Troupe to dance a tribute to Cape Verdean women
By CYNTHIA GOMEZ, Standard-Times staff writer
The rhythmic and sensual beat of Cape Verdean music will fill the air as a group of Creole dancers pay homage to the women of their homeland and of their world through a fusion of traditional and contemporary dance Saturday. The Cabo Dance Project is an ensemble of Cape Verdean dancers and choreographers living in the area. Under the direction of Zezinho Semedo, a choreographer and former professional dancer who has toured internationally, the group will present "Pano Terra," an hour-long program of interpretative dance, at the First Unitarian Church in New Bedford. The "pano" is the shawl used by Cape Verdean women for a variety of purposes. They are wrapped around waists to suppress hunger when food is scarce, used to cradle babies when they are born, and donned for protection from the weather. "Pano Terra" is a play on words loosely interpreted to mean "shawl of the earth" for all of the traditional wrap's uses in Cape Verdean culture. "I am trying to bring the real world -- the real world of Cape Verde, I mean -- onto the stage," said Mr. Semedo in broken English. "Cape Verde is not like the U.S., where men and women go 50/50 on everything. There, women are the center of life. They give life, they take care of the family, provide the food. ... And the shawl is what carries them through life." That, he said, is the inspiration for the performance. The ensemble of female dancers will recreate traditional and modern life for Cape Verde women through dances that symbolize birth, familial bonds and friendships, and the struggles of living in an impoverished country. The performance is a work in progress, said Mr. Semedo, but it has come a long way from what was once no more than an artist's vision, especially for a group as busy as this. Mr. Semedo himself must balance rehearsals with school and work, and most of the other dancers are either University of Massachusetts Boston students or working full-time. "It has been a lot of work," said Mr. Semedo. "Some of these girls have never danced for show, but they learned very quickly. I think, everything considered, it should be a good show." Those who caught the troupe's 15-minute performance during one AHA! night in the spring and another in front of the Whaling Museum in August got just a taste of the group's upcoming performance. Since, they have held rehearsals several times a week. Last Saturday, as the group tweaked their act during their afternoon practice, bare feet pounding on the stage floor resonated throughout the nearly empty auditorium in the parish house and bodies moved about in graceful unison. From the back of the auditorium, Culture*Park co-founders Patricia Thomas and Rebecca Schade enjoyed the preview. "Culture*Park is about promoting and nurturing diversity in the performing arts, so when we came across this, we knew it would be a perfect fit for us," said Ms. Schade. "This particular piece has a lot of kinds of dance sort of woven into it, and each frame kind of flows into the next, so it's really neat to watch." After pursuing careers with different performing arts companies, the women decided two years ago to create the Culture*Park collaborative. With its wealth of cultural diversity, New Bedford seemed like a good place to set up shop. "We felt that there were enough requests in the area for more performing arts sorts of things, and since New Bedford has so many cultures, we thought this would be the perfect place for something we had long envisioned," said Ms. Thomas, a New Bedford native. "Pano Terra" will debut in its entirety at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are $5 and can be purchased at the door or can be reserved by calling (508) 990-7779. They will also be available at the church from 6:30 to 7:30 tonight, during AHA!