SOJOURN

Nourished by the tradition of modern black American dance, and drawing on the music, aesthetics and narratives of African-Americans, Asha Thomas has taken her inspiration for the solo Sojourn from the concept of “Sankofa” which, in the Twi language (Ghana), means “returning to the past to go forwards.” This is an important project for this choreographer who came to prominence in the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, before multiplying encounters on the contemporary French scene which punctuated her researches and accompanied a career that has been marked by a large variety of aesthetics. To relocate the right distance and the texture of the dance memories inscribed within the body, the choreographer has taken her inspiration from the technique of Mabeye Deme, the Franco-Senegalese photographer who places his lens behind an old piece of tent canvas, as a sensitive membrane capable of catching and revealing intimate moments in the flow of life. Sojourn is Asha Thomas’ view of her own story as an artist and the woman she has become, through the filter of the present.