"All cultures spin out a dialectic of self and other, the subject "I" who is native, authentic, at home and the "it" or "you," who is foreign, perhaps threatening, different, out there. From this dialectic comes the series of heroes and monsters, founding fathers and barbarians, prized master-pieces and despised opponents that express a culture from its deepest sense of national self-identity to its refined patriotism, and finally to its coarse jingoism, xenophobia, and exclusivist bias." (from Edward Said's essay
States)
As I continue to work through this, much of the challenge of this project, of The Dumb Drum Guy, is concerned with representations, how they ultimately fail, and what it means to be an insider and an outsider. It gets more complicated because I am an insider in the world of drum and dance, but never in a way that makes me truly an insider, a child born into it, not surprised by its own language, understanding it, not left out. I am continually on the outside, even as my own sound and sense of rhythm continues to deepen and evolve. Moments come when playing or working with people, or looking at someone's behavior, and what I might think about them may be entirely wrong. To break down my own resistance to this fact has been an ongoing process, and a project that will carry me to my own end with no final resolution. This I admit.
To represent what I see and feel is all I really can do. To do that in a place with so much potential for misunderstanding, and an equal amount of potential to cross hardened lines with respect and invitation, is endlessly strange, wonderful, and perilous. I'm sticking my neck out here, stretching it really, perhaps across the tracks of a fast moving train, or maybe across a road mistaken as forbidden. I don't know yet. I have dedicated this project to asking the question, "So what?" To looking under as many stones I can find that haven't been looked under, or that have caused tension, because Lord knows there is plenty of that to be found in this business, despite the sometimes tired rhetoric of those spouting about the unity of the drum, its meditative trance properties, the coming together of all ages, all people, at all times. There is nothing wrong with those sentiments, but the picture is bigger than that and far more interesting. To me, staying inside just that, without the guts to accept the drama of the human world, reduces it to something that negates struggle, and how would this unity fit if there were no struggle, because unity can only exist if there is disunity.
I'm likely not making much sense, because this place is not a place of orderly sense. It's not Said's "dialectic" per se, although Said gets at much of what a Dumb Drum Guy is up against. It's so many snapshots, all tied together by an endless stream of the steady marking of time as it slips beneath the feet, beats struck, rhythms pounded out, new views made and just as quickly unmade, a note played, just a sound taking up its tiny moment in the air, threading together with other sounds, also with their ephemeral moment, then vanishing into something like meaning for those who might be there to witness.
I had the honor of performing with Aboubacar "Oscar" Camara the other night. Oscar's resumee is striking. Among other things, for 15 years he was the assistant choreographer for the great Les Ballets Africains that I have written about before. There are other things too, readily available on the web, sound bites, starry eyed articles written about him in town-haps rags, videos on YouTube. Bits and pieces of his resumee, some conflicting. I don't know what to make of these things. How do you represent someone in print, in dialog, someone who is like Oscar? Someone who has forgotten more than I will ever know? From my own eye, I suppose.
Oscar is easy to miss. His features are often buried beneath sunglasses and ball caps and a style of dress that to my eyes is more conservative than what I have seen with a lot of my Guinean friends. He plays Dunduns with Yamoussa and our group sometimes, nothing flashy, but relaxed and in the pocket. He seems to like it in the back, a notion that does not seem to match his resumee or his dance performances. He knows my name, is always gracious, and somehow never seems distant, even though I admit, I don't know him hardly at all. There is a lot there to know.
We played at a coffee shop called Arefa's Espresso. It's amusing to me that this guy who has played Sydney's Opera House, and who knows other world class venues, can hang with such ease in such a modest venue. At least that is what it is to my eyes, and all this is through them, tentative, provisional, shifting truth.
At first things felt a bit strained. I showed up late with Paul who also plays in the group. Not sure why we came in late. It's not like either of us, but that's the way it happened. Yamoussa has taken to my drum. He snatches it from me at every chance, says, "This is my drum. You can play that one." And laughs. What are you going to do? Give him the drum. It is quite an amazing piece of work. There's nothing fancy about it, no carvings on the shell, nothing in the roping that would signify this drum has something special, but it does. It's one of those one in 10,000 djembes that's got that extra special wang-a-lang. It came to me recently (another story), and when it showed up here, I knew I'd not let it move on to someone else. Yamoussa feels it too. He told me after the show, "You don't even know. With that djembe. You don't even know!" And laughed. Oh, I know, I know. Anyway, there was a shortage of djembes. I got sidelined while Yamoussa played.
The crowd was quite small, like three or four people sipping lattes and staring at the scene, that despite its energy, its attraction, had to look as strange and foreign as I was suddenly feeling. I kept crossing my legs, then uncrossing them, thinking, man, this is just such an American posture, trying to get into the fact that I could sit that close and just watch Yamoussa play for once without having to hold down the rhythm. But I felt awkward and stupidly silenced. Just another moment in the ride, another beat under the feet.
I went to retrieve another djembe. It's another one of mine. Another really nice instrument, this one from Senegal, and heavy as granite. By the time I got back, Yamoussa was outside smoking and taking a break. "Go inside. Set up your drum next to mine." Things got cooking a little more when the music started up. I relaxed into it, started working up a sweat. Yamoussa, in his characteristic strong manner, made people dance, got them doing simple steps. They, as usual, looked awkward at first, and slightly frightened by the forcefulness of Yamoussa's urgency to get them moving. "Oh yes, you are going to dance, now get up!" No one is safe. The poor saps are helpless. They must put down their lattes and for a moment do what they can to stave off the discomfort they are feeling, and I imagine, the questions and concerns that are nipping at their minds: I can't dance. I'm awkward and foolish. who is this guy? Am I safe? Dancing? African dancing? This is African, right? Or is it Caribbean? I hope my latte is safe.
Within moments he's got them lined up in small rows and having them move their arms out while they step back and forth. I've seen it before. I've been in it before with him. The first time I tried to hide, but Yamoussa shouted into a microphone, "Oh no, you get up here. I see you hiding!" And then everything is okay. Nothing is particularly hard, but the waves of anxiety are still echoing a bit. You can see it in the reddening of faces and the small beads of sweat that have formed without quite enough exertion yet for it to happen.
Oscar is hanging out, pretty much doing what he wants, filling in the gaps in the music. Yamoussa sits back down and plays. Other spectators and curious passersby come in. Yamoussa does another dance with some young girls, who seem more than delighted to oblige. Then a group of teen boys come in, and sit down on the couch that is immediately front of where we are playing. They're punching each other in the arms and pointing. Then Yamoussa stops the music and gets up. "Ok, you gonna dance now." One of the boys says, "No way." Yamoussa, edgy as he often is says, "You see me? I see you. What? You can't dance? You too cool for that?" He's got his hands on his hips, his head cocked to the side, looking at them. They look like they're not sure whether to panic and run, or maybe start a fight. But Yamoussa is not backing down. "Come on. You got one dance." He grabs one of the boys hands and pulls him off the couch and the others follow. "Come on," he shouts at me. I start the rhythm. Then the four of them are in a circle in the center and jumping around and laughing. Yamoussa high fives them all as they exit stage right as fast as they can.
We end the show once. Then it starts again. We end it a second time. Nope. It happend like this sometimes, and I take it as a good sign that the moment has been right somehow and no one wants it to end. Now Oscar is up and moving towards the crowd. He's going slowly, like he might be a little tipsy. Then he stops and bends over at the waist, pulls his knees together while keeping his feet apart. He places his hands near his knees, palms out, his head is turned crown down towards the floor. The whole posture is strange and awkward looking. There is no rhythm being played. I look at the faces of this new batch of a crowd, a group of attractive young women. They don't know what to do, or what the hell they've walked into. What is this man doing? Everyone except Yamoussa and Aboubacar is white, and I wonder if any of them are frightened by the strange antics of a large black man in front of them doing something that seemingly makes no sense. Then Oscar stands upright again and points at the crowd and says, "You can't steal it. That's mine." Yamoussa is laughing. The women are startled, a little scared. I'm not even sure they realize he's part of this troupe. "You can't steal that one. That one's mine." Then he goes back into his strange bent-bird pose. He stands again, "That pose, that one is mine. You have to get your own pose." The crowd still looks confused and perhaps slightly troubled. Yamoussa calls from the sidelines, "You can't steal his!" Then Oscar says, "We can't leave without the singing." Then he calls out a lyric which I wish I knew. I managed to blade-blah my way through it with everyone else, another aspect of this whole biz, another thing I don't know that I've sort of accepted, which is understanding and speaking the Susu language. The first time he calls it out, there are a few faint murmurs. He calls it out again. The murmurs get a bit louder. And again, until everyone is calling it back to him. Then there is another lyric, this one I caught, "Mafele-Mafele" (spelled phonetically of course). Then two more sets of lyrics, the last one more of a sound than a syllable. I can't do it justice in letters at this point and I'm not going to insult it by trying. See how I struggle with representation! Suffice it to say, it was an odd, nasally sound. And on that last syllable, Oscar struck his pose again.
Then he got everyone up. The first lyric had a marching move, knees up to the waist, hands up to the cheekbones. The second lyric's move was bent at the waist, hands twirling around each other, "Mafele Mafele." The third had a strong posture, arm outstretched, finger pointed. And the fourth, strike a pose! He managed to get everyone in the room who was not playing to do this. And when they struck their first pose, he said, "Nobody move." And someone did. So he said, "We have to do it again." And again someone moved. On the third or fourth one, Yamoussa called someone for moving. Oscar laughed a little, then moved to the couch and slumped down, legs outstretched, a smile on his face, "No. It's good. It's very good," he said in a bemused, slightly tired tone, and I wondered how much was inside that, the amusement, the honesty I sensed in his response, and the tiredness.
The challenge here is that representations of anyone will always fail in one way or another. In this, it is further complicated by the fact that there are things here I will never know, languages, rituals, cultural tendencies that make me feel awkward at times. That's the thing though, isn't it? That's the point where admitting the Dumb Drum Guyness of the whole situation helps.
And I bought my ticket to Africa, so it is for sure on!
