Approaching a Script for Essentials of Senegal, Fish, Dance, and Water

Abstract

Following a spark ignited by witnessing a Sabar dancer and drummer as a young woman in Senegal, this first draft of a filmscript follows the author back to Senegal many decades later. She must get to the bottom of this initiatory eros experience. A synchronicity leads her to the same city where she worked a long time ago, now a guest of a well-known drummer family. She starts filming their traditional Sabar rehearsals as well as a Sabar in a circle for women only. But it does not satisfy the inner image ingrained in her psyche. An encounter at the village well brings her face-to-face with the dire situation of many women confronting a lack of water. Following more synchronistic events, she ends up filming experimental Sabar around a well in another town with a choreographer she hires, along with his drummers and dancers. The dance turns into a joy-filled start of the day for the girls before their Sunday washing, captured on camera.