Workin' on my Internship Report...

Another huge part of what the troupe did was teach. I was the first MSID student to do my internship with them, but before me there was a Swiss woman who had worked with the troupe. She had already had years of experience with West African dance before arriving, though, and had done a three-week intensive internship learning the ballets. Hers was the experience closest to mine- she was on her own, and for three weeks rehearsed and performed with the troupe. However, a few weeks after I arrived, Samba told me we’d be hosting a group of Swiss high school students, teaching a few workshops in drumming and dance. There were about thirty of them- it was a high school program that comes once every few years. One of the troupe’s drummers now lives in Switzerland, and teaches drumming classes. So, whenever the school sends students to Senegal, he acts as their guide and connection to the troupe.
For each workshop, several members of the troupe showed up even though only a few ended up taking charge and teaching. I came along every time, to see how things were going. We gave the students (there were about twenty or thirty of them) a handful of lessons, taught them some dance steps and some rhythms. It was a pretty basic class, considering there were so many of them, all around the age of 15. But they thoroughly enjoyed their time there and the students and teachers alike had nothing but good things to say about their experience. The program the school was involved with was linked to a school on the neighboring island of Sippo, they always came bringing rice and clothing. It was a school program on development; the music was a small part of a very full schedule they had.
There was also a French djembe player who came the last week I was in Toubacouta. He had studied with musicians in France, but had never been to Africa, and it wasn’t until he arrived at the hotel that he found out he could take classes. The first lesson took place at the hotel- Bathie Ndiaye brought over several djembes and did a class for Didier (the French musician) and his friends, also. However, it was instantly clear that he wasn’t a beginner, and after talking to Bathie, moved to the beach for individual lessons. It wasn’t just Samba that taught; often one of the other musicians would help out too. I came along to several of the lessons. They were very informal, and it was fascinating for me to see another toubab learning djembe. (The Swiss students were learning more for amusement- it was a totally different situation.) Granted, Didier already had much more experience than I came with, but it was encouraging for me to watch someone else try and play with Bathie, Ibou and the others. Just like me, his fingers ended up with blisters, and he often got frustrated by how specific the musicians’ ears were to the syncopated rhythms. And through all of it, they used the same teaching style on him that they did on me.
That is to say, while teaching they went quickly and worked hard, and waited until after the lesson was over to ask if his hands hurt, and compliment him on his work. It encouraged me to see that they treated me, a complete beginner and a 20-year-old female student, with the same level of respect they treated a more experienced musician. It wasn’t that I doubted their sincerity or respect, but it was reassuring to know that I was being treated as a professional. I saw from a more removed point of view how the teaching style worked, and also got to recognize from his mistakes how to fix some of the problems I was having, musically. It was incredibly helpful, sitting in on those drumming sessions, and I even got to take some short videos of the rhythms so I don’t forget them. For that week, Didier got to be a friend and an invaluable resource for me, academically.

HOW ALLAH LAKE WORKS
All of the interns, workshops, and lessons were arranged on a completely informal basis. Things were always arranged by someone who had previously been in the troupe like with the Swiss group, or by chatting with Bathie directly. The hotel shows weren’t on any specific schedule. Instead, whenever a particularly large group arrives someone lets Samba, Salif, and/or Abdoulaye know, and they pass the word along to the rest of the troupe. The three of them make most of the decisions, for a few reasons. First of all, at least Samba and Salif are two of the older and most experienced members of the troupe. Also, even though many decisions are posed to the group, several members don’t show up to meetings, or voice their opinions. These three are the ones that take an active interest and also take responsibility for the group, which is important when there are so many different people to organize.
Bathie Ndiaye is the official “president” of the troupe. However, after a show whatever is in the donation bowl is split evenly among the troupe members, and each person including him gets the exact same amount. Depending on the night this is between two hundred and two thousand francs CFA. During shows Samba’s the one who gets the members moving, walking around trying to get people to hurry up and get into costume and start playing/singing. He’s the one who introduces the troupe, but after the show starts he stands back to watch. Communication between the musicians and the dancers isn’t always accurate, and often Salif or one of the other male dancers will take charge “backstage”, quickly sketching out on the ground where each person will stand in front of the audience (this is decided seconds before the dance starts, and is often cued by the drummers deciding which ballet they feel like playing). The disorganized nature of the shows and rehearsals frustrated me at first, until I got used to l’heure africaine and realized that sometimes “informal” didn’t necessarily mean “unprofessional”.
This was even more obvious in rehearsal. During my internship of six weeks I had perhaps five or six official repetitions. Whenever there was a show the day’s practice would be cancelled, and rehearsals were also cancelled for reasons like funerals, football (soccer) games (half the troupe was on the team), or if there had been a show the night before and people were tired. Sometimes rehearsal was cancelled just because no one thought to tell people there was one in the first place. It was a while before I figured out that everyone practiced on their own time, and often waited for news from Salif or Bathie, who would call everyone or just walk around the town finding people and telling them if we had rehearsal. I’d always show up to the little row of shops in front of the hotel around 4 or 5pm, and hang out there or walk down to the beach. Someone there would tell me whether or not we had anything that day, and if not I’d take a walk or get one of them to teach me drumming. After all, several of them spent their days in front of the shops making djembes. At least one of them was always playing and often you could hear the jam session all over town.
When there was a rehearsal the official time was 5pm. However, everyone said “four o’clock” because they knew people would show up at least an hour late. Usually I’d show up at five, a few others would trickle down the hill and around six it would be cool enough that we could start. There was no official starting time- usually the musicians would start playing, someone might start singing, and the dancers might decide on some steps or a whole ballet to practice. The only consistent part of rehearsals was at the end, when Samba would have everyone sit down and he would talk for a while about how we did good work that day, but it was important to be on time, start working immediately, and how unprofessional and unacceptable it was that there were people conversing or texting when it was time to start. He would stress the importance of timeliness and professionalism in rehearsal. Everyone would nod and agree, and we all knew the next time would be the same.
The women were often targeted during these speeches for being unwilling to work- and this often was not an exaggeration. Often only one or two out of five girls would show up, and she might have to stop in the middle of a dance to nurse a child. Every day it was the male dancers trying to get the female dancers up to dance and practice. The men would insist it was time to start, and the women would shout back to leave them alone, they were tired. I would try to get up and rehearse the first time I was asked, and often the women would tell me to sit back down, it was too hot. They seemed lazy. The men would start each rehearsal with push-ups and jumping jacks, while the women would start by listening to pop music on their cell phones. I wondered when I would actually get around to learning things.
I stopped minding, though, when rehearsal was cancelled (or inefficient), once I realized how more useful unofficial practices could be. I learned the most one-on-one anyway, and everyone was willing to teach me. Individually, or in small groups, they could explain things better, and I could go at my own pace. I’d go to someone’s house and we’d rehearse in the yard, or go down to the beach if no one was using that space. This was also useful because I could bring along my computer and record songs at one of the girls’ houses, or go over something very specific without wasting everyone’s time in rehearsal. For example, when I was sitting in on one of Didier’s drum lessons the last week, Samba saw one of the dancers working out further down the beach. He called him over, and asked him to teach me a solo dance that I could do during one of the faster ballets.
I’d always had trouble with the solo dances. During every single ballet there was a point at which anyone could go out into the middle and show off, and I had nothing to show off. I’d watched everyone like a hawk but couldn’t figure out how or what steps they were doing. I’d asked the girls and guys alike to teach me, but what they always said was, “you take the steps from another dance, figure out which ones will work to the rhythm, and do them, but faster.” And whenever I asked which steps, they’d shrug and reply that I could just choose whatever I wanted to do. The problem was that I lacked the experience to know which steps would work in different dances, and which would look good. Instead, I did what I saw, which was girls shaking their hair. When I did this, they always congratulated me and everyone cheered, so I figured I couldn’t be doing it too terribly wrong, right? On this particular day Samba explained to Abdoulaye (one of the dancers) that I needed to learn some steps. I realized at this point that I had been trying to do the wrong thing. And I had succeeded in doing the wrong thing. I was very good at doing the wrong thing. But it was time to learn how to do the right thing. And finally, I learned three steps I could do to Zowlin for the individual dance part.