If you've seen Garth Fagan Dance or The Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater perform, you've seen elements of African dance - but just the elements. Both of these companies ingeniously weave African steps together with other dance forms to create their own unique styles. Fagan's is based on modern/contemporary dance, while Ailey's is modern steeped in classical. Sankofa African Dance and Drum Ensemble, based out of SUNY Brockport's Department of Dance, is that rare company that focuses solely on African dance.

"We try to do pure African. That is what makes us unique," says Sankofa's artistic director, Clyde Alafiju Morgan.

Morgan has been at the helm of Sankofa since 1985; he is also an associate professor of modern and African dance at Brockport. A native of Cincinnati, Ohio, Morgan completed two years of graduate study in dance at Bennington College before making his professional debut with the famed Jose Limon Dance Company in New York City. Morgan has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a Fulbright scholarship that helped finance his international forays to teach and perform in Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, and elsewhere.

African dance forms, Morgan explains, vary widely in scope, but all share some fundamental elements. African dance is extremely connected rhythmically; dialogue between the instruments or vocalists and the dancers is ongoing. In Sankofa, the dancers usually share the stage with drummers. African music specialist Khalid Abdul N' Faly Saleem has been the musical director of the ensemble since 1994. He has also composed, arranged, directed, and performed music for illustrious choreographers, including Alvin Ailey and members of the Limon Company.

African dance also usually bears some relation to a traditional story, event, or circumstance, Morgan says. In fact, the name "Sankofa" literally means that there is no going forward without looking back. It is a symbolic Ghanaian expression represented by a bird whose head turns back, looking toward the past.

"True African dance doesn't deal with abstraction, and seldom deals with personal issues," Morgan says. "It is more about community well being."

Morgan uses the example of trance dancing, a common traditional form used to put the dancer into the state of a medium able to channel energy. He also points out the tremendous amount of intricate footwork involved in African dance, often executed in counterpoint to the orchestration of the rest of the body.

Audiences will have the opportunity to observe these defining elements themselves during Sankofa's annual spring performance run this week. This academic year, Morgan was on sabbatical all autumn and guest artist Habib Iddrisu put the show together, contributing several of his own pieces. Iddrisu, currently completing his doctorate in performance studies at Northwestern University, was born into a family of court historians and musicians in northern Ghana, where his grandfather was a chief drummer.

One of the pieces in this weekend's program choreographed by Iddrisu, "Gumboot Dance," was presented in 2002 at the National American College Dance Festival at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. It depicts a kind of dancing that doubled as communication for the workers forced to toil - but forbidden to talk - in the South African gold mines during much of the last two centuries. Iddrisu explains that the workers' Wellingtons, or gum boots, doubled as their instruments down in the imposed silence of the stifling hot, pitch-dark mine shafts. To send simple messages, or even indicate their location to one another, the miners stamped out different rhythmic patterns with their boots, also slapping against them with their hands and jingling their ankle chains.

"This is an energetic and lively dance, but it was created through oppression," Iddrisu says. "The workers were forbidden to speak, so they created their own language."

"The Village of Batiti" was choreographed by Iddrisu based on first-hand knowledge of the initiation rites he witnessed growing up in Ghana. The many different ethnic groups there each had their own requirements and celebrations for entering adulthood. This piece, he says, examines the mood of initiation - the excitement and community involvement, as well as the acolytes' uncertainty of what they will have to endure. Fluting and drumming add to the high energy of this dance.

"Fortunately for me," Iddrisu says, "my particular group did not have these initiation rites. I saw others undergo them, but experienced no trauma myself."

This weekend's program will also include "Nubia," a piece choreographed by visiting professor/guest artist and renowned tap dancer Bill Evans. Evans combined rhythm tap with African-American and Caribbean dance influences to create this contemporary dance piece.

As usual, Sankofa will conclude the concert with the boisterous finale "Ijexa," meant to be a tribute to the various cultures celebrated in the group's performance. "Ijexa" pairs Afro-Caribbean rhythms with the wild energy of Brazilian Carnivale. Choreography by Michelle Whitt, Molly Elizabeth Christie, Crystal Malone, and Mohamed DaCosta will also be featured. 

Sankofa

Hartwell Dance Theater, SUNY Brockport

Thursday, April 24-Saturday, April 26, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, April 27, 2 p.m.

$8-$12 | 395-ARTS, Brockport.edu/dance/sankofa