Monday, February 04, 2008

i'm a professional dancer

and no, i don't mean salsa.

it's time to update my resume to include my latest "job." the day before heading to ghana, i was filmed dancing with ashley and charita for a beninoise christian music video. ummm, yeah. we had rehearsed 3 or 4 times with our choreographer, tusin. the first was definitely the most difficult... learning to move our shoulders and hips like all our african friends. i was so sore the following day! but mathieu assogba (the musician) is such a fan of our wanna-be-african gyrations that he's actually asked us to dance in 8 (yes 8!) music videos. i pretty much put my foot down and said 1 is enough, but i may do one more just so our friend joanna (who couldn't make the filming after all those hours of practice!) can be on african national television too. see... one of the channels in benin is all music videos, all the time. there's a certain cadence to the variety: first an american song (usually a bad one), then a christian song, then a traditional song, then a beninoise rap, then a song against corruption... then the cycle begins again. so yeah. that'll be us... dancin' on the christian slot. dancing is a way of life here, a form of expression, really. you cannot go to church and sit still.

to be honest, mathieu is using us to break into the american and eurpoean market... and we're using him to have dvd of proof that we really are "famous" professional dancers in benin. poor mathieu is getting the short end of the stick.

props to rob for being our "manager."

1 comment:

BGT3 said...

Where's the video? I need more than just a simple photograph as evidence... Maryland State Gov't blocks hacks like me from watching YouTube videos so I'll have to wait 'til I get home :)