Selected readings in French from Les Cahiers Dogons (P.O.L., 2001) by Antonin Potoski
Astrid Bas, actress, director
Musical accompaniment:
Dick Griffin, jazz trombone
Salieu Suso, kora (West African harp)
Astrid Bas is a French actress, dancer, and director. She has worked with renowned theater directors Georges Lavaudant, Christophe Perton, Anatoli Vassiliev, Helene Vincent, Moise Toure, Frederic Fisbach, Jean Marie Patte, and Yves Beausnene, and has appeared in films directed by Benoît Jacquot, Edward Niermans, Frederic Berthes, and Jean Dominique de la Rochefoucauld, among others. As a director she has staged works ranging from Chekov’s Three Sisters and The Lover of Marguerite Duras to Phaedra in India and Life or Theater, based on the life and work of Charlotte Salomon. As a dancer, she has worked with Peter Goss, Robert Moses, Raimund Hogues and Alonzo King.
Dick Griffin is one of today's leading trombone players. In the mid-1960s, Griffin performed with the Sun Ra Arkestra and began a longtime collaboration with saxophonist Rahsaan Roland Kirk. In a career spanning over 40 years, he has performed with Jazz and Soul greats including Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, Tito Puente, Art Blakey, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie, McCoy Tyner, Marvin Gaye, Michael Jackson, Isaac Hayes, Dionne Warwick, and Lionel Hampton, among others, and has appeared with several symphony orchestras. Griffin has developed a highly personalized playing style which he calls "circularphonics". His ability to combine playing chords on the trombone with circular breathing is unrivaled among jazz trombonists. Also a composer, he has taught music theory and the history of jazz at Wesleyan University and at SUNY-Old Westbury.
dickgriffin1.com
Salieu Suso was born into a family of farmers and traditional musicians/historians from Gambia, West Africa, that extends back nearly 1000 years. He was trained to play the 21-stringed Kora (West African Harp) at the age of eight by his father, renowned Kora player Alhaji Musa Makang Suso, and is recognized to be a descendant of JaliMady Wulayn Suso, the originator of the Kora instrument. Before settling in the United States in 1989, Suso performed extensively throughout Africa and Europe. Salieu Suso leads the Jaliya Kafo Ensemble, and is a leader in the nation’s rapidly growing African music scene. He actively freelances with other groups in the U.S.
salieususo.fourfour.com
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Antonin Potoski, a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure de la Photographie, is a travel-writer and photography curator. He helped foster the emergence of a generation of art photographers in Mali from 1996 to 2002, with a number of partners—the French Embassy, the Paris Photography Month, the African Photography Encounters, the FNAC Photo Galleries, Festivals in France, Kodak, Revue Noire Editions, Éditions de l’Œil, and Japanese and European galleries and museums. He is the author of Les Cahiers dogons and Hôtel de l’amitié (P.O.L.); and Cités en abîme (Gallimard).