentionning in your class who’s choreo is it that you use, and encourage people to go and do classes with that teacher too etc.
In Africa that’s even different I find. We have the luxury to go there, so we have the responsibility to provide care (financia) to the wonderful artists that share their know-how with us.
Hope I gave you some insight in how (some) dancers deal with it, with the integrety of sharing dance.From the musicians I work with I notice kind of similar mind sets; you agree?
Sincerely
Inge