Weekend Reviews : DANCE REVIEW : Africains’ ‘Silo’ Depicts Ceremonies of Guinea

Where’s a West African griot (storyteller) when you need one?

An announcement at the Orange County Performing Arts Center on Saturday blamed the American Airlines strike for the lack of programs at the performance that night by Les Ballets Africains, the national dance company from the republic of Guinea.

Unfortunately, the announcement stopped there, never explaining anything about “Silo: The Path of Life,” the company’s full-evening dance drama that depicted the interaction between Guinea villagers, supernatural creatures and forest priests.

The booklet in a company CD (on sale in the lobby) provided insights into the fascinating initiation ceremonies that dominated the second act: ceremonies designed to help young people achieve a sense of self-worth and a defined role in the community. The act culminated in the initiates’ spectacular displays of prowess and their joyous homecoming.

Act I used the mythic story of two brothers (the elder wicked, the younger virtuous) to unify an array of group showpieces, none more engulfing than a 20-person drum-dance that built methodically to a seismic musical/sculptural statement of the drum as societal heartbeat.

Such sustained sequences proved rare. For most of the evening, artistic director Italo Zambo and choreographer Mohamed Kemoko Sano opted for maximum brevity and contrast, tightly editing their traditional materials to spotlight the dynamism and versatility of their 40-member company.

*

You could argue that their approach to folklore is outdated--the degree of editing in particular, along with their reliance on narrative structures and all the French-style pictorialism and stagecraft. You could also regret that the company capitulated to those North American presenters who don’t want the women in the company dancing bare breasted. (“Silo” is being performed in a covered version throughout the U.S.)

None of this taints the performers themselves. Whether executing work-dances, gymnastic stunts, instrumental interludes, stilt-walks, choral songs, playacting vignettes or the most dazzling high-speed footwork, the members of Les Ballets Africains look fabulous--even to an audience denied the most basic information about what it’s watching.

Les Ballets Africains performs “Silo” tonight at the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts and Tuesday at Pepperdine University in Malibu.