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Mali Rocks the Mall in DC
First report by Banning Eyre, June 30, 2003
Note: This is a preliminary on this year's Mali program at the Folklife Festival. A more complete report with links and many more photographs is on the way. Look for it during the week of July 14.
The 37th Smithsonian Festival of Folklife has brought an amazing exhibition of Malian music, dance, artistry, craftwork, food, language, fine clothing, and best of all people to the Mall in Washington, DC. The Festival this year also celebrates Scotland and Appalachia in similar dimensions. What unifies these three? Well, on the simplest level, you might say Appalachia is what you get when you combine Scotland and Mali. At the end of Week 1, the deeper promises of that global dialogue have yet to fully play out, but from my perch as a presenter at the Bamako Stage, the potential is certainly there. This is without a doubt the richest and most extensive exhibition of Malian musical variety in American history.
Week One
The pageantry of opening day on the Mall was capped by the appearance of Malian president, Amadou Toumani Toure (ATT), who has made this festival a priority since he was elected last year. In a sky-blue boubou, he moved about the grounds, shaking hands, taking in snatches of performances, and posing for photographs. At a special evening concert of Neba Solo and the Instrumental Ensemble of Mali, ATT sat in the front row, beaming as dancers and singers regaled him. He might have been a president, but first and foremost, he was one of many proud Malians present, and his warm words from the stage underscored the momentous nature of the occasion and proved genuinely moving.
During the day, as masonry work continued on the archways of a Malian building rising between Tuareg and Sonrai tents, the Dogon togona, and the towering Smithsonian capital, and as the president's entourage moved through the site, the cycle of performances began on the two Malian stages, and under the tree in the Malian village. Afropop listeners may well know the spirited, Senufo balafon music of Neba Solo, or the Tuareg folklore of Ensemble Tartit. Some may have heard the 67-year old Mariam Bagayogo, a Bambara singer from Beledugu, accompanied by the largest of Mali's many balafon types, the N'Goussoum balafon, which it takes two people to play. You may be generally familiar with the sensuous, Sonrai takamba, represented here by a group from Gao called Baba Larab. Or you may know the funky music of the hunter's harp (donso ngoni ), the root of Wassoulou pop music.
Likely you've at least seen pictures of the colorful dancers of Dogon, here represented by a group from Sanga. Recreational djembe drumming, such as that played the group Sogonikun, is certainly a West African staple, but in all these cases, there are elements of surprise in these performances. And the surprises keep coming. For instance, unless you've visited Wassoulou, you aren't likely to have experienced the masked, acrobatic dancing of father and sons Amadou and Bakary Diakité who dance with Sogonikun. Nor are you likely to have seen the caliber of takamba dancing, nor the driving, intense string accompaniment from Arawaidou Yacouba on his 3-string kurubu--all part of Baba Larab's spellbinding performance.
Then there is pastoral Fula flute, fiddle, and calabash percussion music from Tabital Pulaku, an ensemble from Kayes, Krin du Birgo, that uses water filled calabashes, and perhaps most stunning of all, the haunting music of the Somono and Bozo fishing people of the Niger River near Segou, as performed by So Fing (Black Horse). So Fing features one of the most amazing and unique singers at the festival, Mariam Thiero who casts a spell every time she begins singing her long, clear, melancholy notes. The group's four-drum percussion team is also unusual, easing into a slow, patient, ritual feeling and exploding into rhythm to express the excitement of the catch. This act also features an enormous fish puppet that lurches and shimmies through the performance area, dramatizing the catch while also highlighting the spiritual nature of fishing as a lifestyle.
A more complete version of this report, with many more photographs from the 37th Smithsonian Folkways Festival, is on the way…
Contributed by: Banning Eyre
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