The Ndaje Dance festival, put on by Pape N'Diaye and DionneThomas, recently closed in Boston. Although just in its third year, the conference is quickly gaining in popularilty, offering a good selection of classes and comraderie. This year, as an added bonus, conference attendees were treated to the debut performance of LES ENFANTS DU SOLEIL, a professional, African dance touring company composed of dancers and drummers from Guinea, Senegal, Mali and the US. The company featured both male and female dancers The men were represented by Malang Bayo, Rich Faye, Babacar N'Diaye, Pape N'Diaye, Ousman Sall, Mor Talla Samb and Mamdy Sano. We have it on good authority that Babacra M'Baye will also participate in the future. The women were Heike Currie, Alauna Faye, Tamika Haris, Tamara Jones, Shurla Nelson, Zaleika Reid, Maila Sylla, Koko Tete-Rosenthal and Dionne Thomas. Djeneba Sako and Marie Basse-Wiles added a little spice.

After the drum call, the dancing opened with the women performing a high spirited and well danced Lamba/Yaro-Yaro. The women entered in purple modified boubous. The boubou is the traditional costume for Lamba, but as many of you know from experience, its hard to dance in. But the troupe handled the costumes without a flaw and at no point did the costuming become a distraction from the technical performance. In fact, if anything, the costumes were a little understated and didn't do justice to the beauty of the dancers.