My African Aesthetic
This podcast is part of My African Aesthetic.
On this Podcast, we shed light on the central and important roles Africans themselves have had, have and will have in creating sustainable neighborhoods and communities around the globe.
Our work centers African Aesthetics, African design philosophy and placemaking. We do this through dialogue, project work, research, documentation and education.
This podcast features thoughtful, constructive and reflective conversations with architects, artists, curators, designers, creatives, activists, innovators, community leaders and African design enthusiasts.
We hope this podcast helps you expand and deepen your knowledge on African aesthetics, African design philosophy and placemaking and its role in creating inclusive and sustainable communities in Africa and beyond.
https://www.myafricanaesthetic.com/
My African Aesthetic
5.5. Thomas Presto: Norway. Trinidad. USA
In this episode, founder and creative director at Tabanka Dance Ensemble, Thomas Isak Michael Talawa Presto shares his journey of embracing his diverse heritage and the role of Africana aesthetics in his work. He discusses how his supportive family challenged societal stereotypes, shaping his artistic vision. We explore the significance of naming traditions and the profound resistance embedded within them, identity complexities in multicultural settings, and the challenges of seemingly innocent questions that cross personal boundaries. He reflects on how cultural practices like food and dance connect us to heritage and help reconstruct identity in the face of adversity. Thomas delves into the relationship between dance, African aesthetics and identity, offering insights on how cultural legacies shape personal narratives & storytelling through movement. We talk about “The Tawala Technique: An Africognosomatic Approach to Dance”; a technique that he has meticulously developed for over 27 years, one that represents a groundbreaking advancement in African and African Diaspora dance studies. Thomas also discusses the concept of the "cognoscape"—a way to present African perspectives outside Eurocentric academic norms and its intersections with cultural identity, artistic expression, and the ongoing push for inclusivity and decoloniality in the arts.
https://tabankadance.com/
Instagram: @myafricanaesthetic
Website: https://www.myafricanaesthetic.com/
Welcome to my African Aesthetic. On this podcast, we shed light on the central and important roles Africans themselves have had, have and will have in creating sustainable neighborhoods and communities in Africa and around the globe African design philosophy and African placemaking. We do this through dialogue, project work, research, documentation and education. This podcast features thoughtful, constructive and reflective conversations with architects, artists, curators, designers, creatives, activists, innovators, community leaders and African design enthusiasts. I hope this podcast helps you expand and deepen your knowledge on African aesthetics, african design philosophy and placemaking, and its role in creating inclusive and sustainable communities in Africa and beyond. Thank you for tuning in Africa and beyond. Thank you for tuning in. Welcome to the my African Aesthetic podcast. Today we are honored to have Thomas Isak Michael Talawa-Presto I made sure that I got all the names because it is important. He is a dance artist, artistic director, he's an activist, he's a food enthusiast, a researcher, and he's based here in Oslo, but his workplace is the whole world and today we will be talking about dance and the African aesthetic. So welcome to the podcast, thomas.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:What have you been up to?
Speaker 2:I have been spreading knowledge, or making sure that some of the knowledge that has been expensively bought can be easily accessed. When it comes to Africana, aesthetics, aesthetic, so africana, meaning both african and african diaspora, but so, or you could, a way to maybe frame it as to be all, all aesthetic elements or things that come out of an african rooted philosophy, would be Africa.
Speaker 1:I would like to start by asking you to tell us about yourself. Who is Thomas?
Speaker 2:That's a complex question because if we take the African perspective seriously and the phrase know thyself, that's a lifelong endeavor to figure out who one is. I know maybe who I was, who I was, but I'm not sure if I know who I am. If that makes sense, certain chances will will let me know. But I am. My father is african-american and norwegian, my mother is African-American and Norwegian and my mother is African-Prinadadian and Norwegian. So I have two parents who are half black, half white, born in Norway in the 60s. So I think I'm considered one of the oldest so-called double mixes, whatever that means. But there's very few in my generation who have two parents of a mix like that.
Speaker 2:So my upbringing was like different, because I do have a dual heritage upbringing in sense of having to code switch at family dinners and those things. But I also had two parents who had between them 40 years of experience navigating Norway in a dual heritage body, which made my experience quite different than others in my generation who were dual heritage, who didn't have parents who had navigated that situation from before, plus my family had navigated that situation from before, plus my family had navigated it for 20 years before I came along. So around the dinner table. There was a lot of experiences and I benefited from that. So in that sense I was very lucky.
Speaker 2:And also, both the black sides of the family are very well educated. The caribbean side are predominantly dentists and doctors and the african-american side are predominantly in business or law. So and I've also seen the value of that of having such clear family examples. That negates the racist stereotype of the uneducated black person, and I mentioned it partly because, on my journey in Norway especially, they have always tried to credit the white side of the family for my intelligence or for my ability to structure information and even my ability to create an African, caribbean and African diaspora dance technique. Because it's so systematic, many people have wanted to place it on my Norwegian culture or on my quote, unquote whiteness, which to me a fascinating kind of logic, and that's why I'm mentioning it. As to my names, there are many. My mother had to check when I was born and my birthday was yesterday.
Speaker 1:Happy birthday to you Related, thank you. So when my mother was, trying.
Speaker 2:Happy birthday to you, belated thank you. So when my mother was trying to check when I was born, she had to check up a plate where it says the exact time of my birth and on that plate it says daniel, because she thought she was going to name me Daniel. And then Thomas actually came about because my then four-year-old auntie had a fit at the hospital, wanting me to be called Thomas or life, and somehow my grandmother vetoed my mother and managed to get Thomas on the certificate in order to please my four-year-old auntie. Isak is after Isak Sellandro I Markens Grøde, which is a book by Knut Hamsun, because my great-grandmother on one of the Norwegian sides is Borgil Rud, who illustrated Tesje Kjeringer, a Norwegian folk character, this farm woman who at inconvenient moments becomes as small as a teaspoon and then has to navigate the obstacles. And ironically it's very similar to Anansi's stories. If I'm going to be honest, she's a kind of an Anansi character for those African and African diasporans who are familiar with Anansi the trickster spider. But I would definitely say she's one of those and she's co-authored by my great-grandmother and Alf Preysen and I say co-authored with a little bit of pressure because he got most of the credit and that had to do a lot with her being a woman at the time, but she was a very significant illustrator, especially linked to the labor movement in Norway.
Speaker 2:I grew up in the same house as her, which I'm also very grateful for because my Norwegian culture is also undeniable. So I'm quite happy that I have reached a place, and I reached there many years ago. Around in my 20s was when I kind of started to reach the place where I no longer accepted the premise that I'm supposed to be split somehow because I have dual heritage. But people always want to project that onto you, saying that oh, what do you feel more like? Do you feel more like this or more like that? And it's kind of like outside perspective. And you know, I feel like quoting Beyonce and saying I woke up like this. I don't know what it is to be anything else, but this, this feels natural and actually isn't a conflict. It's there's. No, I'm no less Norwegian because I am brown. There are many Norwegians who would like to claim so, but that's their limitation and not mine. So, yeah, but that's where did I reach? Isaac? Michael is again a mix, both as Caribbean and African-American, and black, and so on.
Speaker 2:You're supposed to have a Bible name.
Speaker 2:I don't know why Thomas and Isaac was not enough, because those are also Bible names, but yeah, so that's kind of how that came about.
Speaker 2:I also have Ajamu, which is he who fights for what he believes in. It's a Yoruba name given to me by Chief Akinyele, who's a Nigerian chief, also suggested, I think, by Baba Buntu, who was then the leader of African Youth, but then formally given to me by Chief Akinyeli, then also Elike, which is an Ewe name, who means he who stood on solid ground. So I've been blessed with being given these names almost as titles or things to live up to, names almost as titles or things to live up to, as motivations, but also as a way to, you know, navigate the traditional systems of being a younger person, but in a position where you have to enter discussions with elders, and being given these names by chiefs or leaders within their community allows you to speak or borrow their authority. It was necessary in order to have some of the conversations that I had to have, so I've been very blessed with that. That was a kind of a roundabout way to give different types of knowledges, but I hope it was a beginning.
Speaker 1:I have a sad story that's related to naming my children. I have half Norwegian, half Ugandan children and everything that you said about identity, about having to choose, and all that. I remember when my daughter was born, I was so. This has something to do with reflection and growing into self-awareness, the discussion on culture and everything. It just it became the most important thing. And I remember when we were choosing names I was like this is easy, because in my culture you get your dad's surname and if you have a very, very stubborn, stubborn mother, she puts a surname from her tribe there and then you have like a christian name, you know, and then we of course have that naming that goes like the clan name, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:So but naming my own children, I was so naive and carefree about it. The first kid, I was just like yeah, the surname is the dad's name, that's how it is in my culture, I'll just carry that, you know. And the second kid is the same thing yeah, I'll do the Christian names and you'll do the surnames, and of course, in the end the surnames are both Norwegian. But with my third child, I was so, my eyes were so open and I was just like this kid is going to have a Uganda name. The other kids are going to have a name ready for them when they are of age and want to have a name. From my culture they already have a name and there is something I don't know there is. I was like why, why didn't I give them that? Why didn't I give them that, that special gift of having a name? And it wasn't even a fight, you know what I mean, but it was out of like ignorance. You know that's what I say. It was like a naive, stupid kind of mistake that I really regret.
Speaker 2:But it's important that being African diaspora and I think it's one of the things that I wouldn't say lost, because that's wrong. But, for example, the Trinidadian last name is Charles Harris, which is really Harris, and what that lets me know is that if slavery had continued, we would have been owned by the Harris plantation. We would have been owned by the Harris plantation because you got the surname of the plantation you were owned by or oppressed by is a better term because we, you know we were never owned, we were oppressed and enslaved. But it's. But I still use that language a little bit sometimes because it's jarring and I'm as much as I am for mindfulness, I'm also against the erasure of what it really was, but it's hard to build pride and identity around a name that has that meaning right. So it's something about really keeping the beautiful African naming traditions, because the naming traditions are beautiful. Your name says something about who you are to the family, first born, last born, long awaited all of those things A blessing, a reincarnation of a grandmother or grandfather that is returning to the family, all these things, all that deep information is there. So that's also why I cherish the names that have been given later, because those names do not carry in them the history of oppression, the history of oppression. There are names that have been given out of love, respect and caring later. So so I also think there's something beautiful about like what you're doing with keeping a name for them to be handed to them. Almost it's almost like receiving a recognition or a prize at least I perceived it that way. So I think those things are important and, yeah, there's something about how your, especially your Black identity, is constantly a little bit attacked. But then also, like I said, your link to Norway is also a little bit under attack, because I speak a lot of languages. I speak seven, but sometimes I think in one of the Caribbean languages, I think in Trini Twang or in Patwa, jamaican Patwa.
Speaker 2:But I remember once I had just had a conversation with Akhenaten de Leon, actually the leader of UMOD, the Organization of Public Discrimination, organization of Discrimination. So I had switched my brain, had switched over to Trini or oomod organization of public discrimination, organizational oomod of discriminating. So I had switched my brain, had switched over to Trini, and then I got this compliment that Norwegians love to give, which is Du er jo heldig som er haltnorsk. So translated to English is oh, you are so lucky being half Norwegian, and my Trini brain went hold up. So what me half bad, lucky. And I was like early 20s I think, and that was the first time my brain kind of managed to pinpoint.
Speaker 2:What is it about this compliment that annoys me? You're militantly told in Norway that something is not racism or that something should be taken positively. So whenever I had like reacted to it before I would get chastised and, you know, called difficult and all these things. And they claimed African youth had brainwashed me and all other stuff. Because how could I react to that? The same with the word naked, because if you reacted to that as well, you were supposedly brainwashed by this organization. I couldn't know that millions of Africans all around the world have gathered around not wanting to be called this problematic name. So me. So the caribbean language, I would say, helped me to pinpoint the insult, because I'm not half unlucky.
Speaker 2:So it doesn't mean that being half norwegian is anything bad. It just means that that's not the source of my luck, as much as it is a privilege and I I love and own that privilege. I love my norwegian culture and heritage and I love, I love my Norwegian culture and heritage and I love my Caribbean culture and heritage and I love my African-American culture and heritage. I claim it all. And Akhenaten de Leon that I just mentioned, he is the one I will give some credit to that. He was the one who taught me claim it all, don't claim half. C claim it all, don't claim half, claim it all. And because of those elders, I also had an understanding of the work. So I can speak, trini, I know the cultures, I know the songs, I can sing calypso, I can dance it, I can cook the food and those things.
Speaker 1:In the time when you started to, in quote, think for yourself, like, begin to identify yourself and say this is who I am. How was that like? What are like two, three things that you think define like the young Thomas, and now I'm talking about maybe you know 13 to 19.
Speaker 2:Well, there are many things and it's hard to answer that question without going a little bit earlier because I've been public about it. It can't be hidden. But the older I get, the more I realize how many marks it left or how many ways it has affected. So I did grow up a little bit outside of the capital in an area that is known for having a lot of neo-nazis and that affected my especially school life. So first, through third grade especially, they were grown men who waited for me after school. They suffocated me in puddles of water, they beat me, they put cigarette marks on my back and on other parts.
Speaker 2:So I, as quite young, had very concrete, quite violent encounters with racism. So a lot of innocence was lost. The ways in which they did abuse some more graphic than what I will talk about here and now affect many things, um, identity wise. Maybe it helped. When I say helped, I don't mean I'm not trying to make it positive in any way, but it a lot of confusion about whether the world has racism in it or not, whether things are always positively meant. That confusion was. I didn't have to deal with that confusion and I think that kind of reality check is not completely unhealthy because I've seen how much others have suffered with their identities and with trying to make sense of their experiences.
Speaker 2:While I quite early knew that I didn't have to make sense of them, because the insanity is not mine. I think I was many years into lecturing about racism. I was probably almost in my 30s and I was giving a lecture about racism and I've trained I even teach at the police academy every year training the police and understanding it. But that, I think, was a moment where I had to truly admit that I don't understand the racist. The episode that I quoted to exemplify this was I was walking in Grönland and for those who don't know, grönland is an area of Oslo which is considered to be one of the most multicultural areas and I was walking on the street. And you know, I'm a well-known dancer, my company is well-known, we are at that period, we were a lot on TV.
Speaker 2:So this Norwegian guy, quite well-dressed, looked like a businessman, is on the other side of the street and he's staring at me and he keeps matching my pace. So he's walking in the same speed as me and staring. I assume that it's a fan. Now I might have to stop, because this fan is really intense maybe he saw last month's show and the opera. So I slow down and starts to cross the street and one car almost hit him and he jumped up and he does a little thing, and then another car in the opposite direction also almost hit him. So I'm like, oh gosh, this man is trying to kill himself. Just to tell him. Tell me that he likes my dancing. I stopped and I see his mouth moving, so I take my earphones out of my hand and then it comes like, which is like Negro, what you doing here, go back where you come from and so on.
Speaker 2:And that was the moment I realized I don't understand the racist, because I couldn't understand, in Grönland specifically, that you are so disturbed at an OCD level because I am a black man walking on the opposite side of the street as you, that you risk your life at least twice considering the cars. And then I'm over a hundred kilo muscular black man. So you could almost say you're risking your life a third time in order to shout these insults at me?
Speaker 2:And to what end Does he expect me to go? Oh, my God, you are right. I'm in the wrong place. I have organized myself on the wrong shelf. All my life I've been living on the top shelf and I should really be at the bottom. Thank you so much. I will buy me a ticket to the Caribbean right now. I have been confused. My GPS was broken. I have been walking aimlessly around Grenlel all my life. Thank you for saving my ass. I was faced with the utter stupidity of the situation. How futile his actions were because they could not lead to any results, at least not with it being me, because I won't be moved, I won't even be insulted and I probably, at some level I should feel threatened because you're not well in the head. If you're willing to die, tell me to go back where I come from. But I'm not even threatened. So for me I was just a mixture of entertained, confused.
Speaker 1:I give up this work that you do, it comes, it comes with threats. Have you had to have an extra sense of awareness of in certain places and how you move, or have you, for example, just decided that you know what?
Speaker 2:My life. So I like there's a joke about me taking taxis, but I don't like the bus. I don't enjoy the bus and that comes in part from my experiences but also comes from being stuck on the night bus with those same neo-Nazis that I recognized. And then they're drunk and they were saying stuff to me and stuff after I've been to in Oslo and they had been to Oslo and having to relive my childhood on the bus on the way home, while contained in walk to my house, as they say shit to me, was an experience I didn't enjoy and it stuck to the point that I tried to avoid taking the bus for many, many, many years. And some people just think I'm a diva that don't like public transport and I make jokes. I make jokes about that because I was more than happy to have them think that, about that, because I was more than happy to have them think that. But in reality it was trauma and it was trauma that I had to hold and face myself. And that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2:The older I get, I realize how much some of those experiences shaped different coping mechanisms that you know because you're an efficient person. You pack them into your life and you normalize them. But that's what you're doing. You're packing them into your life and normalizing them, but there's no way to normalize the kind of abuse that I had to face and I will be working on that until the day I die. I was too young to know what life would have been without that trauma, so I can't completely say or separate what is what and I'm just putting that there to own it, because not enough people talk about it. The psychosocial after effects of having been faced with racism and in many ways it fester but yeah, but, like I said, this fascinating understanding and admittance that it's not for me to understand the racist. Racism, however, is predictable. So I can teach the predictability of racism because it's not particularly inventive but it's extremely reproductive.
Speaker 1:What does a safe and inclusive Norway for black-brown like you coined the term melanin-rich people look like for you?
Speaker 2:Melaninrik is an interesting word.
Speaker 2:It's a word that comes out of our children's classes, really, because we were teaching and you know they were being called minorities, minoritetsbarn, and they were being called said so to their face as if it's a personal identity. To have it's a statistic quality, it has nothing to do with your personal identity. To have it's a statistic quality, it has nothing to do with your personal identity. And it's also completely contextual, because you know we are a global majority, but even so those children are a global majority. They're only a local minority. So it doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense for them to have it as an identity. So as a counterbalance to that, you know, having grown up with an understanding of being rich in melanin, melanin became a term and it was adapted so quickly. The kids, their posture, posture, their attitude, instantly changed. The parent saw that and started to adapt it. So I would say it was used. But parents of dual heritage or mixed heritage children, those were the ones who really adopted it first and then from there it just grew and grew and got used more and more. And now you hear it on the news. So it's quite interesting.
Speaker 2:Some people think that I'm like a militant protector of the word and I will just make, for the record, say I'm not in any way. It's a word that lets you move on, because sometimes it's so awkward All those situations where they don't know what to call you and blah, blah, blah, and it's always, always the burden of the african and black person to make those awkward situations not so awkward. Right, and that's also exhausting. So what I like about melanin reek that it's a word that no one can be truly insulted by. Yes, melanin rig is a word that few people can be truly insulted by, which means that if you use the word, you're communicating an intention of not being offensive or not insulting. And because you can make that intention clear by using the word, we can move on and we can talk about the business at hand rather than having that become an entire thing. And that's what I enjoy about the word and why I like that the word is being used is because it allows us to focus on some things. That is way more necessary. Racism is very much designed to distract you from doing the things that you're supposed to be doing for yourself, and it's also very much designed to refocus you to be of service to the first because we are supposedly the other, to the first because we are supposedly the other.
Speaker 2:But I explain it like okay, so in Norway they don't have an understanding why being asked where you're from can be exhausting at length and also why it can be a problematic interaction. And because Norway is a consensus country, they'll be like oh, but it's a completely natural way to start a conversation. And in reality it isn't, because even four year olds knows in kindergarten that when you speak to two four year olds that are getting to know each other, they are best friends instantly and they focus on everything that they have in common. And they focus on everything that they have in common. It's almost exhausting how much they agree on absolutely everything in that period of making a connection. Right, you don't start your connection by focusing on something being radically different and you don't start by forcing one side and one side only to explain what and why the difference is there. So I say I when I teach, I teach that what makes the interaction of where are you really from problematic is that when you ask me where I'm from and I answer Norway, most often surprisingly often the response is no, where are you really from?
Speaker 2:So there's several things that is interesting about that interaction. By saying no to me, where you have asked me what my personal identity is and where I am from and I give you the correct, both geographical and personal answer, you now deem yourself qualified to tell me no, which means you have already placed yourself hierarchically above me and you are forcing me into an interaction in which I have to defend my identity to you and seek your permission and approval to be who I am. That is what is problematic about that interaction. That is why that interaction is not neutral, because now I will have to say I'm from Nittedal and then you say no, no, you know what I mean. Where are you really from?
Speaker 2:I am born at Aarhus, in Lurden school. No, no, you know why are you being difficult? Okay, I have one grandfather from Trinidad. Oh, you are from Trinidad. I just said I have one grandfather from Trinidad and the response is oh, you are from Trinidad. And I'm like, like I said, it's hard sometimes to not feel superior, because what kind of logic is that? I was being very precise. I said one grandfather. I've only revealed one out of four parts. And then you have the other, quite interesting one which one of your parents is Black? That's very personal.
Speaker 2:I had a penny for every time, and once I got a note I said hey. Before I answer that, please tell me have your mother and father ever slept with an immigrant? That's very private. Well, madam, that's exactly what you just asked me. It is exactly what you just asked me. I don't even know your first name.
Speaker 2:What are you going to do with the information of which one of my parents is Black? And also, what do you believe that you know from hearing this information and in my case, none of them. I have two Black parents, or medium brown or whatever you want to call them. They both have the same shade of color as me. So it wouldn't even give you the information you want.
Speaker 2:But it's a weird question. At some point we have to admit this is socially awkward. It's a very social awkward place to put your attention before we're on a first name basis. And I also don't understand, before we are on a first name basis, why? Why do you feel you need this information? And then my aunt, my Norwegian aunt, understood me for the first time, my white Norwegian aunt, to be more precise, when she was pregnant. So when she got pregnant, she understood me because I had been frustrated with having my hair touched, having my face touched, and she experienced for the first time that her body became public. People felt that they could just come up and touch her belly yeah without asking her permission. So they didn't need to ask her permission to put their hands on her body, because their curiosity trumps her right to privacy right so that same thing was what, something I experience every day.
Speaker 2:So it's not necessarily that it's so problematic to touch my braids or touch my hair. If you're a good friend of mine and you're curious about what it feels like, texture-wise, it's not that problematic. Let's be honest. The problematic part is when your hand is in my hair because you were curious. But a child asking, for example, I don't know't think and ask questions because that's curiosity, but a grown person with upbringing shouldn't have their hands in your hair without asking permission.
Speaker 1:On a lighter note, I know that you're a food enthusiast and you draw from all these different cultures and different backgrounds. What does this mean to you?
Speaker 2:I think, it's many things.
Speaker 2:Food to me is love, it's connection, it's ancestralism, it's self-care, it's care for others. It's so many things. I know that from I was almost just one year old. My mother would prop me up on the bench and she would put the spices into my hand first, and then I would dump it into the pot, and that continued till I was four or five, and then she would always have me like taste the food when I was cooking. And my mother actually literally does not like tasting food. It's interesting, she's an extremely good cook but she doesn't like to taste it. But she trained me so I can smell or taste when the pot is right and on, and that's continued. And then also my grandfather picked me up from Norway when the neo-Nazis were at their worst.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:I moved to live with him in Spain. So this is my Trinidadian grandfather and he asked me and he is the one who's truly responsible for starting the reconstruction process after racism destroyed me and he asked me many times because I was convinced I was stupid because I was black. It's hilarious to think back on now, but that used to be like a shouting match argument I am stupid. No, you're not. Yes, I am. I am black and stupid. How can you say that I am blacker than you and I'm a doctor? Yes, but I am different. I am black and stupid. I wash. You say that I am blacker than you and I am a doctor? Yes, but I am different. I am black and stupid. I wash my hands of you. It's a ridiculous exchange, but it went on for like more than a year how old were you around this time just?
Speaker 2:11, 10, 11 is yeah. So in that exchange he asked me the same question for months. He asked me why did we survive slavery? And I kept trying to answer and he was almost never satisfied with my answer. But then I would summarize the answer from him was something like we sang survival. We danced survival. We cooked survival. So he taught me kaiso, mento and calypso. He taught me belly, p, pique, bongo, congo, bele, tambu, bambu and the other Caribbean dances, yanbalu, nago, rara, gede, all the traditional dances and chants. And then he taught me the traditional dishes and how to cook them dishes and how to cook them. And in many ways I cook them still today as a tribute to him and to what those dishes mean, and I share those dishes and how to make them for that same reason you're really good at telling stories, and now I would like for us to focus on how you tell these stories through dance.
Speaker 1:How did you end up in dance?
Speaker 2:It's the same. My grandfather is again the one I would have to really tribute. He trained me in spain in the caribbean dances, um, and how to do them and the rhythms and so on, the second half so and about, and that was part of the survival and the reconstruction. When I returned to norway I was quite introvert. I'm still introvert, but I was forced to be an introvert in a sense through some of the activities and also being in African youth where some of the people there were instrumental in kind of getting me to dance. I know that a lot of them didn't know I was already trained in Caribbean dance. So I think their perspective was that I didn't want to necessarily join the drumming circle because it was unsafe to me. But for me it was more of. I wasn't sure what I felt about the drumming and I wasn't sure what I felt about the context in which we were gathering in the in the circle and dancing, because it was so different than the protocols that I was taught.
Speaker 2:So my hesitation was quite different than I think how it was perceived, but that's an neither here nor there, but that was like the second space where I got an outlet and where I could use some of that knowledge that I was trained by my grandfather to retain. And dance is important for so many ways, because the black body is often what is being negated, even the actions of the black body. It's like the black body supposedly doesn't have dance technique, and this is exemplified in so many ways. You cannot mention a black jazz technique, for example, because the people who made that technique are all white and predominantly men, because it's only technique when they do it. It's not technique when we do it, it's nature. So you know all those supposed compliments of us being born with rhythm, being born with the ability to sing like Aretha Franklin, usain Bolt is the fastest man alive, not because of his training and discipline, and people misunderstand, they think they're being anti-racist when they're giving these compliments. But racism always acknowledged the superiority of the Black body. Now some people would want to hear me wrong and say that I'm claiming that the Black body is superior. That's not what I said. I said racism acknowledged the superiority of the Black body, so much so that the Black body is superior. That's not what I said. I said, racism acknowledged the superiority of the Black body, so much so that the Black body had to be controlled by a white man. That image of the savage is an important and very dear, very, very dear to Europeanist culture. They hold on to this for their life.
Speaker 2:And in the dance dance world, technique is the logic. So the way you perceived as professional is through technique. If you have technique, you're automatically considered creative, which is interesting, because technique doesn't make you creative, especially not the way they perceive technique, and I don't mean that insultingly, but technique for them is the ability to, to reproduce. So it's, it's a, it's an obsession with reproduction. You're supposed to be able to reproduce exactly the same, the same result every time. Why our aesthetics is about dynamics, the ability to be contextual at all times, right, so it's.
Speaker 2:It's, for example, I call it arriving on action. So arriving on action is the process that happens between the drummers and the dancers. So I am not dancing what the drummer is playing and the drummer is not playing what I'm dancing. I am dancing the intention of what the drummer is going to play and the drummer is playing the intention of what I'm going to dance, and then we arrive on action together. So when I put my foot down and the sound happens at the same time, we manifested the future together. Down and the sound happens at the same time, we manifested the future together. Yeah, so if he waited for my foot to be down to then play the drum, he would be late, and if I had waited to hear the noise to start to move, I would be late. So we have to anticipate. So when I'm dancing, I'm manifesting the imagination of the drummer and the drummer is manifesting my imagination.
Speaker 2:It's a futuristic practice, but the term traditional is almost confusing because many times when people say traditional, they think something which is locked, but it's not locked in time. It's always being weaved out of the current moment. It sounds like it sounds because it's that particular drummer and it's me and we are in this particular setting, surrounded by these particular people. So you build from the material around you to create a moment of significance for those people and with those people. It's a very complex methodology for co-creation.
Speaker 1:The characteristics that you point out right now. I would imagine we can find them in the Tawala technique. Do you have any other things that are specific to the Tawala technique that you developed?
Speaker 2:The Tawala technique. Yes, so concepts like that, true Abilities to train that ability, rhythmic acumen as it is called. So acumen is the ability to make good choices quickly. So rhythmic acumen is the ability to make good rhythmic choices quickly, because rhythm comes fast, right and this is also what you're judged on. So this is what people don't understand. The core of African aesthetics is actually choice, because polyrhythms, multiple rhythms playing at the same time, multiplies the rhythmical choices you can make almost to infinity.
Speaker 2:So, then, what you are judged by is the choices you make within all that realm of possibilities and polycentric dancing, the ability to have multiple centers of the body influence your movements I call it self-qualification. So to polyphicate, or poly, means multiple, so to make multiple selves, so to dance polycentrically is the ability to multiply yourself without ever canceling yourself out, and that's the core of the technique. So the secret behind the technique is that it trains you to multiply your options by being able to control and move polycentrically, and to be able to respond to and embody complex polyrhythmic structures. So it allows you to weave together two intricate, complex encyclopedic systems of multiple choice and navigate that and compute that at a speed which allows you to react in the future in order to produce an engaging result that is visceral, that the audience actually feel inside of their own body, because that's another thing that is central to African aesthetics. You can in many ways, say you play the audience. So when a singer is scattingting right the jazz technique of scatting the voice you will establish the melody, but then you scat around that. But that also means that you can still hear the melody. Why can you hear the melody? Because you're scatting around it.
Speaker 2:So in african aesthetics the beauty is in the middle, but we don't show the middle. We sing around the middle, we dance around the middle. That's why the chest moves, the hips moves, the spine is moving. It's not that we don't have a geometric idea of a beautiful pose, but you wouldn't. You wouldn't go the pose. You dance around the pose to show you that you know where it is, and you investigate the pose from multiple positions so that so it's a different way of showing the beauty.
Speaker 2:Ballet tries to just be in the middle of the beautiful position and then hold it. We dance around it and investigate it and see how it changed and how it moves. And what does it look like from this position and that position? It's extremely complex. There's so many generations that have poured into the same rhythms, the same dances, but every generation adds information to it. That's why it's so complex, that's why it's so dense, that's why it's so hard for outsiders to understand, because there is no Western musical notation system that is capable of notating complex polyrhythmic structures African and there's no Western movement notation system that is capable of notating African polycentric movement. So that means that already at my warm-up I lose the entire Western institution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you would need another set of rules to.
Speaker 2:Yes, train your gaze in order to see it, because sometimes they will point to dancers and say, oh, they are one of your best dancers, when that dancer might be the dancer that is the least capable of polycentric movement. But therefore they like the dancer because the dancer is clear to them, because the dancer doesn't embody multiple choices and just shows the a position that they can recognize, and because of that they go oh, that must be your best dancer, while I knowing the genre will go well.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And that's interesting because then, which one do you privilege? And what many do when they try to move our forms up on stage is that we bow down to the dominant aesthetics and then we move closer to that aesthetic, actually losing what is unique and particular about our own. So a lot of my work has been in also finding a pedagogical way to choreograph where the audience is being trained. So the show, my performance, has usually become more and more rhythmically complex as it goes along, and I found it so interesting that someone said, yeah, it was really at the end where we saw the individual personality of the dancers come out and that's what I really liked.
Speaker 2:And da, da, da. And I'm like, listen, I started there and you were the same one who told me that it was messy, they needed to work on being clean and la la, and they don't understand that they have been taken on a journey, which is why they appreciated so much where it ended, because I was also purposely frustrating the audience in order to have them appreciate when we went into a truer version of the form. But you weren't valuing and appreciating that, and also a lot of them feel that they're taking something away from you when they're saying that thing about the end if it's coming from a trained eye, I would think the natural thing would be to ask why, thomas, did I miss something?
Speaker 1:What did I miss? And it's something you need to be educated.
Speaker 2:You would be surprised how few questions are asked okay.
Speaker 2:I took an entire master degree and I believe that the teachers had the best of intentions, so I'm not critiquing that. But I got very few questions. I was being told constantly how I needed to educate myself on the western aesthetics, how I needed to relate to the Western aesthetics, how I needed to relate to the Western aesthetics, that we were in the West and all these things. I was asked very few questions about the aesthetics that I actually represent and I found it interesting, because how would they be able to guide me to whether I'm successfully doing what I'm trying to do or not if you've not even asked me what it is I'm trying to do? It's made me a teacher because I ask my students what was your intent, what was your goal? Okay, well, if this is your goal, let's work on the dramaturgy. So I'm not. I don't even go. Let's change the aesthetics. No, let's make the dramaturgy clear. Let's investigate. Which references do the audience have? Which do they not have? Which do you have to place there?
Speaker 1:you have been doing some artistic research right on inclusive and decolonial practices.
Speaker 2:I don't know if my investigation has been in the complexity of african and african diaspora forms and really how to language it, how to also do it, how to do it well. But in order to do it well, you actually have to understand what you're doing, and for others to be able to be trained in doing it well, they also have to understand what it's about. So, really kind of didactically, breaking it down into its components so that it can be reconnected and so that one can understand the complexity and texture. What it is that we're doing is part of it. So, like the way I explained, arriving on action is an example of this. The way I explained polycentric movement and polyrhythm is an example of this. Um, so that was very much what it was about, and then I created certain processes and then an artistic performance was kind of the end result.
Speaker 1:Is it accessible online or in a digital form?
Speaker 2:It will be, but I would say it's very much an immersive experience. So, as much as people can see it, probably if they go to the university colleges web page, you wouldn't truly get to experience it because it was designed to be experienced then and there, and the people who are now trained in the methodology, with or without their knowledge, will perpetuate a lot of these things expertly as well, as there will be a lot of things published which I would say would be a lot more interesting than the, the format that it is currently in, but the port. I created a particular format in order to resist certain things in the space. I did the same with my master's, so I'm sure that the teachers who were my teachers during my master's perceived me to be very difficult Because, also, I don't think they fully grasped, understood what I was doing. I know, however, that it worked, because those who came after me has had a quite different experience, also because certain competences, this understanding of being the first, often in certain things, and also there's a lack of understanding of certain things.
Speaker 2:There have been other Blacks before and after me, but there's a huge difference between being a Black body doing Western aesthetics and being a Black body doing what is called outer culturalization, doing your own aesthetics, and there are not that many in Norway that are presenting our own aesthetics and dance.
Speaker 2:There has been a huge influx of black bodies in the field, but those black bodies are not necessarily doing black forms, and I'm not saying this as a critique to those persons, because I also very much defend the right for a Black person to express themselves through any aesthetic that they want.
Speaker 2:I'm simply acknowledging that it's quite a different journey if you are to express yourself in an African or Black form and get space on a stage and to choreograph that. And I think that a lot of these will realize how hard it is to do that, both in relationship to getting support but also in relationship to their training, because it is not enough to just be black or just have African heritage and then you put together dance moves that you know and use a little bit of music. That is interesting. That's not the aesthetic form. So just like ballet or Western aesthetics takes years of study, african aesthetics requires the same amount of effort, and that's where I am saddened by the state in Norway, because once some of us leave, there are very few left who have done that amount of work, or would know where to start on that amount of work, and the work is considerable.
Speaker 1:We are represented in certain spaces, but it doesn't really mean that we are doing the work of decolonizing.
Speaker 2:Inclusivity is not decolonial at all. I think the people lack the understanding of what decolonial means. So people think just doing something a little bit anti-racist or something inclusive or something feminist is decolonial and it's none of the above. South Africa can maybe be a good example. If you look at pictures, aerial pictures, of a South African city, you would very clearly be able to see where the black part lives and where the white part lives. And as much as you say you removed apartheid as a law, those lines continue. The difference in infrastructure continues. All of those continues.
Speaker 2:So decoloniality would actually be to make wouldn't even work if you moved all the white people from the white area and put them in the black area and put the black people in the white area. That wouldn't even work because the white area is built on white logic and it's adapted to white life. So those cities would have to be reconstructed in order to suit African life and African ways of doing stuff and if it's built from the logic up based on that, it would be decolonial. But that shows how much how radical decoloniality is as a process and how much work it requires. So putting in one or two documents and being like inclusive oh, we mentioned a Black female inventor or whatever. We decolonized the curriculum.
Speaker 2:I don't know what's smoking, but you're on a trip because that's not even close to what it is, and that's also. The struggle might be in understanding parts of my doctorate is some of the things that I refuse to do and how I use the fact that it was an artistic doctorate to do it differently, for example. So there's some things that I did. I created a methodology I called a cognoscape, so kind of like a mental journey for you to take in order to access a lot of the information and perspectives that are in my head, which forms the basis of how I create it, perspectives that are in my head, which forms the basis of how I create it.
Speaker 2:Now I did not do that by referencing a bunch of scholars, because those scholars are forced to reference in a way which is Eurocentric and it forces you to center certain people and certain ways of perceiving African aesthetics, which is done by anthropologists and ethnomusicologists which are outside of the form. And even the ones who are from the inside of the form are forced by the academy to reference and to write in a way that is for outsiders and that forces a kind of a dissonance, a distance to the actual practice that I refused to take. I refused to take that stance during this because it wasn't my artistic research was specifically a decolonial one, not just because it was my choice, but the actual call asked for a colonial doctor doctorate. So that's why I said you asked for it. Therefore, we'll take it seriously. Therefore, I I will do it. This hasn't really been a problem. Like I said, some people have struggled with accepting my disregard for certain things.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for a wonderful conversation. We usually end the podcast by asking our guests what the African aesthetic is. What does the African aesthetic mean to you in the context of your work, or what comes to mind when you think about African aesthetics?
Speaker 2:So for me, well, aesthetics is the study of, or the knowledge of, what is considered beautiful, and that's not just, you know, the superficial. It can also be what is beautiful behavior? What is a beautiful friendship? What does a beautiful family look like, right? What is a beautiful home? What is a beautiful friendship? What does a beautiful family look like, right? What is a beautiful home? What is a beautiful dish of food? Right?
Speaker 2:So my African aesthetics is an aesthetics of effort. Knowledge that the water tastes sweeter because somebody who loves you went far to fetch it right. The knowledge that the bread is tastier because it was needed and made by hands that care for you. The knowledge that the food is more savory because it was cooked with love and it was cooked specifically to nourish you so that you may live well, right. The words mean more because of who gave it to you, applying effort in the actions that are done for the people that mean something.
Speaker 2:Let's say the technique.
Speaker 2:So it's the effort that goes into creating a technique, a technique that actually does what it's supposed to do, that can train bodies to be able to move in our aesthetics and with our technique, but that also is done so structured and so well that it's able to hack into the official universities and systems so that you could teach them in schools of higher learning, so that it is examinable, so that it actually protects also the professionalism of the people using it.
Speaker 2:It's not just a name for random movements, it is worked systemically. That is 19 years of effort. For example, it is not creating just a cultural group that gathers to dance our culture every now and then, but creating a platform in which the people who are there get professionalized and have access to grants, have access to travel, have access to seminars, have access to real skills. That gives them entry into the professional field as well, because one could be just as popular with just having a cultural arts group on the side. But it's choosing to apply that effort that brings it to that next level which many people do not understand neither the costs of nor the reasons for.
Speaker 1:It's everything behind what is given.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's the sweat equity.
Speaker 1:Thank you very much for your time. You're welcome. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, then I'd encourage you to visit our website or follow us on our socials for updates on our work and opportunities to collaborate or support our work. Remember to subscribe, leave a review, reach out to us or share this podcast with other people that might be interested in this content. Thank you for joining us today.