Ngoni
A dramatic ballet in seven scenes for chamber orchestra and soprano.
Music by Patrick Soluri
Choreography by Francis Patrelle
Premiered October 7, 1998 Dances...Patrelle II
Photos by Tom Brazil of the New York Times
PROGRAM NOTES:
A Ngoni is a stringed musical instrument like a lyre, which was indigenous to an ancient western African city-state called Segu. In Segu, the history and stories of the people were told in an oral tradition by traveling musician/bards called Djeli, who would sing of the past and present. These Djeli would accompany themselves on a Ngoni. While Segu collapsed several hundred years ago their stories still live on. Ironically the Ngoni can even be found in use today in modern African pop music.
The idea of the musical oral tradition of story telling is what has inspired this piece. Instead of telling specific stories relating to Segu, I became more interested in the abstraction of those stories as told musically and then interpreted through dance. These stories with which I am interested, are the eternal yet contemporary issues that confront all people, including the Djeli from ancient Segu - the awe and wonder of creation, the cycles of death, life and rebirth and the struggles and evolution of the individual by them self and within their group.
These stories are incorporated into a piece of seven small movements (or stories) that are separated by the music of the Ngoni, as played by a solo harp and a solo dancer. These harp interludes represent the Djeli about to present a new story.
While the ballet is without plot, the choreography embraced the idea of story telling. The corps de ballet became an urban "tribe" and the soprano soloist became a seer.
|
listen to the audio recording 
