drumming bodies dancing, trailer:

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"Ecstatic! The joy is contagious."

Naomi R Lowinsky, PhD, Poet and Jungian Analyst

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Your donation will help bring screenings of this film to Senegal and the community who made this film possible.

"You captured life's spirit supreme. Poetic realism."

Jack Baran, Author, Script Writer, Producer

"a hit of joy"

Sheila Pinkel, Artist, Photographer, Activist

drumming bodies dancing

"Irresistibly capturing the energy of a dance that sets alight both adults and children."

- Christoph Egger, former head of Neue Zürcher Zeitung, film section, Zürich, Switzerland.

Decades ago at the beach in Senegal, I caught a glimpse of a sabar dancer and drummer at the beach. It electrified me. I felt compelled to return to see it again.

This film - in collaboration with my Senegalese friends - is my exploration of the sabar culture, dancers and drummers and the joyful community it creates.

Featuring Mané Ndiaye, Pape Ndiaye, Babacar Top

Producer Senegal Laye Diedhiou.

Soundtrack by master musicians Seckou Keita and Omar Sosa.

Writing

From the Marrow of the Mountain
This article focuses on the experience of finding a new source of water since the fountain fed by the neighbor’s source dried up in the middle of an alpine summer of farming in the Swiss Alps. This new water source is on ancestral land owned by three cousins of different viewpoints. Central to the story is the developing friendship between the local dowser and one of the owners, a Swiss-Californian woman determined to move the management of this jeweled terrain, with structures and customs, out of patriarchal ways into stewardship. The pristine land is highlighted, as is the vanishing knowledge of the old ways.

Somatic Educator

Susanna is a Continuum teacher, and a longtime student of Emilie Conrad, founder of the Continuum movement. Here, for her initiatory experience in Senegal, she found understanding about the deep connection between ritual, eros and dance.