INTERMEDIAL INDIAN OCEAN - In Conversation with Tao Ravao & Luis Sala
Abstract
- Abstract
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As part of the Indian Ocean events in November 2021, choreographer and dancer Luis Sala and musician Tao Ravao were guests of the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence in Bayreuth. In this interview, they talk with Prof. Dr. Ute Fendler, Deputy Spokesperson of the Cluster, about sounds and movements.
Luis Sala is a choreographer and dancer from Maputo where he runs a dance school. His 25-year long career includes a 10-year stint with the renowned National Dance Company of Mozambique. He collaborated on various projects in the Bayreuth Academy of Advanced African Studies on Iconographies. Together with Ute Fendler and Ivan Barros (photographer, filmmaker), he created a video clip and dance performance capturing the polyrhythmic nature of the Indian Ocean.
Tao Ravao is a musician based in France, playing Valiha, guitar and mandolin. Born in Madagascar, Ravao had always been fascinated by the music of the big island and the multi-instrumentalist took up playing the kabosy in the 1980s which took him around the world (Canada, the United States, Japan, East Africa). His love for Malagasy music led Tao Ravao to become the artistic director and producer of albums by the great D'Gary and Jean Emilien, Senge and Rajery. He has also produced the albums of Ba Cissoko and Sékou Diabaté of Bembeya Jazz. In 2016 he collaborated with Luis Sala on the project “Body and Sound”.
Description
- Transcript
- so [Music] so [Music] okay hello great to have you back in byroid uh in eva liver house and also for the new project intermediate indian ocean um i think we should start just by a short round of uh presentations tao would you like to start and tell us a little bit about your right my name is i was born in madagascar i grew up over there and left my island when i was about 12 years old and i went to europe especially france and i stayed in france for about 16 years six years six years yes and i started music when i was 12. so i picked up the mandolin banjo then the guitar and i did most of my most of my work musician work with the electric guitar like i lived in in the states and i did some few recordings and i backed up some blues musicians and uh time for me to go back to my country then i discovered the music from from the island and i said well i have to learn and pick them instruments and learn them also i left the guitar a little bit aside so i i i picked up the traditional instruments and i'm a composer singer so in my work i just like i did blues for so many years so i just see the vision of the blues and the music from madagascar so that's what i mainly do now is i'm living in paris and do i do like festivals i've been playing japan canada states and in about 17 countries in africa and i'm producing two uh musicians from madagascar and i'm very glad to be here because for different reasons because i already work here a few years ago three years ago and that that was that just like great happiness and i'm very happy to be here because i don't have that too much opportunity to work with the dance especially with a great dancer like my brother here [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] okay thank you very much for the transition thanks a lot uh so louis saller the dancer and your brother could you please present yourself yes uh thank you so much well my name is uh luis sala uh known as lulu sala which is uh the name uh everyone calls me but i'm a dancer i'm a choreographer a dance teacher um event promoter and cultural activist originally from mozambique i started working like in the dance field actually like in a very very young age when i was 17 years old i was already a professional dancer working with the national dance company from mozambique which means that like i started like work earlier about 14 when i was 15 years old i was already like artistic director of a group uh and i took all actually like one of the groups like about 25 people when i was 15 years old for a small tour in another province museum before i started traveling all over all over the world and [Music] i lived in different countries including canada and united states worked with a whole [Music] different different companies after working with the national events company for of mozambique for for 10 years in which like seven years was like the principal dancer of that same company and now i work i have like over 2000 students back in mozambique but also work like a lot of different people companies universities schools in different countries in all the around the globe so [Music] [Music] and that i mean like one other thing that really makes me smile all the time like my heart goes boom boom as though it says like every time i move by rods i feel home and uh we've been having like i've been coming uh to buy a rat for like a little bit more like over 10 years i think and each and every time is a different experience and like most incredible and amazing experiences and especially having to meet people such as my brother tao and you know like um develop um a deep different type of work and this this amazing moment that we had today you know like he arrived this evening today just got here and like and things just started like blowing up and bubbling and and we're happy so yes okay thank you very much it's good to hear that you are happy we hope that tomorrow we will still be happy but i mean you gave us already some i mean some like keywords so you said this you you were already rehearsing together it's bubbling and new ideas and getting things together you talked about fusion actually we had worked together here the same place i think like four years ago on body and sound so there were always these concepts also that we were discussing about how to transmit and construct uh knowledge in different types of formats so it's not just writing but it's also music it's dance how could this come together and also then be maybe even more than just writing what we i mean us academics usually do um and this time it's also about uh mainly indian ocean so we have a regional focus but so yeah you you met you rehearsed already so maybe you want to say something about the the the project that is uh on the in in the in the how do you say in the becoming at the moment yeah so um we got together with lulu and uh um and i was i was uh very excited actually because i like to compose music you know i always like to have new things and um i came at the rehearsal room with uh already with the song of the tune and i said look look man this sounds great to me what do you think about it and that's my brother looking at you says not truly sure barley and he says well have a look on the video he says okay and then he showed me a video like like uh himself dancing on on the boat in the indian ocean it's really great stuff and i said oh okay then let's try to uh to to make sense with what we're gonna do now and what's coming next that means that movie so uh uh so after watching the movie uh uh he started dancing a little bit and i was trying to do some chords and some melodies and and it came naturally the alchemy the alchemy worked and so we got something together i was happy about it and he was happy about it so what i mean is like uh it's good when when you work on something but you should not have like obviously like uh uh ideas before it's always good to work on the moment and the moment tell you the truth what you're supposed to do i think that's good for different kind of stuff for theater music and different art you know so that's i'm satisfied about about what we did actually that was lesson for me [Laughter] okay but as you just said i mean for to meet sounds i would then put it into words and say there's a dialogue happening there was like a starting point this video on on the indian ocean and this was the starting point that you entered into this dialogue uh creating a new piece together right exactly what's your i mean beyond happiness yeah i mean okay and actually i mean that's exactly what uh that's what brings the happiness actually you know i remember when you left the hotel we're walking here like yeah but it's cold you know over there it's like actually we call the cabin no let's walk you know like this uh um [Music] the walking is good i mean like we will always walk towards something right like towards a certain direction direction and like walking we're talking discussing about about the different ideas and when we got here like as uh tao said he uh he already had like this like different tunes like the the the direction was completely different and that brings us to like uh the the massiveness of the indian ocean in which like once you get in there whether you're in the boat do you have to swim on it or or um any other forms of of being in there or around there it's like most of this or sometimes you don't even know where you're going so it's like a it's a journey it's a process and uh tells it no yeah but it was a lesson it's a lesson for all of us it's the same thing like when we uh in the uh in the indian ocean which is like take us to all different like to the infinity and when we got here like one of the things that we spoke about was actually that i said okay let's imagine like this uh um the elder summer so i could say yeah we'll talk mozambique we're talking um madagascar and then we're talking like a canal that takes you to the infinity and we see like an elder sitting there or in the boat or like an um [Music] by the beach like the infinite of the things that like this uh um this massiveness of the ocean brings us to will take us to like we i mean like we can jump into the ocean we can go to madagascar and go to mozambique we can go to mauritius or to i mean you can go to go where we go to like all this other places like um is a journey and this process is also i mean like it also brings us to that like to these journeys to this infinite infinitive journey of knowledge of sharing different experience of like transmitting knowledge like in all different forms and everything in um i think that is uh is the the one of the best gifts that we one can ever have so and that will be offered tomorrow to the public exactly yes actually yeah because then tomorrow there will be the perform you both of you you will perform tomorrow twice off with it you will also have a chance to see the film and then this gives like the whole whole i mean like a united process and an invitation to join the journey of meditation and reflection um that sounds like an end but maybe you want to try to add something i'm sorry nothing to say about it it's a good success he said everything to be said okay okay so thank you very much um yeah and then we can have a look at the at the whole at the end of the process the product the combination of film readings music and movement thank you very much happy that you're back [Music] [Music] [Laughter] [Music] you
Origins & context
- Title
- INTERMEDIAL INDIAN OCEAN - In Conversation with Tao Ravao & Luis Sala
- Language
- English
- YouTube playlist
- Workshop Intermedial Indian Ocean - 2021
- Date
- February 13, 2023
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