Staff Reporter
Windhoek-“She Poems”, a Spanish-Namibian cultural cooperation project comes to Windhoek, April 3-12.
The contemporary art project, implemented in Africa with creative African women, has produced workshops, dance short films, dance photographs and contemporary dance pieces (solos and duets). It aims at creating female African role models in dancing and drawing a Women-Poetry-Dance-African map. The creative process is based on poems written by women, universal realities transformed into poetry in motion. “She Poems” is a tribute to African women, the expression of their own identity, giving them a voice which is expressed through dancing: it is a female empowerment project connecting Afro-descendant women and women in general.
“She Poems” was officially presented in New York, and it has also been released in Cape Verde, Cameroon, Niger, Senegal, Nigeria, Ghana, Togo, Tanzania, Rwanda Kenya, Mozambique and South Africa. Within Spain, it has been presented in Periferias-Huesca, Francophone festival of Institut Français of Valencia, Centre Cultural Sagrada Familia of Barcelona (specialized in gender issues) and in San Sebastian during the European Culture City celebrations.
Programme for the workshops
April 3: A Masterclass Workshop takes place aimed at Namibian female artists. One of them will be selected to shoot a short film and prepare the final performance together with Aïda.
April 4 -10: Rehearsals of Aïda and the selected artist.
April 11: Outdoor short film shooting.
April 12: Final presentation (07.30 till 09.30, College of the Arts, Fidel Castro St, free entrance until full capacity), including short film screenings, dance performance and exchange of views with the audience.
Its director, Aïda, of Galician descent, was born in Madrid and has studied drama, dance, anthropology and audio-visual in Spain and Senegal. Aïda, the founder of Lanla Acogny dance technique, created “The March” – the first international dance training on Germaine Acogny technique. She has been implementing drama projects since the beginning of her career, and during the last three years, in the framework of the “She Poems” project, she has become a photographer and filmmaker.