Sankofa Danzafro's Dancers Bring a Monument of Afro-Colombian Literature to Life

Sankofa Danzafro makes its electrifying Montreal debut with Detrás del sur: danzas para Manuel, an impassioned tribute to Changó el Gran Putas, the great writer Manuel Zapata Olivella's landmark novel. Presented from February 21 to 24, 2024 at Théâtre Maisonneuve, Place des Arts.

A relentless dialogue between percussion, song, African rhythms and contemporary dance, this tribute in motion by Sankofa Danzafro dynamically embodies the epic scope of Olivella's story. Palacios' choreography, performed by 14 dancers accompanied by 3 musicians on stage, channels ancestral Afro-Colombian roots into a poetic dance built on the ideas of social ties, personal growth and the positioning of local cultures within national dynamics. 

The first Colombian company to be presented at Danse Danse, Sankofa Danzafro is an inspiring ambassador for its country. Founded over 25 years ago by choreographer Rafael Palacios, the company sees dance as a way of speaking out, and its works as an opportunity to rewrite the history of Afrodescendant communities through the eyes of those directly concerned. Working from Olivella's novel, a pillar of Afro-Colombian literature, was therefore an obvious choice for the company.

Published in 1980, Changó el Gran Putas is the culmination of over thirty years of travel and research by Manuel Zapata Olivella. A nomadic, multi-faceted creator, not only a writer, but also a physician and anthropologist, he had the opportunity to visit New York in the 1940s, where he witnessed the effervescence of the Harlem Renaissance, a social and artistic explosion regarded as a golden age of African-American culture. Inspired by the vitality of this cultural scene, his novel retraces and recenters the African diaspora's saga in the New World, arguing that without Africa, African labor and, above all, ancestral African cultures, there wouldn't be an America.

 

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