Ethnolyrical

Reverberation1 is one of four short documentaries emerging from my fieldwork with women musical artists hère in Dakar, Senegal. Binta Sarr Diop, the woman singer featured in this film, is one of the women I’ve been working closely with over the last two years in Senegal.

Woman Poet Yandé Codou Sene Sings Senegalese Independence, African Creativity: While the work of West African strumming male praise-singers or griots/jalis, has been studied by Western researchers from the earliest years of folklore and ethnology, the region continues to be animated by the rich voices of praise-singing women, whose poetry and song draw from detailed knowledge of the lineages pf neighboring families, a talent for improvisation on ancient songs, themes and rhythms, and an ability to bring a crowd into chanting and dancing communion in the space of a few poetic bars.