Dance, Music Videos and Screens: Intermediality and Videochoreomorphosis in Mali and Benin

Abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Mali and Benin, the article looks at the economy of music video making and watching and their interaction with social dance practices. On the one hand, the article addresses the creation of new dance aesthetics in Mali through the development of music videos, while interrogating the creation of dance routines and their mediation on TV and via the Internet. On the other hand, it explores issues of remediation and intermediality in dance in light of the use of videos by Beninese salsa dancers. The article thus examines the interactions between dancing bodies and screens in dance venues in Cotonou. The notion of videochoreomorphosis is proposed as an analytical tool to appreciate how dance and dancing bodies are transformed by their interaction with the video format and with audio-visual techniques. This notion encompasses aesthetic and technical transformations as well as changes in the transmission, practice and consumption of dance through its video mediation. It also confronts assumed oppositions such as virtual/incarnate, screen/live, representation/embodiment, global/local. This study aims therefore at a theorization of the role of intermediality and remediation in social dance practices in Africa today.

En s’appuyant sur un travail ethnographique de terrain au Mali et au Bénin, l’article étudie l’économie de la production et de la visualisation de vidéos clips et leur interaction avec des pratiques de danse sociale. D’une part, l’article traite de la création de nouvelles esthétiques de danse au Mali à travers le développement de vidéos clips, et se penche sur la création de chorégraphies et leur médiation via la télévision et internet. D’autre part, l'article explore les processus de remédiation et d'intermédialité en danse au vu de l’utilisation de vidéos par des danseurs de salsa du Bénin. L’article examine ainsi les interactions entre corps dansants et écrans dans des salles de danse à Cotonou. La notion de vidéochoréomorphose est suggérée comme outil analytique pour apprécier comment la danse et les corps dansants sont transformés par leur interaction avec le format vidéo et les techniques audio-visuelles. Cette notion comprend des transformations esthétiques et techniques ainsi que des changements dans la transmission, la pratique et la consommation de la danse à travers sa médiation vidéo. Elle remet également en cause des oppositions assumées telles que virtuel/incarné, écran/live, représentation/corporéité, global/local. Cette étude vise ainsi une théorisation du rôle de l’intermédialité et de la remédiation dans les pratiques de danse sociale en Afrique aujourd’hui.

Keywords:

• Social dance
• music video
• (re)mediation
• intermediality
• YouTube
• screen
• videochoreomorphosis

Mots-clés:

• Danse sociale
• musique
• vidéo
• (re)médiation
• intermédialité
• Youtube
• écran
• vidéochoréomorphose

ORCID

Elina Djebbari http://orcid.org/0000-0003-0200-3224

Notes

1. For an overview of the different terms used to express the video-dance relationship (screen choreography/screen dance, dance video creation, camera choreography, dance for the camera), see Dodds 2004, 69.

2. The few studies that have specifically addressed the making of music videos in Africa (Askew 2009; Martin 1992, 2015; Schulz 2001; White 2012) mainly focus on their political and social dimensions. While they mention the importance of dance in African video clips, this aspect has not yet been extensively developed.

3. I gathered the fieldwork data in Mali in relation to my study of the ballet dance troupes in Bamako for my PhD dissertation in ethnomusicology. I collected the data in Benin in the frame of my postdoctoral research within the ERC funded project Modern Moves based at King’s College London (2013–2018) and led by Prof Ananya Kabir.

4. My presence in the field in Mali was sustained over 18 months between 2006 and 2012 while the field in Benin was more sporadically invested between 2015 and 2017.

5. Such as Stars Parade presented by Malian musician and producer Boncana Maïga on TV5Monde or Africa Show on the panafrican channel Africable.

6. Labels such as ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ in Malian music have been critically addressed in all their nuances in a great number of scholarly works, see, among others, Charry 2000; Durán 2007; Schulz 2001; Skinner 2015. For an analysis of these categories in the realm of West African dances, see Lassibille 2016.

7. This essay only dedicates one section to the role of dance in Malian music videos. For a more extensive study on the topic, see Djebbari 2018.

8. See for instance ‘Oudiobila’ and ‘Sidian’ by Djeneba Seck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLUMC-4Tu9g&feature=related; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewGx-L6T8rQ&feature=relmfu; Abdoulaye Diabaté’s ‘Sere’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zhRW9eTIWE; Néné Soumano’s ‘Bi Tew’: ; Oumou Sangaré’s ‘Wele Wele Wintou’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaBCJDu3zEg; Mamou Sidibé’s ‘Dambe’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bgydwY-E9pE; Sadio Sidibé’s ‘Siguiko’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H67xZXw9uEU; Batoma Kouyaté’s ‘Sokou’: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX1Guk3P8dI (all last accessed November 2016).

9. The quality of dance featured in music videos is very variable, depending on the level of the dancers involved since artists sometimes request their relatives to help them make the music video. The case of ‘danse de clip’ addressed here speaks about the involvement of professional dancers in the making of specific choreographies for the music videos. The term ‘professional dancer’ relates here to the socio-economic category of persons whose dance practice features as their main daily activity (rehearsal, teaching, performance) and who earn (most of) their living thanks to their dance-related jobs. Apart exceptionally, this is a highly precarious field and many dancers testify to the serious economic and social constrains they have to face. For more information on the social status of professional dancers in Mali, see Despres 2015; Djebbari 2017, 2018.

10. The group of dancers can be either mixed or composed only of male or female dancers.

11. In his study of MTV music videos (1992), Andrew Goodwin has accurately demonstrated how sound and movement combine within the music video to offer a visualization of the musical elements: structure, tempo, accents, breaks, dynamics, lyrics, timbres are rendered through specific dance movements which in turn feed the imagery of the music video. The ‘musicology of the image’ therefore indicates the ways the image ultimately underscores specific effects that can be analysed in musicological terms.

12. For more information about this dance music genre and its social context, see Kohlhagen 2006.

13. See for instance Sarah Andrieu’s description of the Takiborsé dance developed in Burkina Faso (Andrieu and Djebbari 2012).

14. The TV show consists of a competition between children performing songs by renowned Malian singers. Neveu Kringelbach (2013) noted the importance of TV shows dedicated to youth during summer times in the spread of music and dance genres and the development of artistic careers in Senegal. The spelling differs from mini cassé to mini kc, as a play with the pronunciation of the consonants as used in the SMS writing for instance. This spelling game continued with the following offshoots of mini kc with mini r kc (mini recassé) and mini jt (mini jeté).

15. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQxg0FiL1KE (last accessed November 26, 2016).

16. As another instance of a broader appropriation of the dance in various social contexts in Mali, mini cassé and later variations became part of the dance moves featured in the urban youth festivities called balani show (Podevin 2012, 92).

17. This latter statement certainly also refers to the headline of the TV channel that says ‘Africable la chaîne du continent’ (‘Africable the channel of the continent’) as well as expressing the intentional spread of the dance all over the continent. Despite this ambitious goal, mini cassé’s success did not really go beyond the neighboring Francophone West African countries. It did however challenge other artists to create their own versions of this successful dance in order to sustain a sub-regional rivalry (see Andrieu and Djebbari 2012).

18. Football players making dance steps to celebrate their feats appear as recurrent feature in popular music videos, reflecting another means to attest and contribute to the popularization of dance steps as an embodiment of national pride and belonging through dance (Shipley 2013, 373).

19. The Congolese rumba is a famous example of this process (White 2008). The popularity of Cuban music on the continent has also been favored by the political relationships developed between Cuba and some newly independent African countries during the Cold War (Djebbari 2015).

20. As Jung notices with regards to the use of the Internet among Korean American singers, ‘the potentials for exposure and access are vast, though not yet a means to mainstream media appearances.’ (2014, 55).

21. Daniel and Désirée are a famous European-based dance couple performing bachata and what they call ‘sensual bachata’. The video that inspired the Beninese dancers for their show got more than four millions views on YouTube at the time of fieldwork: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdTdX4_aQHo (last accessed November 26, 2016).

22. The audience was mainly constituted of Beninese guests. The ‘international’ dimension of the festival was nevertheless ensured by a small numbers of attendants coming from the neighboring countries, mainly Togo, Ghana and Nigeria, as well as a few expatriates and participants coming mainly from France, Germany, Belgium, Lebanon and India.

23. In his study of the role of jukeboxes in American country music venues, Aaron Fox has ably shown how the interactions between the listeners and the ‘speaking objects’ transformed them ‘into feelings and voices’ (1992, 63).

24. For more information on the role of the ‘griot’ in Mali, see Charry 2000; Durán 2007; Schulz 1997. I use ‘post-griot’ here as a way to suggest that the screens that I describe are somehow a postmodern incarnation of the griot since they play a similar role of mediator that is usually reserved to this figure in the socio-cultural contexts addressed in the essay.

25. For an example of fade/transparency, see for instance ‘Djinê’ by Nahawa Doumbia where dancers appear transparent. This technique allows to evoke the spiritual world addressed in the song lyrics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Br3XzPlPQ (last accessed November 26, 2016).

26. See for instance slow motion effects and duplication of the group of dancers in Chéché Dramé’s ‘Mourouni’ music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4yVTXwvUqKM; rewind effect applied to a backward somersault and other special effects in Hawa Gaffou Diarra’s ‘Diarabi’, see between 0’08 and 0’20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAn39HY0FgI; (last accessed November 26, 2016).