COBA artistic co-founder BaKari E. Lindsay and Charmaine Headley on COBA and Sankofa
Charmaine (CH): I'm Charmaine Headley, one of the artistic co-founders of COBA, Collective of Black Artists, and
BaKari (BL): I'm Bakari E. Lindsay, the other artist co-founder of COBA, Collective of Black Artists, founded in 1993.
CH: That's a long time.
BL: So, why did we decide to do this? In 1993, the dance scene in Toronto was different than it is now, the diversity that we see and love and appreciate now was just beginning to bloom. There were a lot of rumours and ideas floating around in several peoples' heads, working in what at the time was considered "non-mainstream forms," i.e. people who were not in ballet, modern, jazz, or some other forms that are more recognizable as musical theatre. 'Cultural forms,' 'ethnic forms,' whatever the label was that the time were becoming fashionable. People were starting to recognize that there was some validity and maybe they had some sort of premonition that in 2010 that we would be the majority and that they would be looking at us quite seriously as a force to be reckoned with. However, dance that was coming out of the African aesthetic and the African diaspora was almost nonexistent. There were companies working in heritage - what I like to call heritage - In that their parents had come to Canada how many years ago and they felt it was important for their children to connect in some way to their homes and identity, and therefore they had little dance groups that did work, and good work, and I'm not commenting on the quality of their practice but what I am commenting about is the presence they held in the artistic community here in Toronto.
CH: And the professional.
BL: And, well, the professional artistic community. So coming out of Trini institutions that were very euro-centric and held quite a strong hold on the purse strings of the mainstream dance community, we had what was considered at the time ambitious ideas about forming a professional company that reflected at the time the black aesthetic in dance, and so COBA was founded. We felt that we needed a platform that our voices as young choreographers and, at the time dancers, needed to be heard, and we soon realized that it was also a platform for other performers who didn't quite fit the physical, social, and what other bills that needed to be filled to be considered a dancer in the eyes of the professional community.
CH: I would add to that because the climate at the time, as BaKari says, was very euro-centric. We didn't initially start out with that intent, in terms of educating the masses, it was basic a way for us to dance because there were more dancers than there were jobs, being recent graduates, but it quickly jettisoned and grew and mushroomed into this big organization where it was necessary to advocate and push Africanist dance, traditional West African and Caribbean indigenous dances, on parallel with all the other euro-centric dance forms that were present in the early 90s in Toronto. What we found is that it was not even thought about for an African dancer to be a professional dancer, or someone who practices South Asian dance to be a professional dancer, and what came out of that was this entire wave of "ethno-cultural dance forms" that wanted a position within the dance community of Toronto, within the dance milieu of Canada, and wanted their voices heard, wanted representation from the councils and recognition from the councils that their art form is just as legitimate and just as viable as the "recognized mainstream European" dance forms.
BL: I mean it's interesting because I'm just reflecting on Mo'Nique, who recently won her Academy Award for her role, and the statement that she made, that she thanked the Academy for looking at the performance and not the politics, and so much about the arts becomes so political, that we had to learn to be the politician as well as we could choreograph and perform. It's, I mean, in a way you think about it, in a way it's sad, but I think its helped us build a kind of strength and a kind of knowing that I think has helped strengthen what COBA is today. When I look around and I see the wealth of dance that's in Toronto, and that wealth is primarily attributed to what in some cases is still thought of as being "ethnic," but i think we have gotten very PC enough to now know that that's inappropriate, and we're slowly moving towards being dance. And it's great, I think we didn't begin with a company in mind, you know, we just wanted, I mean like everyone else, we were wide-eyed, [word unknown] and naive, and we wanted to create a place where we could just dance and create dance and thought that's all we needed, and very quickly learned that maybe we needed to do just a bit more.
CH: I think we found out we grew up, and we found out what our roles are in life, in society, in Canadian society, and that's why we have been placed here in one believes in...
BL: Destiny...
CH: Destiny, etc, that's why we're positioned here.
Charmaine (CH): I'm Charmaine Headley, one of the artistic co-founders of COBA, Collective of Black Artists, and
BaKari (BL): I'm Bakari E. Lindsay, the other artist co-founder of COBA, Collective of Black Artists, founded in 1993.
CH: That's a long time.
BL: So, why did we decide to do this? In 1993, the dance scene in Toronto was different than it is now, the diversity that we see and love and appreciate now was just beginning to bloom. There were a lot of rumours and ideas floating around in several peoples' heads, working in what at the time was considered "non-mainstream forms," i.e. people who were not in ballet, modern, jazz, or some other forms that are more recognizable as musical theatre. 'Cultural forms,' 'ethnic forms,' whatever the label was that the time were becoming fashionable. People were starting to recognize that there was some validity and maybe they had some sort of premonition that in 2010 that we would be the majority and that they would be looking at us quite seriously as a force to be reckoned with. However, dance that was coming out of the African aesthetic and the African diaspora was almost nonexistent. There were companies working in heritage - what I like to call heritage - In that their parents had come to Canada how many years ago and they felt it was important for their children to connect in some way to their homes and identity, and therefore they had little dance groups that did work, and good work, and I'm not commenting on the quality of their practice but what I am commenting about is the presence they held in the artistic community here in Toronto.
CH: And the professional.
BL: And, well, the professional artistic community. So coming out of Trini institutions that were very euro-centric and held quite a strong hold on the purse strings of the mainstream dance community, we had what was considered at the time ambitious ideas about forming a professional company that reflected at the time the black aesthetic in dance, and so COBA was founded. We felt that we needed a platform that our voices as young choreographers and, at the time dancers, needed to be heard, and we soon realized that it was also a platform for other performers who didn't quite fit the physical, social, and what other bills that needed to be filled to be considered a dancer in the eyes of the professional community.
CH: I would add to that because the climate at the time, as BaKari says, was very euro-centric. We didn't initially start out with that intent, in terms of educating the masses, it was basic a way for us to dance because there were more dancers than there were jobs, being recent graduates, but it quickly jettisoned and grew and mushroomed into this big organization where it was necessary to advocate and push Africanist dance, traditional West African and Caribbean indigenous dances, on parallel with all the other euro-centric dance forms that were present in the early 90s in Toronto. What we found is that it was not even thought about for an African dancer to be a professional dancer, or someone who practices South Asian dance to be a professional dancer, and what came out of that was this entire wave of "ethno-cultural dance forms" that wanted a position within the dance community of Toronto, within the dance milieu of Canada, and wanted their voices heard, wanted representation from the councils and recognition from the councils that their art form is just as legitimate and just as viable as the "recognized mainstream European" dance forms.
BL: I mean it's interesting because I'm just reflecting on Mo'Nique, who recently won her Academy Award for her role, and the statement that she made, that she thanked the Academy for looking at the performance and not the politics, and so much about the arts becomes so political, that we had to learn to be the politician as well as we could choreograph and perform. It's, I mean, in a way you think about it, in a way it's sad, but I think its helped us build a kind of strength and a kind of knowing that I think has helped strengthen what COBA is today. When I look around and I see the wealth of dance that's in Toronto, and that wealth is primarily attributed to what in some cases is still thought of as being "ethnic," but i think we have gotten very PC enough to now know that that's inappropriate, and we're slowly moving towards being dance. And it's great, I think we didn't begin with a company in mind, you know, we just wanted, I mean like everyone else, we were wide-eyed, [word unknown] and naive, and we wanted to create a place where we could just dance and create dance and thought that's all we needed, and very quickly learned that maybe we needed to do just a bit more.
CH: I think we found out we grew up, and we found out what our roles are in life, in society, in Canadian society, and that's why we have been placed here in one believes in...
BL: Destiny...
CH: Destiny, etc, that's why we're positioned here.
