African Dance: Sand, Drum, and Shostakovich

"More than ever, as a forum for cross-cultural exchanges, this ninth edition of the Festival showcases African dance because it appears to be undergoing a cultural and artistic renaissance nurtured by the contact and clash between tradition and modernity, and by a reevaluation of its global links. The young choreographers visiting us from Abidjan, a dance capital in Central Africa, from Ouagadougou and Johannesburg, are creating their own special vocabularies, with echoes from ancestral lands and sprawling urban centers. In their works, these artists are living Africa's present and future, with all the anxiety or confidence that this may entail."  — Festival International de Nouvelle Danse, Montreal, Canada 
"The idea of a developing African dance avant-garde is still unfamiliar in North America, where classes in traditional African dance remain popular, as do touring African dance companies. [The film's] virtue is the cogency with which the choreographers explain their ideas and provide the link between their very different pieces. The basic theme is that modern dance in Africa, even if influenced by the West, remains rooted in Africa because it is danced by Africans."  — Anna Kisselgoff, NY Times, 01/10/03
"…a very important documentation for the development of modern African dance for this period of time!"  — Kajo Nelles, Director of the International Dance Fair, Germany
"It would be excellent to show all of our dance classes, especially our history and performance classes…" — Gail Hoak, Dance Chair, Mt. San Jacinto College, California