Groovin Griot

Groovin' Griot Season 2 is Here! 

Groovin’ Griot is a podcast about how we use dance to tell stories, co-hosted and produced by OreOluwa Badaki and Azsaneé Truss. The term “griot” comes from the West African tradition of oral and embodied storytelling. Griots are traveling poets, musicians, genealogists, and historians who preserve and tell stories via a variety of modalities.

On Groovin’ Griot, we center the African Diaspora and honor the legacies of the griot by talking to the storytellers in our communities who help unpack the role of dance in research, and vice versa. We’ll talk roots, rhythm, rituals, recommendations, and much more. Come groove with us!

Meet Your Hosts

Groovin Griot Hosts Ore and Azsaneé

Hosts of Groovin' Griot: Azsaneé (left) and OreOluwa (right).

Azsaneé Truss
Website

Azsaneé Truss is a Thinking Artist and PhD Candidate in the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. She employs frameworks of cultural studies and media studies to research Black cultural production throughout the African diaspora as valid forms of knowledge production. Her work centers Black expressive culture as a site of theory and resistance. Truss uses podcasting, photography, collage, film, and other media, in addition to traditional written forms in her work. In accordance with Black feminist approaches to research, Azsaneé’s work fundamentally seeks to disrupt hegemonic ideas about what constitutes legitimate scholarship through these practices.

OreOluwa Badaki
Website

OreOluwa Badaki is a Research Scholar at the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her work examines how power moves through bodies and spaces within food and land systems. As a writer, movement practitioner, researcher, and educator, OreOluwa works with youth and their communities to explore food and environmental justice through the creative and performing arts. Her current projects focus on embodied understandings of place within African diasporic experiences. OreOluwa also directs the Body-Ecology Lab (BEL) at the Digital Futures Institute. Find out more here: https://www.bodyecolab.com/

Latest Episode

Season 2, Episode 1 

Get the behind the scenes scoop on a show Ore worked on called seed & sound. Hear how themes of diaspora and echolocation helped guide the choreographic approach, and how a dance called Kuku, as well as Manjaco rhythms, were incorporated into the piece.

Special thanks to Urban Movement Arts and Philadelphia Dance Projects, and especially to Vince Johnson, Terry Fox, Kayliani Sood, and Allison Smith, for helping bring seed & sound to Philly audiences.

Find the episode transcript
Find episode resources 

Produced & edited by OreOluwa Badaki and Azsaneé Truss with support from the Digital Futures Institute at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Theme music: Unrest by ELPHNT on Directory.Audio

Licensed under a creative commons attribution 3.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 

Season 1 Episodes

Groovin Griot Season 1 Episode 1 Cover showing people marching. Ritual of Remembrance procession at Johns Hopkins University, led by Urban Foli drummer Menes Yahudah and Kali-Ahset Amen. Photo taken by Will Kirk.

Episode 1

Dance as “Reparative Art” with Dr. Jasmine Blanks-Jones

OreOluwa and Azsaneé talk with Dr. Jasmine L. Blanks Jones about her work on “reparative arts” and how dance can help us unpack the complex histories and experiences of African Diasporic communities.

 

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Tambufest 2019. St Thomas, Jamaica. Photo from the Center for Experimental Ethnography.

Episode 2

Unbounding the body through dance with Dr. Deborah Thomas

OreOluwa and Azsaneé talk with Dr. Deborah Thomas about her experiences dancing with Urban Bush Women,  transitioning into a career as an anthropologist, and drawing from African Diasporic movement practices to build collective spaces for "unbounding" bodies.

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Ofosuwa Abiola-Tamba (left) and Monica James (right). Photo by Morgan Miller/Virginia Folklife Program.

Episode 3

Histories of African Dance Systems with Dr. Ofosuwa Abiola

OreOluwa and Azsaneé talk with Dr. Ofosuwa Abiola about her experiences founding Suwabi African Ballet, bringing together dance histories and cultural histories, and understanding African diasporic movement practices as "dance systems."

 

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Lela Aisha Jones (left) and Patricia “Peaches” Jones (right). Photo from Flyground Website

Episode 4

Dancing the Diasporas with Dr. Lela Aisha Jones

Dr. Lela Aisha Jones takes us on a journey through African Diasporas, sharing dance stories from across the US, Brazil, Cuba, Ghana, and Senegal. She talks about archiving social dances that build community, honoring collectivity and individuality through freestyle, and merging technique with àṣẹ. Plus, for this episode's movement break, Ore brings you along for a House dance class!

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S. Ama Wray. Photo from UCI Website

Episode 5

Improvisation as Tradition and Technology with Dr. S Ama Wray

Dr. Wray shares how her early experiences with modern, jazz, and Afro-Cuban dance peaked her interest in  improvisational forms, and how her work on the Ewe concept of Seselelame in Ghana helped her develop a practice of "Embodiology" that utilizes  improvisational movement  to support collective wellbeing and dexterity. 
  

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OreOluwa (left) and Azsaneé (right). Photo taken by Moira McCavana.

Episode 6

Season 1 Finale with OreOluwa Badaki & Azsaneé Truss

That’s a wrap on Season 1 of Groovin' Griot! For this last episode, OreOluwa and Azsaneé give highlights and connect the dots between the stories from this season. They also share what they’re groovin’ to these days and take you on a sonic journey through New Orleans, Rio de Janeiro, NYC, and Philly. 

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Email us at groovingriot@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram @groovingriot!

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