KIRA ARTS in Toronto: February 7 & 8, 2025!

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Join us for two unique and exciting knowledge-sharing events with Kira Arts, led by Aly Keita of Montréal. First, Aly will teach a dance/music workshop on rhythms and melodies in action. The following evening, we will present a work-in-progress excerpt of Djata: Conversation of the Manden, a half-hour performance piece with an in-depth artist talk to follow. 

Note: Aly Keita is a Francophone artists; English translation will be provided throughout the events.

Both events take place in the Meridian Arts Centre, 5040 Yonge Street, North York

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• Workshop: $25 total

• Performance & Artist Talk: $15 + tax

• Combined Access to the Workshop and the Performance with Artist Talk: $30 + tax

Registration & Tickets are non-refundable

1. WORKSHOP: Friday, February 7, 2025 from 7:30 – 9:00 PM in the Rehearsal Hall

African rhythms and melodies in action – a bodily experience

This workshop offers participants a chance to discover the characteristics of various traditional West African musical instruments, such as the kora and the djembe, from a Guinean perspective. It provides a space for them to resonate with the sounds and express them, focusing on dialogue with the musician, rhythmic awareness, play, body posture, and various techniques and expressions. Additionally, it is an experience in letting go, embracing the body, and communicating through it. Indeed, Aly Keita uses exercises in singing, dancing, and physical coordination to develop rhythmic awareness, encouraging participants to feel and express rhythm and melodies in their bodies.

Open level: for those with some dance experience in any form. 

REGISTRATION COMING SOON!

2. PERFORMANCE & ARTIST TALK: Saturday, February 8, 2025 from 8:00 – 9:30 PM in the Studio Theatre

 

Djata: Conversation of the Manden

Born from the union of the buffalo and the lion, Soundjata Keita is the long-awaited child, the heir whose birth was foretold by soothsayers. Despite being unable to walk for years and enduring much humiliation, he defies the odds by standing up, walking across the village, and uprooting a baobab tree. This act marks the beginning of his awakening, leading him to establish the great Mandingo Empire, unifying the regions of West Africa, including Guinea, Aly’s homeland.

Aly draws inspiration from the Manding epic, one of the most significant founding narratives of West African oral traditions, dating back to the 13th century. In this piece, he focuses on the central character, Soundjata Keita, and the segment of the legend known as the “Awakening of the Lion.” Through his dance—acrobatic and percussive—Aly embodies the messages conveyed by the griots’ sung tales, while also reflecting his personal journey in a continuous dialogue between strength and vulnerability.

The Artist Talk: Creative Process Between Music and the Dancer

This artist talk will be offered in French with English translation. Since his early days as an artist, Aly has always maintained a deep connection with music. For him, sound and dance are inseparable because sound permeates everything. His creative process is composite: he shapes the sound environment while developing his movements, creating a loop where music and dance respond to each other. This dynamic allows him to navigate between the traditional and the contemporary, between ancestral codes and freedom of expression. The discussion will begin with this: how music, perhaps freer than dance in its ability to blend influences, enables Aly to update the traditional African dances from his homeland, reinvent them in his own way, and more intimately, to immerse his body in a distant memory. Like in a dream, through music and dance, Aly transitions from one emotion to another, sometimes expressing them while respecting the codes, and other times departing from them.

TICKETS COMING SOON!