For Kesseke dance is like a medicine.   He started dancing at seven years old and at eleven he went to the Ivory Coast National Ballet and was there for several years dancing locally and touring around Africa and Europe. He also danced for Yelemba d’Abidjan and Ballet Djolem d’Abidjan, la Companie de Wouafou d’Abidjan.In 2001 he moved to Vancouver and currently dances for his own group WEST meets WEST, a multicultural drum and dance group playing the traditional Ivory Coast rhythms from West Africa. Kesseke teaches West African drums and dance in various studios around Vancouver.   To learn more about Kesseke, please visit www.kissofafrica.ca Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball Kesseke is also a clothing designer and tailor! An Interview with Kesseke By Max Potter Although perhaps not particularly well known outside of sub-Saharan Africa, West African dance is a cherished tradition carried on by its performers as well as having carved a niche with some unlikely new disciples. Whether it’s for voyeurism, entertainment or simply a cardio workout, several curious citizens flock to studios to be taught by veterans of the art like Kesseke Yeo. Originally from the Ivory Coast, Kesseke began dancing at age five and was noticed by his seventh year. By the age of fifteen he was recruited by the Ivory Coast ballet and began touring worldwide, performing throughout Africa and Europe, from Yamoussoukro to Paris and everything in-between. The dances that I was able to witness were raw and heavily rhythm based. Nothing short of a gymnast, Kesseke incorporates various athletic feats such as spontaneous backflips to break up the heavy beats and singing as his voice and bare feet act as instruments of their own. The dances are laced with a mythology that comes through even for those oblivious to the meaning of the various chants uttered between...

Interview-in-progress: Katja De Bock (reporter), Sayaka Toyoshima & Ivan Gayton By Katja De Bock Photos by Noriko Nasu-Tidball & Ivan Gayton When a Japanese midwife and a B.C. tree planter met at a compound of Médecins sans Frontières (Doctors without Borders or MSF) in rural Pakistan, after-work entertainment options were scarce. One thing led to another, and a few years and many projects later, Sayaka Toyoshima and Ivan Gayton are awaiting the birth of their first child in Summerland, B.C. Before heading to the Okanagan, the couple stopped by Kerrisdale Playbook headquarters and spoke with editor-in-chief Keiko Honda, photographer Noriko Nasu-Tidball and reporter Katja De Bock about what makes their work in emergency regions so irresistible. Most striking about the two is the passion for their work. Half a year ago, Toyoshima had to abandon her work as a field researcher in a convalescence nutrition study in northern Nigeria, because of increasing kidnappings in the area, due to the conflict in nearby Mali. “We believed that our area is very safe,” says Toyoshima. “Everybody knows what we are doing, we’re foreigners working in the hospital, saving many children’s lives. Many village people trusted us. The most stressful thing was to leave our field, other than the security issue.” But husband Gayton, the head of mission, made the decision to leave. “It’s my job to be the bad guy and say ‘I’m sorry, you can’t work here anymore’,” says Gayton. Toyoshima is still sad having had to leave her patients behind, most of them rural families who participated in the six-months study about the vicious cycle of child malnourishment, illness and poverty. Toyoshima’s task was to collect data in the field, which is contributing to a study that will eventually be published by MSF Holland.  MSF was founded in...