Won Tan Nara - Ballet guinéen de France

It's an african-ballet style of performance with dance, acrobacies and, of course, live percussion music. On the overall a good show and specially good entertainment for people that are new to this culture.
There were at least three dancers that really caught my eye, but no presentations have been made, so I didn't get the names. I'm still searching.
The performances being held currently are not really like the one on the video below, they're much more dynamic and there's always some story behind the dance scene. Even so, I missed some more expression and innovation - I had the feeling of watching an african ballet from the 70s.

Domain name change

Yesterday I had some troubles in telling to a friend what is the domain name of this blog (http://t-tt-t-tt-sss.blogspot.com), so I decided I'll just buy a domain. See you there in a day or two (http://www.djembecall.com).

Dansa, djansa

After years of playing this rhythm I finally got to attend a workshop with a Malian teacher that could show me how the Dansa (Djansa) is supposed to be played. Originating from the Khassonke people (Kayes region in Mali), the Dansa is known as a slow song with a strong swung feeling. In fact, it seems more ternary than binary when played slowly.

Still today in Bamako and other cities in Mali, the Dansa is recognized by this konkoni pattern:
1...2...3...4...
O--X-OO-O--X-OO-

The solo dun plays a ternary bell pattern (x-xx-xx-xx-x) and there are several solo phrases which I'll not write about.

Pushing it faster the konkoni starts leaving out one stroke:
1...2...3...4...
O--X--O-O--X--O-

From which you can finally switch to this pattern, when the tempo is really fast:
1...2...3...4...
O--O--O---X---O-

The last pattern is of course the widely known sangban pattern for the Djansa (as they would play it in Guinea and elsewhere).

Aminata Touré

Aminata Touré is a young Guinean dancer that recently started working in Brussels and its surroundings. She is very young and has an incredible amount of energy to share. When she moves you just feel the energy being transferred to you. I've accompanied some classes of hers recently and I was pleased to find out that she is one of those dancers for which you just can't stop playing for.

I can feel she made a big impression on the people from Brussels, and there are good reasons for this, so I think she might become very well known everywhere around pretty soon. Here is a promotional video distributed by the association that sponsors her (Gine Fare, site in French).

Swinging triplets

I managed to put together what I've been trying to master in the last year: the two ways of swinging the triplets. I have no clue what are the names of these two swings, so I will stick to the way some Malians refer to them: the "Father's rhythms" and the "Mother's rhythms".

Following are two examples of the Father's rhythm. The first recording doesn't have any feeling at all. The second one does - the feeling is quite strong but still not exaggerated. It already gets close to a binary rhythm.

No swing:


Father's swing:


The second two examples are for the Mother's rhythm. Again, the first recording holds no swing. The second does, having a strong swing while preserving the full ternary feeling.

No swing:


Mother's swing: