Artistic Dialogue and Artistic Exchange through Movement

This article will narrate the process of working in artistic collaboration utilizing traditional Ghanaian dance forms and Western dance-making methods while incorporating a common artistic thread between the two cultures. Invited to create a new work of choreography for the Ghana Dance Ensemble (GDE), the author as guest artist choreographer explored ways of creating a hybrid dance work that honored the artistic footprint of GDE. The choreographer engaged company members, consisting of both dancers and musicians, in daily rehearsals and dialogue about the artistic process and the aesthetic roots from which each artist was grounded. Compositional structures were explored cross-culturally. Traveling out to several field sites, the choreographer was able to view and participate in sacred ceremony for more grounding and artistic information. From this process, a dialogic space was created in which new meanings were shared between cultures and traditional artistic values re-imagined. Dialogue through conversation was not the only exchange of importance. An additional dialogue was that of dancing bodies viewing each other, adapting and integrating change firmly grounded in each other's originating aesthetic footprint. Equally important was the exchange in a culture where it is inherent that the music sounds the dance and the dance moves the music. Thus the dialogue extended itself where the choreographer tried on new ways of thinking about the sounding body just as GDE integrated the choreographer's approaches and made it their own through their own processes of creative invention.