Seg-taaba: Migration and Mobility Through Music

“Seg-taaba” is this year’s theme for the workshop series in which we use music-making and production to think about issues that pertain to migration and mobility. The series is a collaborative effort between A.P.E.C.A. (a local Burkina Faso foundation for education through the Arts) in Burkina Faso’s capital Ouagadougou and the Columbus, Ohio, Thiossane Institute for African Dance. Participants join in the discussion and think about ideas, topics and questions evolving around migration and mobility through their lens. They discuss their ideas in groups and try to find language in words and body movements to express themselves. On the forst workshop day in Columbus, participants listened to what youth in Ouagadougou produced and began to compose songs themselves. They began to integrate their ideas into the existing musical framework that workshop leaders Ezé Wendtoin and Aristide Nikiema brought with them to Columbus. With the help of Massamba Diop and Jason Buchea, the students learned to feel the rhythm of their words and began to think about how they can perform the lyrics in dance. Here is a short snippet of their amazing achievements.

Practicing communication with each other using their bodies.