- Hello everybody.

I'm Satori Shakoor.

Welcome to Detroit Performs Live from Marygrove where Detroit's talented artists take the stage and share insights into their performances.

The episode you're about to see is curated by our partner organization, Culture Source.

They brought us two marvelous dance organizations.

First up is BAIRA followed by TeMaTe.

So sit back, relax and enjoy.

It's time for Detroit Performs Live from Marygrove.

- [Announcer] Funding for Detroit Performs is provided by the Fred A. and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation.

The Kresge Foundation, the A. Paul and Carol C. Schaap Foundation, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, The DeRoy Testamentary Foundation and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) - Welcome everyone to Detroit Performs Live from Marygrove.

I'm your host Satori Shakoor and it is my pleasure to be with Adam Desjardins.

He is the resource service manager for Culture Source.

Welcome Adam.

- Hey Satori.

- It's good to see you.

- It's so great to be with you.

- I know you, I love you.

You are one of the most supportive organizations in Detroit.

Your name has grown and grown and grown.

It's become an institution here for Detroit artists and arts workers.

How are you inspired on a daily basis?

- Yeah, I'm inspired by our collective.

You know, we have over 179 member organizations ranging from, you know the largest institutions like the DIA the DSO to smaller organizations that might be on a neighborhood basis.

- How can an arts organization and artists, how do they find you?

- Yeah, so visit our website CultureSource.org and sign up for our emails.

That's their kind of like main thing.

We serve creative people in Southeast Michigan.

So that means arts workers like you and me, artists, people at organizations, institutions.

Benefits of being a Culture Source member include, you know certain access to funding opportunities or workshops.

And then also just like the ability to convene around arts and culture.

- So you curated this episode of Detroit Performs?

- Yeah, me and my colleagues helped curate it based around one of the grant programs that we run which is called Culture Pop.

And we basically work with arts and culture organizations to help them produce outdoor events in downtown Detroit.

One is BAIRA, a Detroit based dance organization.

They're kind of focused on, you know many different types and forms of movement.

And then the other is TaMaTe Institute for Black Dancing Culture, which is really focused on African diasporic dance.

- Thank you so much, Adam, for being here, we're excited to head to the stage and see the curated group from Culture Source, BAIRA.

(airy soft music) (soft piano music) - Well, welcome back everyone from that magnificent performance from BAIRA.

And I'm sitting here with Shaina Baira, co-director of BAIRA.

So can you tell us how you started?

- Yeah, so about eight years ago, Brian Baira, who is the other co-director and as well were married.

We met in New York city and dancing in a different project.

And then we began creating work there and spent eight years living and developing our work together, which is a very short story of how we ended up here now.

- What inspired that particular choreography and who did choreograph it?

- So Brian and I choreographed together.

A lot of the movement generation, the phrase work, comes out of Brian's natural physicality and then I'm a movement analyst.

And in terms of our inception of where this really came from eight years ago, that is inception point.

And from there we developed a whole system out of that, which has physical components, which you saw performed, which we also teach.

That's a big part of our philosophy and service through our art and also has a philosophical part which is, you know, we can kind of bring break it down into virtues or principles.

We have bravery, adaptability, vulnerability, and awareness and those we practice inside of our physicality, but we also do our best to practice in our relationship with each other, as well as our relationship with the world around us.

- [Satori] What do you want audiences to take from it?

- We wanna remind people that they're not alone on this journey and that this journey is hard and this journey is not always pretty.

And it's also beautiful.

And there's also, we don't have another one as far as we can like know in our conscious mind.

So it's like, we gotta just, we believe at least, that you gotta just get in there and experience all of it.

- It was beautiful to watch.

Thank you so much, Shaina Baira and we're headed back to the stage for another phenomenal performance by TeMaTe.

(upbeat African drum music) Wasn't that an electrifying performance by TeMaTe Institute of Black Dance and Culture.

And I'm excited to be sitting here with a Ajara Alghali, co-director and founder.

So Ajara, how did you get started?

What's your mission?

What do you wanna give to Detroit?

- I got started, me personally, I got started dancing about 20 years ago.

Fast forward to 2018, TeMaTe came out of the love of dance with a group of friends that just wanted to dance together, right?

And so now we've positioned ourselves to more than just a performance based company, but a company that's focused on dance justice and cultural equity and what that means to center the contributions of the African diaspora.

- Well, tell us a little bit more about that dance justice.

- In contemporary history or in the dance programs now, it's framed as ballet being the foundation of dance.

And so we want to change that narrative and say that no it's civilizations that have been contributing since the dawn of time.

And we want to put more of a global lens to dance and less focus on the Euro-centric histories that we've been taught.

- And so are these dances passed down through history or are they choreographed?

Are they revisited and updated?

How, how do you approach the dance?

- Some dances are passed down through history.

You have certain dances that mean a certain thing.

And so like the African dance is not just fixed.

It's transformational, but also intergenerational too.

Right?

So we are dancing our stories, but we're also try to tell our futures as well.

- We're the drummers always a part of it?

- Well with African drummer dance, West African drummer dance in particular, the drummers and the dancers, it's intertwined and you don't have the dance without the drum, but you don't have the drum without the dance.

So it's really about feeding off of like energy in you know, it's that communication too, right?

You know, history says when, you know things needed to be communicated, the drum was played and you know, everyone came into the center of the village or community and that's how you performed.

That's when you performed.

And I think like even fast forward to now, it is paramount that, you know you don't disconnect the music from the movement.

- Thank you so much Ajara for being here with us today, bringing your wonderful company TeMaTe and thank you everyone out there for watching, for being a part of such a wonderful celebration.

We will see you next week at Detroit Performs Live from Marygrove.

I'm your host of to Satori Shakoor and I'll see you then.

- [Announcer] Funding for Detroit Performs is provided by the Fred A and Barbara M. Erb Family Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, the A. Paul and Carol C Schaap Foundation, the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, the National Endowment for the Arts, The DeRoy Testamentary Foundation and by contributions to your PBS station from viewers like you, thank you.

(upbeat music) (chiming music)