------TALAWA TECHNIQUE-----

 TABANKA CREW

Founded in 2008 by Artistic Director, Dancer, and Choreographer, Thomas Talawa Prestø, the Norwegian based dance company has been celebrating the dance and culture of African People all over the world since its founding. Drawing largely from the technique of traditional dances, yet with a modern twist, Tabankas lively presentations unmask stereotypes while entertaining audiences and keeping the magic alive.

Tabanka Crew utilizes the language of African dance forms as the basis for movement development and artistic expression. African and Caribbean Dance is approached from a contemporary perspective. This has created an original dance language, intercontinental in nature that speaks for itself. This dance- language and technique has come to be known as the Talawa- Technique.

Talawa- Technique also called TT-Tech is a Technique developed over 13 years by Thomas Prestø aka Talawa, the Artistic Director of Tabanka Crew Soca Dancehall Ensemble.

Talawa-technique is a blend of African and Caribbean movement (flexible torso and spine, articulated pelvis and isolation of the limbs and polyrhythmic, polycentered,  polymovement) integrated with modern flavor, resulting in a powerful mix of the new, the old, and the everlasting.

The Talawa- Technique (TT-Tech) is most rewarding in developing the body as an instrument of movement. The body of instruction itself has been carefully culled and developed, changed and recast, sharpened and refined over the many years into a codified system.

This codified movement vocabulary focuses on the isolation of individual body parts, in preparation for the execution of a polymovement based structure, that is rooted in African dance and music. Dancers are trained to control all body parts, becoming excellent dance masters.

Talawa- Technique draws from Africa's the Caribbean and African Peoples (diaspora and continental) diverse movement styles, culture, and music. The Technique helps the students to: understand some of the aesthetic values that help to shape African dance forms. Develop the skills to isolate and move parts of the body simultaneously, further develop a good sense of full body co-ordination, build stamina and endurance at the same time develop clarity and accuracy in physical and interpretative skills. Dance movement vocabulary will be articulated through the beat of polyrhythmic African and Caribbean music and built through warm up, polycentre exercises and locomotive phases.

Somewhat unique in the technique is also the focus on oral and written material, related to the history, culture and aesthetics related to the different basic dance techniques and styles. The technique firmly believes that a movement done with the knowledge of its history, the culture that spawned it, and the experience of its original dancers, is infinitely more infused with power, spirit, intention, intent and motif than movement simply executed because of the choreographer’s wishes.

“Traditional African and Caribbean moves, has always served a function, they have meaning to the community and speaks to our blood and our very soul. They are the retentions and secret behind our ancestors survival and success. To remove this memory, this power, this ancestral connection, from the dance, is to remove the vital energy of the dance. It is like Carnival without costumes, summer without sun, food with no salt, it is like Tea brewed on cold water. With the ancestors dancing g with us, the dance exist in the past, present and future at the same time, lifting it, where we blend with our grandparents and children, much in the same way as the rhythms blend to create envigorating polyrhythms”

Thomas Talawa Prestø 2002

1. Technical
2. Exploration
3. Application

1. TECHNICAL
Various movement techniques and practices, activates and engages the students in the essential work of alignment and conditioning. The techniques are designed to develop endurance, suppleness, awareness, economy, and precision in moving. These exercises are also intended to reduce injuries; including excessive spinal- tension, tension, awkward gestures, a casual carriage, and inexpressive mobility. Studies in African anatomy (different view of the body than in Western world, this is reflected in dance, buttox is a five directional muscle), further the student's self-awareness and provide practical knowledge for safe and effective use of the body.

2. EXPLORATION
This involves studies in space, time, energy, attitude, intention, spirit, gesture, and emotion, in which students relate, develop and explore their inner nature and relationship to the world and other people in terms of and through movement. Through improvisations and guided experimentation in a variety of movement practices, students will explore the relationship of mind, spirit, and body. How these things are expressed through an African, Black, and Caribbean body language, expression, and aesthetics, both historically and contemporary.

3. APPLICATION
In TT-Tech application quickly follows technical exercises. Often technical exercises are directly applied to choreography and movement. TT-Tech believes that an informed student that understands the uses of technique stays more motivated, and is quicker to internalize technique. It is also helps separate what is “dance” and what is “technique”.

“Dance without technique is often limited, and lacking aesthetics, but technique without dance is not dance at all.”
Talawa 2001

1. Epic Memory Projections
2. African & Caribbean Locomotions
3. Feelstyling
4. Reinforcements
5. Sections
6. Riddim

1. EPIC MEMORY PROJECTIONS:
Studies dealing with specific qualities of movement derived from varied African and Caribbean aesthetic dramatic sources.

2. AFRICAN & CARIBBEAN LOCOMOTIONS:
Dance studies designed around basic locomotive actions, which are the bases of all theatrical adroitness/dexterity, brilliancy, and communication. (walking, running, leaping, jumping, gliding, skipping, etc.)

Principles of spinal contractions and release and the curviliniality of movement, create a powerful and organic connection to the solar plexus and to the ground.

Too often African inspired dance often only consist of a series of poses the creator feels to be African, while the locomotion connecting the poses are based on European modern or classical dance. TT-tech has made an extensive study in the feel, attitude, technique and pattern of African and Caribbean locomotive movements.

3. FEELSTYLING
Is based on the experience of the student, reacting to surrounding music and the impulses of life, and are developed around the basic class material technique and genre.

Students are expected to show, what the music, “riddim” and the moment makes them feel. Expressing this with their own body as their voice, using correct technique but otherwise being free. This is closely related to impro, or hip hops “freestyling”, but takes it to the next level. Students are expected to be able to step into the riddim, syncopate, anticipate the riddims next move, but also be able to create polyrhythm and be an instrument as well as a dancer reacting to the vibrations. Feelstyling in this context also includes showing freedom from the obvious beat, and showing a range of rhythms and movement, emotions, attitude and more.

4. REINFORCEMENTS
Combinations developed and designed specifically in order to ensure protection and maximum efficiency of the body’s capabilities. The Fortifications develop stretch, resiliency, range strength, suppleness, precision, endurance, postural polycentric balance, dynamic stress, isolations,  and polymovement coordination.

5. SECTIONS
Sections are short phrases of movement designed to quickly stimulate and tone the psycho-physical instrument for disciplined action.

These address choreographic concepts such as changing levels, rhythmic impetus, shape, weight, volume, and tempo, while stretching, strengthening, and sensitizing the entire body.

6. RIDDIM
Studies involving the student in the common signatures of various rhythms from the continent of Africa, the Caribbean, Americas and African peoples music (jazz, hip hop, house etc. etc.) Focus here is on interpreting the different rhythms through body, attitude, spirit and space. Both following and anticipating, leading and creating polyrhytms as part of the orchestra. A master of African Peoples dance, is not separate, nor enslaved to the rhythm but a part of what makes it, he/she is the rhythm and part of the instrument. The drum throbs with the hart, vibrates with the shoulders, pulsates with the hips, beats with the feat pounding or tapping the ground. This is “RIDDIM”.

The reinforcements combined with certain standard technical choreographies t are the ultimate basis of the Talawa range of technique. They are the framework of movement mechanics, of muscular development coordination, elasticity and range of rhythm and timing of movement phrasing in pulse and space and spirit. They range from the barest essentials of coordinated movement to the most complex of dramatic polymovement studies.

 Talawa- technique serves almost purely as the dancers’ tools; it does not define their style or expression. Technique prepares the dancer to in order to access spirit, emotion and those other elements that raises dance to the level of ART.