That neohoodoo that you do

FEET FIRST Wilson’s Fist & Heel jump for it.

Photo: Julieta Cervantes

Reggie Wilson doesn’t exactly have a specific game plan in mind for his newest work, a collaboration with African choreographer Andreya Ouamba. He’s even somewhat vague about how many dancers will be in it, though he does know that the cast will include members of his own Fist & Heel Performance Group, as well as students from Barnard College and Summer Stages Dance at Concord Academy in Massachusetts. Ouamba himself is scheduled to arrive in New York less than two weeks before the first show. But Wilson—who sometimes refers to his silky blending of contemporary dance with the spiritual traditions of the African diaspora as “post-African/neohoodoo modern dance”—is someone for whom such pesky details don’t really matter. Any surprises will likely be good ones.

Part of the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council’s Sitelines series, Accounting for Customs is Wilson’s second site-specific work in New York in a year (last September, he worked his magic on a huge moat on Governors Island in Dancing in the Streets’ “Breaking Ground: A Dance Charrette”). Accounting for Customs represents a rare public viewing of an artistic venture in its earliest stage: In 2009, Wilson and the Congo-born, Senegal-based Ouamba will present an evening-length work at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. “This was an opportunity for us to be on the same shore, working,” Wilson explains. “The piece that we’re making will probably influence the final product, but there’s no commitment to that. I think it’s a good place for us to generate ideas and conversation leading to that larger project, but this should be New York summer fun. God forbid if it’s a horrible piece, but that, to me, is just whatever. It’s Andreya’s first time in the U.S. and it’s really a time for us to play.”

The setting is grandly imposing: the steps of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House, a gorgeous beaux arts building designed by Cass Gilbert. “There are huge statues outside that are supposed to represent different continents—the statues of Europe and America are really proud and strong,” Wilson says. “And then Africa is sleeping.” He laughs. “I don’t know what to do with that.”

Some of Ouamba and Wilson’s questions for the larger project relate to notions of memory and loss—specifically, how innovation happens within and against traditions. “Those are starting points for our common interests and dislikes,” Wilson says. “I can’t see how those topics wouldn’t be in this work, but I don’t know how literal their impact will be. We’re both intrigued by innovation—who gets credit for it in the context of traditional versus contemporary movement vocabulary.”

Wilson has found a like-minded artist in Ouamba, whom he got to know several years ago while traveling through West Africa. “I ended up meeting several different choreographers and companies, going to their rehearsals and talking to them about their process,” Wilson recalls. “I wanted to look at if, how and why or why not were they using traditional material in contemporary work, as a way to look for models of the same kind of thing that I do. I really liked Andreya’s choreography and his work ethic—he was rehearsing every day nonstop.”

Wilson also appreciated that while Ouamba’s work is in a contemporary vein, there is something undeniably African in its atmosphere. “It’s like watching African films,” he says. “The time sense is so different. It’s very similar to the Asian sense of time, but it’s not a Zen conceptual idea; it’s the pace of life, the pace of contemplation and also the use of body and gesture in an African context. I like to explore that in my work. For him, it’s daily reality.”

One idea that especially intrigues Wilson is how people who don’t necessarily have a deep understanding of experimental work react to a contemporary piece with traditional vocabulary in it. “Do they see the traditional material as evolving or do they see it as bastardized?” he asks. “And what happens if you take that same piece to New York or Paris? Those are some of the conversations that we’ll be having as we’re searching for movement material.”

Accounting for Customs will be performed on the steps of the Alexander Hamilton U.S. Custom House Wed 22–Aug 25.