Souleymane Badolo & Godi Godar: Burkina Faso/KYA Well Project

OPEN TO THE PUBLIC | CAPA and Dance @ Bennington Presents: Burkina Faso/KYA Well Project Souleymane Badolo & Godi Godar. 

Watch the presentation here

In May of 2021, Souleymane ‘Solo’ Badolo embarked on a project to help bring water to the drought-ridden Village of KYA in Burkina Faso, West Africa, where his parents and ancestors were from and where he calls home. He had bought farmland in KYA with the intention of aiding the community at large by digging a well for everyone’s use. There was no well in the Village, so farmers and families were dependent upon the rainy season which is more and more unpredictable due to climate change. A fundraising campaign followed, led by Susan Sgorbati and supported by many, which brought in enough to drill the well. After several failed attempts, Godi Godar (from the Democratic Republic of Congo; founder of Go Conscious Earth) joined the project bringing his geolocational team, which eventually found the right vein close to Solo’s land, in December 2021. The tremendous victory was blessed with a ritual performed by the entire community. In this presentation, Solo and Godi will talk of the KYA Well Project and steps for the future with conversations about regenerative agriculture, food production, and water quality. In addition, Godi Godar will talk of Go Conscious Earth and describe his on-going conservation work in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

About Souleymane ‘Solo’ Badolo
Souleymane ‘Solo’ Badolo is a Brooklyn-based choreographer and dancer born in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso. He started his professional career as a dancer for the DAMA, a traditional African dance company.

In 1993, he founded his own Burkina Faso-based troupe, Kongo Ba Téria, which fuses traditional African dances with western contemporary dance and continues to tour internationally. Mr Badolo has danced with world-renowned contemporary African dance company Salia ni Seydou, worked with French choreographers Elsa Wolliaston and Mathilde Monnier, and performed with the National Ballet of Burkina. He and Kongo Ba Téria are featured in the widely-screened documentary Movement (R)evolution Africa which documents the continent’s emergent experimental dance scene. Since moving to New York City in 2009, Badolo has created a number of solo and small ensemble projects commissioned and presented by Danspace, New York Live Arts, Dance New Amsterdam, Harlem Stage, the 92nd Street Y, the Museum of Art & Design, River to River Festival (R2R), and BAM. He has collaborated with Nora Chipaumire, Ralph Lemon, Reggie Wilson, and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar of Urban Bush Women. His ongoing research in Africa has been supported by The Suitcase Fund of New York Live Arts. Mr. Badolo was nominated for a 2011 Bessie Award (New York Dance & Performance Award) as Outstanding Emerging Choreographer and in 2012, received the Juried Bessie Award (from jurists LarLubovitch, Yvonne Rainer and Jawole Willa Jo Zollar).

In 2015, his dance for two dancers and one percussionist, Yimbégré, was recognized with a Bessie Award for Outstanding Production. Badolo was commissioned to create a dance for Philadanco as part of James Brown: Get on the Good Foot, produced by The Apollo Theater for presentation there in October 2013, followed by national and international touring dates. Badolo is the recipient of Wesleyan University’s 2014 Mariam McGlone Emerging Choreographer Award and the 2015 Harkness Foundation Dance Residency at BAM Fisher. In 2020, he created a new work for Valerie Green/Dance Entropy (Version I Home); in 2021, he created a new work at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis (Version II Home). Badolo (MFA ’13) became an Artist-in-Residence at the New School, Williams College, Bennington College, and Bard College. He now teaches at Bard full-time.

About Godi Godar Moteke
Godi Godar Moteke Molanga of the Bantu Ntomba community grew up in the village of Ikongo Boginda, at the edge of Lake Tumba in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Grandson of the chief, he was next in line to lead, but a vivid boyhood vision foretold him leaving his home, traveling to an unknown land, and one day returning to support and protect his people.

When Godar was sixteen, Habitat for Humanity volunteer, Dean DeBoer, showed up in his village. Godi's grandfather insisted they live together and learn each other’s languages and cultures. At the end of his three-year stay, Dean invited Godar to travel to the US with him. Thus began the first phase of Godar's childhood dream coming to fruition. He has lived in Durham, NC since his arrival in 1987.

23 years later Godar’s mother, Nsaba Koko, pled with her son to find a way to protect the land, waters, and forests surrounding his village. Logging companies were destroying the livelihood of his people, endangering wildlife, and polluting the air. Koko asked him, “How can we protect our homelands?” With that question, Godar's purpose in leaving his tribe became clear.

In response to his mother’s pleas, Godar started Go Conscious Earth (GCEarth) in 2012. With strong ties to the local community and provincial government, he helped secure a temporary agreement to protect a one-million-acre tract of land surrounding his and neighboring villages. As of 2018, much of that land has now been converted to Community Forest Concessions, which provides the local people with legal rights to their land in perpetuity. From the beginning, it was clear that addressing the basic needs of the local people was an integral part of long-term forest conservation. Sustainable development initiatives such as clean water, non-timber forest product cultivation, and clean energy have always been at the heart of GCEarth’s approach.

For many years, Godar and volunteers have worked tirelessly to protect land rights, wildlife, clean water, and carbon rich rainforests. Their success has not only protected the health of people, animals, and ecosystems, but also proven the success of community-based anti-poverty initiatives to the DRC government.

In 2012, Godar’s mother passed away. Her final words to Godar were, “God will bless you in this project.”