Agbedidi Dance Concert Report

On December 2nd, 2016 at the Constance theatre the dance department presented a show called Agbedidi. The show, directed and choreographed by Mohamed DaCosta and Trent D. Williams, Jr., displayed a combination of Traditional African and Contemporary Dance. The house buzzed with excitement as the start of the show approached. It is quite encouraged to see such a large audience at an event, but this audience also brought a positive, vibrant atmosphere for the dancers to soak up. I was curious to see what this year’s performance would look like. The first part of the show featured Dr. Mikell Pinkney who performed a dramatic, almost sermonistic style reading of a section from God’s Trombones: Seven Negro Sermons in Verse by James Weldon Johnson. It opened up with the drummers playing and after a few minutes Dr. Pinkney found his way onto the stage. He observed the drummers for a moment before he began the speech, letting the drummers set the pace for him. This moved smoothly into the first dance piece, Soboninkun. It was very high energy and fast paced from the beginning to end. The dancers wore wrap skirts …show more content…
Each of the drummers got a solo and demonstrated just a little bit of their great drumming ability and tricks. Afterwards, the curtains went down for a moment so they could set up for The Prodigal Son. This was the second appearance of Dr. Pinkney, but this time instead of being accompanied by the drummers on the stage he was with Trent D. Williams, Jr. Together they told the story of the prodigal son. Dr. Pinkney by giving the dramatic reading and Trent through an interpretive dance. His movement was smooth and strong. He used his hands a lot to reach out to the audience and to enact different parts of the story. It went rather well and the two of them seemed to connect with each other through their different modes of story telling. They finished the story and the show went to