ChoreoNommo—the power to manifest a new reality through artistic processes.

Core Elements of ChoreoNommo

In examining ChoreoNommo, four pivotal elements emerge:

ChoreoWanga, PerformancePwen, Committography, and the Talawa Technique™.

• ChoreoWanga: Inspired by the Caribbean concept of Wanga, which denotes personal power and potential to translate desires into realities. In ChoreoNommo, ChoreoWanga captures the architectural essence of a performance, from the venue and lighting to the movement material and framing.

• PerformancePwen: Rooted in the Caribbean spiritual notion of Pwen, a power cultivated through deliberate actions and sacrifices. PerformancePwen symbolizes the kinetic realization of ChoreoWanga, embodying the dynamic reciprocity between effort and reception.

• Committography: This element involves strategic immersion into the larger organizational frameworks governing the art world. By participating in boards and committees, practitioners gain a panoramic view of the artistic landscape and influence broader structures, legislation, and guidelines shaping artistic creation.

• Talawa Technique™: Rooted in Africognosomatic and polycosmic paradigms, the Talawa Technique™ is more than a dance method. It communicates the essence of the art, ensuring technical prowess, ancestral resonance, and contemporary relevance. With polycentric and polyrhythmic aesthetics, it transcends mere physicality, resonating spiritually, artistically, and holistically.

Introduction to ChoreoNommo

ChoreoNommo represents the power to manifest a new reality through artistic processes. This research project, “Anansi’s Web-Entanglements without Tripping,” delves into the intricate dynamics of African Diaspora choreographic practices. These movements, rooted in a rich cultural heritage, confront historical erasures and champion a decolonial ethos.

Navigating this complex landscape, ChoreoNommo serves as both a response to these complexities and a nod to the Africommunities my art resonates with. It stands as tangible evidence of my artistic exploration, demonstrating how I organize and share the depth of African Diaspora practices. This framework aims to professionalize performers and offer audiences high-quality, meaningful engagements, striving to create and impart meaning.

The Essence of ChoreoNommo

ChoreoNommo, a term I coined for my choreographic praxis, melds “Choreography” with the African philosophical and spiritual concept of Nommo. In African philosophy, Nommo embodies the inherent potency of The Word and Gesture, where utterances and actions possess the transformative capacity to materialize change. Consequently, ChoreoNommo manifests as an artistic praxis dedicated to effecting substantive change and embodying potent agency. It operates as a choreographic practice, kindling its potential as a catalytic force for social, personal, communal, and societal transformation.

Spiritual Foundations and Symbolism

Within the Dogon spiritual tradition, the Nommos are beings who descended to Earth, imparting life and wisdom through their profound sacrifice. They are believed to have metamorphosed into ethereal bodies of water, symbolizing our profound connection to water as a sustainer of life and memory.

The Nommos metaphorically represent the symbiosis between artists and their communities, suggesting that artists serve as vessels for the urgencies and values within their communal milieu. By immersing themselves in their communities, artists foster environments conducive to learning, healing, and advancement. This perspective acknowledges how the urgencies and knowledge of a community can inhabit and “drive” artists, akin to spiritual possession in African Diaspora knowledge systems.

Language, Rhythm, and Transformation

In the Caribbean and African diaspora, the transformative power of language, tone, and rhythm is evident, reshaping words to create novel understandings and identities. This phenomenon influences European languages, where the adoption of tonal rhythmicity is often regarded as “cool” or culturally relevant.

Within ChoreoNommo, Nommo applied to choreography and movement becomes a dynamic medium for communication and expression, infused with profound meaning. The dancer’s movements and gestures breathe life into the spoken word, physically manifesting its essence. The language of the drum, acting as the “Word,” constitutes a distinct language capable of conveying phrases, words, and intricate philosophical concepts. ChoreoNommo encourages active participation in co-creating the word, transcending passive listenership, while consecrating space and time. It echoes the essence of Sankofa, an Akan concept urging us to look back to the past to propel forward, and Ubuntu, emphasizing the interconnectedness of all individuals and the intrinsic value of community.

Core Elements of ChoreoNommo

In examining ChoreoNommo, four pivotal elements emerge: ChoreoWanga, PerformancePwen, Committography, and the Talawa Technique™. Each component plays a critical role in the creation, performance, and dissemination of dance works, ensuring a holistic and transformative experience for both practitioners and audiences.

1. ChoreoWanga: Architectural Essence of Performance

Conceptual Foundation: Inspired by the Caribbean concept of Wanga, which denotes personal power and potential to translate desires into realities. In ChoreoNommo, ChoreoWanga captures the architectural essence of a performance, encompassing every aspect from the venue and lighting to the movement material and framing.

Key Components:

• Venue: Selection and design of the performance space to enhance the thematic and emotional impact of the work.
• Lighting: Strategic use of lighting to create mood, focus attention, and support the narrative arc.
• Movement Material: Development of choreography that embodies the desired themes and emotions, incorporating a wide range of movements to convey depth and complexity.
• Framing: Consideration of how the performance is presented, including staging, audience arrangement, and use of multimedia elements.
• Identity of Performers: Recognition of the performers’ backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives, enriching the performance’s authenticity and depth.
• Identity of the Audience: Understanding and considering the audience’s cultural and social backgrounds to foster meaningful engagement.
• Communication Channels: Utilization of various channels (e.g., social media, community forums) to promote and discuss the performance.
• Socio-Political Context: Awareness and integration of the current socio-political climate, ensuring the performance remains relevant and resonant.
• Funding and Infrastructure: Securing financial support and necessary resources to realize the performance’s vision.
• Collaborations and Support: Establishing partnerships with other artists, organizations, and community members to enhance the performance’s impact.
• Archiving and Media: Documenting the performance for future reference and dissemination through various media platforms.

Implementation: Practitioners engage in detailed planning and creative experimentation to align these components with the overarching vision of the performance, ensuring a cohesive and impactful presentation.

2. PerformancePwen: Kinetic Realization of ChoreoWanga

Conceptual Foundation: Rooted in the Caribbean spiritual notion of Pwen, which refers to a power cultivated through deliberate actions and sacrifices. PerformancePwen symbolizes the kinetic realization of ChoreoWanga, embodying the dynamic reciprocity between effort and reception.

Key Components:

• Deliberate Actions: Focused and intentional movements that carry the emotional and spiritual weight of the performance.
• Sacrifices: The physical and emotional investment of the performers, contributing to the authenticity and intensity of the performance.
• Reciprocity:
  • The Interactive and Responsive Relationship: Between the performers and the audience, enhancing the communal and transformative aspects of the performance.
  • The Emotional Reception: Audience members’ emotional responses, creating a feedback loop that energizes the performance.
  • Limbic Resonance: Audience members seeing themselves reflected in the performers, fostering a deep emotional connection.
• Emotional and Historic Resonance: The lasting impact of the performance on the audience, shaping how it is remembered in hindsight.
• Historic Shift: How the performance shifts history or expands the realm of possibility. Does it open doors, break barriers, or represent a historic first?
• Recruitment:
  • New Performers: Attracting new talent to the art form.
  • New Audience: Drawing in new viewers and fostering audience loyalty.
  • Performer Loyalty: Building a dedicated group of performers.
  • Increased Brand and Renown: Enhancing the reputation and recognition of the performance and its creators.

Implementation: Performers cultivate a deep connection with their material and their audience, using techniques such as improvisation, audience interaction, and responsive choreography to create a dynamic and engaging experience.

3. Committography: Strategic Immersion into Organizational Frameworks

Conceptual Foundation: Committography involves the strategic immersion of practitioners into the larger organizational frameworks governing the art world. By participating in boards and committees, practitioners gain a panoramic view of the artistic landscape and influence broader structures, legislation, and guidelines shaping artistic creation.

Key Components:

• Board Participation: Involvement in decision-making bodies within arts organizations to advocate for the needs and perspectives of dance practitioners.
• Committee Work: Engagement in specialized committees that focus on policy development, funding allocation, and artistic programming.
• Legislative Influence: Active participation in advocacy efforts to shape policies and legislation that support the arts.

Implementation: Practitioners commit to ongoing professional development and networking, seeking out opportunities to serve on boards and committees and advocating for changes that enhance the visibility and support of dance and performance art.

4. Talawa Technique™: A Holistic Dance Method

Conceptual Foundation: Rooted in Africognosomatic and polycosmic paradigms, the Talawa Technique™ is more than a dance method. It communicates the essence of the art, ensuring technical prowess, ancestral resonance, and contemporary relevance. With polycentric and polyrhythmic aesthetics, it transcends mere physicality, resonating spiritually, artistically, and holistically.

Key Components:

• Technical Prowess: Development of advanced technical skills that enable precise and expressive movement.
• Ancestral Resonance: Incorporation of movements and rhythms that connect performers to their cultural and spiritual heritage.
• Contemporary Relevance: Adaptation of traditional elements to modern contexts, creating works that speak to contemporary audiences.
• Polycentric Aesthetics: Use of multiple centers of movement, emphasizing the fluidity and interconnectedness of the body.
• Polyrhythmic Aesthetics: Integration of complex rhythms and timing, enhancing the dynamic and multi-layered nature of the performance.
• Protecting Dancers’ and Teachers’ Careers through Competence and Knowledge: Building a prestigious technical foundation that qualifies dancers and teachers as competent technicians in bodily practices. It includes comprehensive knowledge in culturally relevant dance and pedagogy, inclusivity, technical prowess, and culturally specific somatic practices. This competence not only enhances their careers but also ensures the longevity and sustainability of their professional endeavors.
• The Intelligence and Power of a Polyconducted Body: Refers to a body that can conduct multiple forms of energy and movement simultaneously, demonstrating a profound understanding and mastery of diverse dance techniques and styles. This also entails the ability to contain or channel more than one spirit, such as deities or ancestors, and dance the urgency of a community.
• The Ability to Selfpolyficate (Polycentric Dance): The capability to initiate and control multiple centers of movement within the body, allowing for complex, layered, and dynamic dance expressions.
• The Focused Presence, Intention, and Actionability of a Ferocious Dancer (Martial Arts): Highlights the disciplined, purposeful, and impactful nature of a dancer who channels the precision and intensity of martial arts into their dance practice.
• The Stamina and Adaptability of a “Feté” and Carnival Reveller: Emphasizes the endurance, resilience, and ability to thrive in high-energy, celebratory environments, maintaining peak performance over extended periods.
• The Kinetic Extemporation Ability of a Griot Calypsonian (Chantwell): Showcases the spontaneous, improvisational skill of a dancer who, like a Griot or Calypsonian, can create and adapt dance narratives on the fly, infusing movement with storytelling.
• The Depth of a Ritual Dancer Blessed by the Ancestors: Signifies a profound spiritual connection and cultural depth in dance, where movements are imbued with ancestral wisdom, reverence, and sacred significance.
• The Pedagogical Skills of an Expert Educator: The ability to effectively teach, mentor, and inspire students, fostering a deep understanding and appreciation of dance.
• The Technical Proficiency of a Teacher and Practitioner Dedicated to Dance Longevity: A commitment to maintaining and advancing dance techniques, ensuring that the bodies practicing these techniques can last long without injury. It includes balanced training to support sustainable dance careers and the evolution of dance practices.
• The Reflection and Dissemination Skills of a Scholar: The capacity for critical thinking, research, and the ability to share knowledge through writing, lectures, and other scholarly activities.
• The Ability to Teach Based on Correct Alignment and Placement and Knowledge About the Body: Expertise in anatomical awareness, ensuring that dance is taught and practiced with an emphasis on proper alignment, placement, and body mechanics to prevent injury and enhance performance.

Implementation: Practitioners undergo rigorous training in the Talawa Technique™, continually refining their skills and exploring new ways to integrate this method into their creative practice.

The ChoreoNommo Model offers a robust and multifaceted approach to dance and performance art, integrating architectural planning, kinetic execution, organizational engagement, and holistic technique. By embracing these elements, practitioners can create powerful and transformative works that resonate deeply with both performers and audiences, contributing to the ongoing evolution of the art form.

Terminology and Conceptual Framework

Integral to this praxis is generating novel terminologies, which serve as conduits for expressing concepts and ideas elusive within existing linguistic frameworks. This self-referential use of language pays homage to the practice of Nommo and the ancestral beings who engaged in world-building and creation.

In my doctoral research and accompanying paper, I embark on a self-referential journey, forging new linguistic pathways to narrate the ChoreoNommo practice and its practitioners.

Anansi Tradition and Language Manipulation

ChoreoNommo intertwines with the Anansi storytelling and trickster tradition, where language manipulation crafts new words and meanings that facilitate embodied existence. This process serves as a sacrificial offering to the community, fearlessly confronting prevailing structures through naming and performing. This commitment challenges racism and other forms of misnaming, positioning practitioners at the vanguard of societal transformation.

Anansi and ChoreoNommo in Practice

The Anansi tradition emphasizes the belief that language wields immense power in shaping reality. Through verbal expression and storytelling, individuals can fashion new meanings and challenge prevailing power structures. ChoreoNommo harnesses the body and movement to embody and enact these emergent meanings. Through naming and performing, individuals confront established power structures and engender fresh possibilities for embodied existence. This process constitutes a form of sacrifice to the community, demanding individuals embrace risks and challenge the status quo.

FASTENING THE WEB: THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS

Within ChoreoNommo, I’ve introduced terms like “ChoreoWanga” and “PerformancePwen” to convey my embodied approach to writing and conceptualizing. These terms hold meaning for practitioners rooted in African and African diaspora approaches to movement and performance. They enable authentic communication of artistic endeavors while avoiding assimilation into dominant language paradigms. My aim is to repurpose the concept of performance and performance spaces to better serve the Africommunity.

ChoreoNommo as a Practice

ChoreoNommo is an intricate dance of power, structure, influence, and embodiment, capturing the essence of African and African diaspora movement and performance practices. This paper will explore the four foundational pillars of ChoreoNommo: ChoreoWanga, PerformancePwen, Committography, and the Talawa Technique™. Special emphasis will be placed on introducing new terminologies and concepts to enrich the academic lexicon and serve the Africommunity. Drawing inspiration from Brenda Dixon Gottschild’s notion of “Choreography for the page,” this paper seeks to transform the written word into a dynamic dance, giving rhythm, motion, and life to our narratives.

ChoreoNommo for the Polyspirit Practitioner

ChoreoNommo isn’t merely an artistic or philosophical term; it’s a comprehensive framework for the Polyspirit practitioner. This construct serves culturally rooted dancers and artists drawing from diverse dance genres and cosmologies, where the human body is seen as a spiritual vessel capable of channeling and embodying multiple spirits simultaneously. For example, in Voudun cosmology, becoming a ‘divine horseman’ allows ancestral spirits to temporarily reside within a practitioner. This concept can be applied as an innovative artistic device in dance choreography. The dancer articulates the community’s urgencies, acting as a conduit for collective needs and narratives.

The Relationship Between Dancer and Musician

The concept extends to the relationship between the dancer and musician, especially the drummer. In Africana musical traditions, the spirit of the music transcends corporeal limitations to enter the dancer’s body and vice versa. This mutuality is a profound merging of souls, forming a deep rapport that transcends superficial collaboration. This ability to channel multiple spirits expands the horizons of Deeply Rooted Performance Theory, offering new paradigms for artistic research. It rethinks individual and collective identity in performance, casting dancers and choreographers as spiritual and communal emissaries. This introduces a revolutionary scope in dance theory, viewing dance as a complex social, spiritual, and community-oriented practice.

ChoreoNommo and Spiritual Syntax

ChoreoNommo offers a lexicon for understanding choreographic thinking, transcending the coordination of limbs. It becomes a ritualistic sharing of life-force and spirit, a transformative vehicle for the dancer, audience, and cosmos.

Dichotomy of Doing and Performing

ChoreoNommo distinguishes between “doing” and “performing,” and “becoming” and “pretending,” challenging conventional thinking around participation in dance or ritual. This distinction highlights the importance of authenticity, embodiment, and intention in Africana dance forms.

In mainstream artistic practices, the focus might lean toward performance—an externalized display of skill. However, ChoreoNommo demands active engagement with spiritual and physical realms, transforming the dancer, space, and spectator. The practitioner becomes an active participant in the spiritual essence of the tradition.

For example, in chanting, the difference between doing and performing is evident. Performing a chant as a sequence of phrases lacks the “duende,” the spirit that fills a room when chanting becomes an act of spiritual channeling. This energetic commitment is a conscious choice to engage deeply with human experience and spirituality.

In this framework, dance is not merely an aesthetic choice but a profound act of socio-spiritual participation. Each move, note, and chant is a conscious choice to engage deeply with the tapestry of human experience and spirituality. This transforms both the dancer and audience, creating a shared space of transcendental experience, and adds a potent layer to our understanding of dance, chanting, and living.