Rhythm Dance

“Rhythm Dance” © D. Yael Bernhard

This illustration was created as a t-shirt design for my longtime West African dance teacher, Youssouf Koumbassa. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, Youssouf, a master dancer from Guinea, West Africa, had a huge following in New York City. For almost fifteen years I traveled into the city to take his weekly classes, often two in a row. Fifty or sixty dancers would show up, many of them dance teachers themselves, together with ten or twelve of the best drummers in town.

The explosion of human energy in the room was amazing. High-energy polyrhythms filled the air and carried the dancers across the floor, row by row. West African dance is full body movement, a physical expression of the culture and music that seems to rise up out of the earth. I chose the particular movement shown here because of its connection to both earth and sky. Upturned palms in a gesture of offering is common in African dance – – in this case toward the full moon, from a forest dance titled “Wula.”

Youssouf danced like a deeply rooted but flexible tree, like wind on fire, like flowing water, like a bird in flight. He seemed to be a force of nature, a living instrument of the rhythm that suffused his every cell. People stood slack-jawed watching not only his strength and agility, but the originality of his movements. He was born to teach, humble and attentive, offering just enough guidance and holding his students to a high standard. I took well over a thousand dance classes with Youssouf over the years, wishing for his influence to soak into my bones – and into my art. In Africa, the line blurs between music, dance, folklore, and visual art, which manifests mostly as masks and sculpture. This is not synesthesia, in which sensory input is routed through unrelated senses (as in psychedelics enabling people to “see” sounds and “hear” colors) – rather, it’s a sense of immersion in the life energy that gives rise to all these forms. As a painter who also plays drums and dances, I can relate to this sort of cross-fertilization. Just as African drumming is polyrhythmic, I feel that art itself is polymorphic, occurring in multiple forms.

The figure here is surrounded by rhythm, expressed as parallel arcs of patterns, both wavy and angular, that seem to hold it in place. Locking energy into physical form is the whole purpose of African art, and it’s something I’ve strived for all my life. It’s not a static lock, however, but more like a magnetic force, like a humming field of energy. The dancer also wears rhythm on his clothing, as well as the figure of a drummer, suggesting that he both generates and responds to the rhythm.

Rhythm is life, evidenced in the beating of our hearts – and nowhere is this more richly expressed than in Africa, where the interplay between dancers and drummers is as familiar as that of a pitcher and batter here. But unlike a baseball game, there’s no division between teams, no scorekeeping, and no competition. The object is to express the rhythm beautifully, and to uphold the tradition.

Creating this design was a fun project. I love working in black & white, and this was the perfect subject for it. I’m forever grateful to Youssouf for all that I learned from him, and for the influence of African dance and music on my art. Youssouf is now a tenured dance professor at a southern university – in a climate more like his native home.

A good week to all!

D. Yael Bernhard

https://dyaelbernhard.com

Have you seen my other Substack, The Art of Health? In addition to being a visual artist, I’m also a certified integrative health & nutrition coach with a lifelong passion for natural food cooking and herbal medicine. Now in its second year, this illustrated newsletter explores cutting-edge concepts of nutrition. I strive to make relevant information clear and accessible, and to anchor essential health concepts in unique images. Check it out, and if you like it, please subscribe and help spread the word. Your support keeps my work going!