Souleymane Badolo in New York City

Abstract

Souleymane Badolo is speaking to us. Mid-way through a solo he performed at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theatre this past June, Solo, as he is known among friends, walked to the front of the stage and addressed the audience. “Banichait!” he repeated, hands beckoning urgently for us to follow. He retreated slowly as he spoke, drawing viewers deeper into the atmosphere he had created through sound design, music, movement, and language. Clearly not the roar of the Big Apple, the urban noises of sputtering motorbikes and children playing evoked his home city of Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. Elongated arm gestures gave way to footwork that remained close to the ground, casual yet precise, supported by quiet, rhythmic clicking. While Badolo projects a spectrum of qualities, glibness is not one of them. Instead, he insists, almost admonishes, grounding his message in his sturdy physicality—closely cut hair, square shoulders and hips, the body of a pugilist. Still speaking, he backed up to sit on a metal chair. A flow of words in Gurunsi, his native language, ensued. We could not understand what he was saying, but strained to hear it all the same.