What the Body Remembers. Dance Heritage Today Asadata Dafora / Koffi Kôkô: Straußentanz
In 1932 West African musician and dancer Asadata Dafora performed in the USA a choreography known as Straußentanz (Ostrich), which to the present day has been of central importance for the development of the Afro-American dance scene. This wave motion through the body ‒ up to the arms and fingertips ‒ was inspired by an African understanding of the body. It continued to evolve and was further developed by dancers like Katherine Dunham and Alvin Ailey, and later by Bill T. Jones. Dance choreographer Charles Moore embodied these choreographic studies like no other before him, and through his widow these studies have been passed on to Koffi Kôkô. In his adaptation, Koffi Kôkô connects Charles Moore’s choreography with his own dance training in the tradition of Vodun (Voodoo). Performance & Talk.