Senegal - the hub of West African music? Part 1: the dance classes

So last week, I sent an email to Adrian (my worldy-wise, travel-agent owning brother: check out www.thestc.co.uk ) complaining that I thought Senegal, and especially Dakar, was meant to be buzzing with West African rhythms but i'd seen little proof of that since arriving.

Oh, how that has changed...

Jenna (an American girl I met here) and I have been on a mission for the last 3 weeks to discover Dakar's hidden rhythms. For a while, we were wondering why the city is so famous for live music but we thought we just weren't looking in the right places. We've been to a couple of evening concerts but the trouble is they all start at 11:30pm or later and easily go on to 3am. Simply impossible if I am to understand any french the following day! We were excited to go to see "Orchestra Baobab" a week ago, a cuban-influenced band, originally from the 70's who are still enticing large crowds, but it was disappointingly dull.

Then Jenna found this dance company that rehearse in a community centre not far from where I live. We went along to one of their rehearsals on Thursday, and Jenna (the little dark-horse) joined in... it turns out, she's been studying West African dance for 6 years in New Orleans! It was unbelievably captivating. There was a group of about 5-6 drummers, all different sizes who were also learning new rhythms during the rehearsal. The instructor, a man who could have easily been in his 60's, would build up a complex rhythms on the drums, starting with the bass, then the others. All playing something completely different and contradicting, yet together, the amalgamated texture was insane. For me, it was really helpful to hear the drums independently so that I could identify each of the textures in the completed ensemble.

I can't say as much in detail about the dancers, they just seemed to know what to do - including Jenna! The instructor would shout something and make a couple of half-hearted demonstrations, then somehow they picked it up! It was complex, too. And just as I learnt on Saturday afternoon, they had to listen to a call from the lead djembe to change step. The male dancers were especially eye-catching. Their dance was so energetic it was verging on gymnastics.

So along with my weekend of dance and music in Toubab Dialao (see "escape to the countryside" post below) and the dance rehearsal on Thursday I feel like I was suddenly understanding Senegal's reputation for dance culture, and that was before I went to the wedding last night...