Guinea Sketchbook / Part Two

A lot of our time was spent within the compound walls
(see Guinea Sketchbook / Part One ).
Our dance classes happened there, friends came to us,
and political unrest in the city kept us sequestered some days . . .

When we did venture out in the car I carried a small notepad with me
to catch the images passing by as we hurtled along,
searching for moments of interest. . . surprise. . .  beauty . . .

Later I'd redraw the images in my larger sketchbook and add some color.
Although this allowed lots of harvesting "on the fly" I missed the directness
of the sketchbook capture and felt a bit tight and careful in the re-drawing process.

Here are the pages created from our day trip inland to Kindia Falls
with the names of the villages we passed weaving through . . .

After three hours on the road we arrived at the Falls - a cool, fresh and quiet place . . .
I felt rejuvenated by the hugeness of it all - the long cascade of water -
the butterflies flitting around . . .
I sat right down and dove into a large sketchbook double spread .
(click on the image to enlarge)

I picked up a big beautiful leaf as we walked away,
carrying it carefully on my lap in the car all the way back.

We drove to the Palais des Peuples the next morning
and sat for four hours through an endless series of speeches.
It was the Coalition de les Femmes et Filles de Guinee pour
Dialogue et Conciliation de la Paix et Development -
a thousand women gathered to raise their voices in response
to the political deadlock in the country.

It was very warm in the auditorium.

We had come to hear our teacher, Djeli Guinee, sing to the crowd.
Turned out she was last on the program !

I passed the hours collecting the headscarf creations all around me . . .

Feeling both the beauty and the discomfort of this place -
stretching my soul . . .

Part Three of the story coming soon . . .

Guinea Sketchbook / Part One

This February I spent three weeks in Guinea, West Africa
dancing, sketching and sweating - it was over 90 degrees every day !

I had traveled to Guinea ten years before in 2003
with my dance teachers Pam and Mimo Camara.
Mimo had been a principal dancer for twenty years with Les Ballets Africains -
the National Dance Ensemble of Guinea - which toured the world.
The teachers we would be studying with now were old friends of Mimo
and longtime dancers with the Ballet.

We stayed in a house on the edge of Conakry, the capital.
It was walled and gated. Because of the intensity of the city,
and the political protests going on intermittently,
we sometimes stayed in the compound all day -
dance teachers and friends coming to us.

So the sketchbook begins with what was close at hand in our enclosed world,
surrounded by the sound of roosters crowing, the call to prayer,
footsteps and soft voices passing by beyond the gate-
here is what I saw within these walls . . .

Here is the constellation of Mimo's family and friends
that I came to know and love -

The dances we were learning were complex,
yet I was energized by them, my body felt light and lithe.
I created a pictographic language to help me remember the steps.
Here is the Harvest Dance done holding the round flat baskets used for cleaning rice.

I mapped which areas of Guinea the dances we were learning came from . . .

And here is a clip of our teachers -
Djeli Kany, Mayeni and Djeli Guinee singing to us . . .

More to come !