Metro Detroit Dancer Choreographs FELA!

Photos: Cybelle Codish

Fela Anikulapo Kuti…was the socially conscious Nigerian musician…and creator of Afrobeat music. He’s also the central figure in the Broadway hit…FELA! Hailed as explosive and energetic…the musical garnered 11 Tony nominations and three Tony Awards including one for Best Choreography.

WDET’s Martina Guzman recently paid a visit to Maija [My-uh] Garcia, the Metro Detroiter who became the Creative Director for FELA. Garcia helped shape the dance style for the production that would become a sensation

If you go see FELA at Detroit’s Music Hall you will enter a setting designed to feel sacred, lush, decadent and full of color and light. There will be explosive energy coming from the stage as dancers move, sing and sweat for nearly three hours. Critics have raved about the dancing in FELA which won this cast a Tony for Best Choreography.

"So everyone…I have two notes for everyone right now. That moment…don’t forget that moment is the point in time when Fela has collected the masses and there is one hundred thousand people represented in you …in that group… as you do those four jumps so when we’re doing the rhythmic stepping we all need a shared focus."

That’s Metro Detroiter, choreographer and creative director of FELA!…Maija Garcia. She and the FELA dancers are running through a rehearsal at Detroit’s Musical Hall. After six years of being part of the cast… she’s gotten use to five hour rehearsals, the grueling pressures of opening night and dancing in extreme heat in places like Lagos, Nigeria. But for Garcia…the run of FELA! at Detroit’s Music Hall is special.

"Earlier today…we gathered the cast on stage and I said…I’m very proud that Fela is coming home to Detroit. And I wanted them to understand how critical this show is for the people of Detroit today…and I said, you’ve gotta give them your heart and your soul and you gotta bring everything that you can because it means something when the people of Detroit are buying tickets to this show."

Garcia is proud to be from Metro Detroit. She says she understands the soul of the city and why a show like this is important."

"When a city has gone through what this city has gone through in the last twenty thirty years…the breakdown of the music industry, the breakdown of the auto industry…and unemployment rates being sky high and foreclosures all over the city and empty buildings…the trauma this city has seen is really significant and it also resembles what the people of Lagos were dealing with in the 1970’s and what Fela was talking about"

Garcia has long dark hair, a chiseled physique and a commanding presence. Her role is not only that of choreographer… but also of mother figure to the dancers and…bearer of excellence."

Iris Wilson is a dancer in the musical. She says Garcia has a gift.

"She’s talented she’s very talented! I think she studied well in terms of studying the essence of Yoruba culture. She did her research on the Fela queens and how they move and they present themselves on stage and she shared that with us."

Garcia’s Cuban roots are what she says help give her the authenticity needed to pull off a production of this caliber.

"Fela’s music integrates African rhythms that come from Yoruba land where he’s from in Abeokuta City in Nigeria, which are the same rhythms I studied in Habana Cuba where my father is from. The afro Cuban culture is directly from Nigeria."

After growing up in Ann Arbor… Garcia went to New York to figure out who she was and what she was meant to do in the world. She eventually found her place working with famed choreographer Bill T. Jones.

"Maya was in the Bill T. Jones dance company as a dancer…1:40 and I asked Bill if he would consider directing and choreographing the show when and if I got the rights. And when I got the rights he started working on it and Maija was in his company and he brought Maija in to be the associate choreographer."

That’s Stephan Hendel… a commodities trader and the unlikely man behind the creation of FELA! I asked him why he made the jump from day trading to Broadway. His answer was simple.

"It was the greatest music I ever heard."

To Hendel …Fela Kuti’s story of revolution, music and politics was inspiring.

"The story of sacrifice and commitment and using this crazy brilliant talent to speak out for the dispossessed and be committed to using art for social purposes…I just thought it was an overwhelmingly powerful story."

Almost a decade has passed from the time Hendel heard his first Fela Kuti CD to the opening night of FELA! the musical on Broadway. During the years in between he worked with Kuti’s estate to get the rights to create the show. Hendel made a special trip from New York to attend the Detroit premier of the show and support the cast.

As for Garcia…she says that after so many years away from Michigan she admits she’s a little nervous. Her mother and first dance instructor will be in the audience.

"Today is the day that my nerves are on edge because I want the show to be as tight as it can possibly be and I want for the audience to be blown away and I want the cast to be on…I want everything to come off well… so today my nerves are on edge and I’m in work mode but I think tonight when I see everybody shining and inspired…then I’ll be having a blast"

The Tony Award Winning Musical…FELA! runs through March 4th at the Musical Hall.

I’m Martina Guzman WDET News.