The 8^th annual Global Dancefest closed last week with two concerts by choreographer/dancers with roots in Africa, but whose artistic growth has been nurtured in France. Compagnie CHATHA, with Aïcha M’Barek and Hafiz Dhaou from Tunisia, and Julie Dossavi, with live music from southwest Africa and contemporary choreography with a traditional dance base.

Thursday evening featured CHATHA at the VSA North Fourth Art Center. Dhaou opened with “Zenzena” (The Cell), an exploration of confined space in which the solo dancer moved across four walls of a prison cell. At first his body pressed against the floor, rolling within a small, barred rectangle of light. Gradually this space expanded to a larger square, and Dhaou arose to a curved, standing position, his legs seeming crippled by the confinement. Sounds of gates and doors closing, and children’s voices outside, tormented the prisoner.

M’Barek joined Dhaou in “Khallini Aïch,” to the song Amal Hayatti. The dance was a hymn to love, seeking a life for two lovers. A chair resting on a mat at stage left defined the safe, domesticated place toward which the couple strived, or rebelled against. Exploring solitude and violence, each dancer writhed against the floor, wheeled up, or dived into it.

The relationship between man and woman was expressed in tender, touching motifs. One would gently lift the other from the floor onto a lap, or stood on the other’s knee. The repetition of the lifting, then lying down, became a movement metaphor for quotidian caring and love.

Sunday afternoon Julie Dossavi, with singer/dancer Papa Gédéon Diarra and musicians Altan Houdayer and Yvan Talbot, presented “P.I. (Pays) or Présentations Intimes.” They explored aspects of intimacy, from physical and sexual to spiritual and intellectual.

The music and movement reflected Dossavi’s own identity as both African and French, as well as layers of other cultures. At one point her hands even described circling flamenco filigrees. This was a very modern yet ethnic fusion of styles, providing exciting insights into human experience.

Dossavi’s body was deeply infused with rhythm, from the bones, ligaments and muscles on out, while the music fused percussion instruments dating as far back as the 11^th century with electronic digital compositions and contemporary urban sounds.

“Présentations Intimes” opened in ritual. Dossavi appeared in a downstage pool of light, her head and shoulders covered by a red shawl, and prepared herself with offerings from a small basket, before approaching a bright altar space at stage right. Diarra entered from stage left, singing in a high, falsetto voice, while Talbot followed them both playing the bara, a small hand drum. Stripped of the shawl, Dossavi turned around the drummer at center stage, gently touched and caressed her shoulder and hips, and crouched to press a kissed finger to the floor.

Four drums with cymbals swelled the sound. The dancer performed complex isolations, a tightly controlled collaboration with the percussionist. At one moment Dossavi slowly sank to her knees; Diarra moved around her singing as to a child, his clasped hands pulsing towards her on the floor, reprimanding or demanding obedience, and drawing her into deep bows at the altar.

Dossavi danced with a joy that burst into thrown kisses to the audience. Yet she danced as a controlled creature, a kind of slave, when Talbot brought out the ancient bolon, a three-stringed harp. The fierce rhythms stimulated sharp, robotic-like moves in the dancer.

Composer Houdayer introduced haunting electronic tones and brief melodic sequences to blend with the temple block beats and drum rhythms by Talbot on large djembe and bougarabou drums. The two dancers moved out in solo sections to the music. Both finally came to rest at stage left, then gently glided down together, her head resting on his hip.

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