The transnational performance group Baker & Tarpaga Dance Project (BTDP) — based in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, and Philadelphia, Penn. — will draw from Africanist and postmodernist aesthetics to present “Declassified Memory Fragment” on Friday and Saturday, Sept. 29 and 30, 8 p.m., at the Mahaney Center for the Arts in Middlebury. This dance theatre work with live music is inspired by memory, history, and images of the political and cultural realities currently affecting the continent of Africa.
The Dafra Kura Band is an integral part of BTDP; they perform live during the dance performances. Dafra Kura fuses the high energy of the griot ancestral tradition and the contemporary sounds of modern African cities sourced from Manding tradition, nomad desert blues and Afrobeat.
Middlebury Performing Arts Series Director Allison Coyne Carroll points out BTDP’s special connection to Middlebury: “BTDP’s willingness to do outreach with students in dance, world music, and international studies made this residency richer, and they even had a local connection: co-founders Olivier Tarpaga and Esther Baker-Tarpaga are brother-in-law and sister to Middlebury Associate Professor of Environmental Studies Mez Baker-Medard.”
Tickets are $22 for adults; $16 for Middlebury College faculty, staff, emeriti, and alumni; and $6 for Middlebury College students. Tickets are available at the Middlebury College box office, by calling (802) 443-MIDD (6433) or online at middlebury.edu/arts/tickets.