tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/african-dance-67202/articlesAfrican Dance – The Conversation2023-10-09T13:32:37Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135992023-10-09T13:32:37Z2023-10-09T13:32:37ZSho Madjozi: the pop star using traditional culture to shape a fresh identity for young South Africans<p>South African rapper <a href="https://www.musicinafrica.net/directory/sho-madjozi">Sho Madjozi</a> is a bold and colourful presence in pop culture, as famous for her catchy lyrics as for using traditional clothing and dance in a fresh way. </p>
<p>The musician, actress and poet is also one of very few young South African artists working in a minority language, Xitsonga. With 12 official languages in South Africa, Xitsonga is the first language of only about <a href="https://www.statssa.gov.za/census/census_2011/census_products/Census_2011_Census_in_brief.pdf#page=29">4.5%</a> of the population, mostly in the rural northern province of the country called Limpopo. The <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tsonga">Tsonga people</a> also live in neighbouring Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Eswatini.</p>
<p>Yet, in 2019, “<a href="https://twitter.com/shomadjozi/status/1367138022676963329?s=61&t=tS_HwqEZjVfiFydTA2hItQ">village girl</a>” Sho Madjozi burst onto the world stage with her hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9bGITkIHmM">John Cena</a>, winning a <a href="https://www.timeslive.co.za/tshisa-live/tshisa-live/2019-06-24-watch-halala-sho-madjozi-bags-a-bet/">BET award</a> in the US for Best International Newcomer. By 2021 she had established herself as <a href="https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/entertainment/2019-06-02-sho-madjozi-wins-big-at-sama25/">best female artist</a> at the South African Music Awards.</p>
<p>But Sho Madjozi is about more than music. She’s also about setting trends – through reinventing Tsonga costume, hairstyles and dance. She’s done this in a way that helps shape her region’s cultural identity. </p>
<p>Cultural identity is not something that’s fixed. Identities change, transcending time, place and history. Sho Madjozi shows how this happens when she mixes the authentic culture of the Tsonga people with popular global culture to produce a unique – or hybrid – identity and performance style.</p>
<p>We recently published a <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/21681392.2023.2227293?scroll=top">research paper</a> that analyses this. We place her as an artist whose work demonstrates a fascinating interface between the “authentic” (Tsonga culture) and the “hybrid” (an innovative new voice, with innovation and novelty being central to the global culture industries).</p>
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<p>We conclude that by merging popular and traditional cultures, Sho Madjozi is the latest in a long line of young African artists who help shape youth culture identity. In the process she shines a light on a lesser-known ethnic group, keeping traditional knowledge alive so that others may learn from it and be inspired by it. </p>
<h2>Who is Sho Madjozi?</h2>
<p>Sho Madjozi was born Maya Christinah Xichavo Wegerif, from a biracial union between her Swedish father and Tsonga mother. This provides a further fascinating framework for the idea of authenticity and hybridity in her work. </p>
<p>In South Africa, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-slavery-and-early-colonisation-south-africa">colonialism</a> and <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> suppressed indigenous cultures. Apartheid, introduced by a white-minority government, was a policy based on separate development for different racially categorised people. The <a href="https://omalley.nelsonmandela.org/index.php/site/q/03lv01538/04lv01828/05lv01829/06lv01884.htm">law</a> banned sexual relations between people categorised as black and white. Yet people fell in love across the colour lines. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s mixed parentage creates a hybrid form of identity because of historical processes of cultural contact, transformation and change among different peoples of the world. </p>
<p>As if to underscore the in-betweenness of her cultural heritage, a considerable part of her youth and childhood was spent in Senegal in west Africa. This also demonstrates the notion of circulation that characterises the contemporary <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2012/02/17/world/africa/who-are-afropolitans/index.html">Afropolitan</a> (a generation that is both African and cosmopolitan). </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi chose proudly to adopt a Tsonga signature style in her stage career. She <a href="https://www.iol.co.za/entertainment/sho-madjozi-it-makes-sense-for-me-to-rap-in-xitsonga-10990362">says</a> that, for her, blackness means “not erasing everything that I am … and never accepting a form of beauty where it’s as far away from me as possible”.</p>
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<p>She makes it clear that a pure native identity is simply no longer available. In its place comes a moving map of cultural images and an ever-changing sense of self.</p>
<h2>Costume, hair and dance</h2>
<p>Characteristically, Sho Madjozi adapts and reinterprets the Tsonga tinguvu skirt, commonly called the <a href="https://makotis.com/xibelani/">xibelani skirt</a> as it’s used to perform the traditional <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">xibelani dance</a>. The xibelani skirt is gathered in the waist, accentuated at the top of the hips and consists of many layers of fabric that create a distinctive volume when the wearer dances in it. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi <a href="https://www.news24.com/news24/the-history-of-the-xibelani-a-look-behind-sjo-madjozis-signature-look-20200226#">reinterprets</a> this skirt. She pairs it with modern fashion items, sometimes shortening it or making it longer, reinventing its form. This contrasts and merges indigenous culture with fashion, tradition with modernity, and the local with the global. </p>
<p>She also incorporates vibrant Tsonga colours (pinks, yellows, purples, blues and greens) in her creative reinterpretations of costume. She does the same with her <a href="https://briefly.co.za/entertainment/celebrities/158996-sho-madjozis-iconic-hairstyles-4-stunning-earned-john-cena-hitmaker-queen-colourful-hair/">hair</a>, weaving bright Tsonga colours into it, adorning it with beads, experimenting with traditional accessories in her cornrows. </p>
<p>The xibelani <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsOJ6VP1e84">dance</a> is also central to Sho Madjozi’s act. It’s native to Tsonga women, where girls learn it to celebrate their heritage and perform it on special occasions. Xibelani means “hitting to the rhythm”. The dancer shakes their hips, exaggerated by the skirt, with the whole body following. This is often accompanied by hand clapping and whistling.</p>
<p>Sho Madjozi’s colourful and iconic redesigns of Tsonga costume are signs of what it means to be Tsonga in southern Africa today. She uses popular urban youth culture to spread Tsonga xibelani culture in a national space. </p>
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<p>She does so in a time when young South Africans often find themselves grappling to retain traditional cultural values in an ever-changing and fast-paced globalising world. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>Traditional costume often represents old ways that resist change. Sho Madjozi’s innovations around xibelani speak differently. Through her performances, social media image and public profile, she rises above conventional attitudes that often perceive minority ethnic groups as the conservative gatekeepers of unchanging cultures. </p>
<p>She presents Tsonga tradition and culture at the cutting edge of positive identity formation. She does so in ways that inspire, attract and convince other young South Africans to embrace local cultures in their own construction of urban identities.</p>
<p>She acts as a cultural agent for the transmission of positive change and values across ethnic, national and international boundaries. </p>
<p>Sho Madjozi embodies the words of <a href="https://literature.britishcouncil.org/writer/taiye-selasi">Taiye Selasi</a>, the young British-born, US-based writer, photographer and cultural activist of Nigerian and Ghanaian origin. Selasi <a href="https://www.npr.org/2013/03/27/175466870/debut-novel-tackles-african-immigrant-stereotypes">says</a>: </p>
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<p>What distinguishes (Afropolitans) is a willingness to complicate Africa … we seek to comprehend the cultural complexity, to honour the intellectual and spiritual legacy, and to sustain our parents’ cultures.</p>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Costume, hair and dance allow her to modernise Tsonga culture – and help shape youth identity.Owen Seda, Associate Professor in Performing Arts, Tshwane University of TechnologyMotshidisi Manyeneng, Lecturer in Costume Theory and theatre costumer, Tshwane University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2128192023-09-14T16:15:16Z2023-09-14T16:15:16ZThe cross-Africa dance company bringing new life to Pina Bausch’s Rite of Spring<p>At its premiere in 1913, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Igor-Stravinsky">Igor Stravinsky</a> and <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vaslav-Nijinsky">Vaslav Nijinsky</a>’s <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Rite-of-Spring">Rite of Spring</a> shocked audiences and divided critics. The ballet centred around a straightforward yet brutal narrative – a community selects a sacrificial victim, a virgin who will be martyred to their fertility god to secure a good harvest. The plot, however, was not what scandalised Parisian theatregoers. </p>
<p>Every aspect of the performance transgressed western classical traditions. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2007/03/24/9041627/the-primitive-pulse-of-stravinskys-rite-of-spring">Stravinsky’s score</a> re-imagined Russian folk music through a complex web of harmonies and constantly changing tempo. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4sf2wT0wU&t=1393s">Nijinsky’s choreography</a> abandoned ballet technique – his dancers had turned-in feet, curved spines and performed percussive stomps. And <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nicholas-Roerich">Nikolai Roerich</a>’s set and costume designs were influenced by the <a href="https://avant.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/Lucy-Weir-Primitive-Rituals.pdf">folk art of Central Asia</a>. </p>
<p>The ballet became a symbol of modernity, a bold vision of the future that was steeped in a global heritage.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Trailer for Dancing at Dusk - A moment with Pina Bausch’s The Rite of Spring.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Sixty years later, in the German city of Wuppertal, <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/work/sacr">Pina Bausch’s version</a> had a similar <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2023/feb/12/enduring-power-dance-classic-the-rite-of-spring-dada-masilo-the-sacrifice-seeta-patel-ballet-russes">cultural impact</a>, influencing generations of dancers to follow. Bausch’s remarkable staging covered the floor in a thick layer of soil, creating the impression of a devastated wasteland. Her intricate and relentless choreography required intense effort from the cast who, by the end, transformed the earth into a sweaty mud bath. The result was a visceral power play between men and women, a timeless morality tale about the consequences of misogynistic violence.</p>
<p>Bausch’s Rite was a great success and it became one of her best-known works. Throughout the four decades that she directed her radical independent company, <a href="https://www.pina-bausch.de/en">Tanztheater Wuppertal</a>, Bausch devised a new language of dance that departed from previous techniques and styles. The company diversified as it grew, taking in members from six continents, different generations and a much broader range of body types than is usually seen in the dance world.</p>
<p>After Bausch’s death in 2009, a <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/">foundation</a> was established in her name, dedicated not only to preserving her legacy, but also expanding its reach. The Pina Bausch Foundation has authorised various dance companies to perform her work, including <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qfebd6Yan10">English National Ballet</a> and <a href="https://www.staatsoper-berlin.de/de/veranstaltungen/strawinsky.11209/">Staatsballett Berlin</a>. However, its collaboration with Senegalese choreographer <a href="https://sacreblue.org/shape-the-future/germaine-acogny-the-mother-of-contemporary-african-dance/">Germaine Acogny</a> offers a much more innovative approach. </p>
<p>For the first time, an <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/post/ensemble-the-rite-of-spring">ensemble</a> has been created specifically for the purposes of dancing Bausch’s Rite of Spring. This staging, <a href="https://www.sadlerswells.com/on-tour/current-productions/pina-bausch-germaine-acogny-malou-airaudo-the-rite-of-spring-common-grounds/">currently touring internationally</a>, is performed by an all-African cast. Thirty-eight dancers from 14 countries breathe new life into now canonical choreography. Crucially, they also highlight the ongoing lack of African representation on theatrical stages.</p>
<h2>Modern dance is global</h2>
<p>From its very beginnings, modern dance has drawn inspiration from – and, too frequently, appropriated – cultures across the globe. American pioneer of modern contemporary dance, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/dance-research-journal/article/abs/dancing-greek-antiquity-in-private-and-public-isadora-duncans-early-patronage-in-paris/9E8A91DD0379E1C33AF7008D759BB303">Isadora Duncan</a> (1877-1927) referenced the philosophy and aesthetics of ancient Greece. The German pioneer of expressionist dance and dance therapy, <a href="http://www.scottishjournalofperformance.org/Tsitsou_Weir_hexentanz_SJoP0101_DOI_10.14439sjop.2013.0101.04.pdf">Mary Wigman</a> (1886-1973), was fascinated by the theatre and dance traditions of Asia. And American choreographer <a href="https://journals.openedition.org/erea/8339?lang=en">Martha Graham</a> (1894-1991) incorporated Native American rituals into her works. </p>
<p>Yet there is a more complex history exemplified by artists such as <a href="https://www.michioito.org/about">Michio Ito</a> (1892-1961), a Japanese dancer whose performances garnered the appreciation of audiences across Europe and the US, <a href="https://www5.open.ac.uk/research-projects/making-britain/content/uday-shankar">Uday Shankar</a> (1900-1977), an innovator of Indian modern dance and <a href="https://blogs.loc.gov/folklife/2021/02/katherine-dunham-in-the-caribbean/">Katherine Dunham</a> (1906-2006), who researched traditional dances of the Caribbean.</p>
<p>Modern dance has always been global. Yet a problem with representation persists – and African dancers remain <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/african-theatre-contemporary-dance/introduction/0031B07A2A914E8DB14EB3C797F97E11">especially marginalised</a> both on stage and in dance writing. The erroneous belief that modern dance has simply failed to take hold in the African continent erases a rich creative legacy.</p>
<h2>A unique collaboration</h2>
<p>Germaine Acogny and Pina Bausch’s careers ran in parallel. Both women studied abroad before bringing their expertise back to their home countries. <a href="https://www.uarts.edu/germaine-acogny">Acogny</a> caught the attention of Senegalese president, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Leopold-Senghor">Léopold Sédar Senghor</a>, who sent her to work with the acclaimed choreographer <a href="https://www.bejart.ch/en/company/maurice-bejart/">Maurice Béjart</a> in Belgium. </p>
<p>Senghor and Béjart helped her to establish <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/02/21/ballet-mudra-afrique/a7904aef-5b89-4d9c-a23c-bc9caad5d998/">Mudra Afrique</a>, the first school of contemporary dance in Senegal’s capital city, Dakar. However, Acogny became increasingly frustrated by the curriculum’s focus on western techniques and her desire to create a home for African modern dance led her to open <a href="https://ecoledessables.org/">École des Sables</a> in 2004.</p>
<p>This seaside dance school was the locus for the Rite of Spring ensemble, who rehearsed with members of Bausch’s company for months to get under the skin of her choreography. Original touring plans were put on hold due to the pandemic. Thankfully, a visiting documentary filmmaker captured a <a href="https://www.pinabausch.org/post/dancing-at-dusk">final rehearsal</a> on the beach at Toubab Dialaw, immediately before the country went into lockdown. </p>
<p>The resulting film reached global audiences at a time when live theatre seemed a distant prospect and, for many, was an important introduction to the culture of modern dance in Africa.</p>
<p>The company’s performances have brought rave reviews, including a sold-out run at the 2023 Edinburgh International Festival. Nonetheless, this raises a complex question. After a century of cross-cultural exchange and the global expansion of the art form, should it take a western “classic” to raise the profile of African modern dance? <a href="https://www.goethe.de/prj/zei/en/art/22355154.html">Sincere reflection</a> is required on the power structures that govern dance as a global enterprise and determine whose work ends up being seen.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/536131/original/file-20230706-17-460x2d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lucy Weir receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust. </span></em></p>The 38 dancers highlight the ongoing lack of African representation on theatrical stages.Lucy Weir, Chancellor's Fellow in History of Art, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997792023-04-04T04:10:00Z2023-04-04T04:10:00ZChoreographic legacies, human connectivity, and a psychedelic rainbow celebration: FRAME is a joyous festival of dance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518927/original/file-20230403-2571-gvrfgl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C16%2C5542%2C3684&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Exposed by Restless Dance Theatre.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Arts House</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Staying true to its objectives of representing dance artists from across practices and lineages, the inaugural FRAME Dance Festival offered a diversity of performance styles and forms in locations around Melbourne and beyond. </p>
<p>The program included shows, films and workshops in venues ranging from courtyards to galleries to dance studios. </p>
<p>Some offerings were political and academic, some were celebratory. Some told us personal or cultural stories; some had 100 dancers, some had one. </p>
<p>FRAME felt like a community coming together after three very difficult pandemic years for dance and dancers in Melbourne. Here are my highlights of the festival.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/5-australian-women-choreographers-you-should-know-and-where-to-see-them-in-2023-193213">5 Australian women choreographers you should know (and where to see them in 2023)</a>
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<h2>Mohini</h2>
<p>In a mesmerising queer retelling of Lord Vishnu’s transformation into the enchantress <a href="https://vedicfeed.com/mohini-female-avatar-of-lord-vishnu/">Mohini</a>, Raina Peterson – a Fiji-Indian and English dancer/choreographer – draws us into their sensual, visceral world where they shift from transgender storyteller to demon to Hindu goddess. </p>
<p>True to the classical Indian idiom, their wide-open unblinking eyes, bouncing brows and long articulate fingers lead the narrative, which begins on a dimly lit stage covered in low billowing clouds. </p>
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<span class="caption">This is a mesmerising queer retelling of Lord Vishnu’s transformation into the enchantress Mohini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Anne Moffat/Arts House</span></span>
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<p>Peterson is joined by Marco Cher-Gibard, who hits long, loud notes on electric guitar to a background of tinkling chimes. </p>
<p>As the story climaxes with Mohini’s recovery of the elixir of life, there is a visual metamorphosis on stage from quiet monochrome intimacy to explosive psychedelic rainbow celebration with the projection of a spinning vortex around Peterson’s ecstatic silhouetted form. </p>
<p>It is an intense and captivating experience.</p>
<h2>Slip</h2>
<p>In Slip, dancer Rebecca Jensen, dressed as the enigmatic <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Girl_with_a_Pearl_Earring">Girl with a Pearl Earring</a>, exposes the illusions created by technology in our everyday lives. </p>
<p>The bare stage appears like a workspace with only a sound desk and a scattering of quotidian objects. The performance begins with a demonstration of the sound-effect technique <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foley_(filmmaking)">Foley</a> from Jensen’s collaborator Aviva Endean.</p>
<p>Upon entering, Jensen sits centre stage and eats, drinks and reads a newspaper while Endean creates sounds to match her actions. When Jensen eats chips, live and synchronised Endean amusingly crunches on a celery stalk. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman lies on the ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518965/original/file-20230403-28-ryky79.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Slip is an energetic and intellectual work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Sarah Walker/Darebin Arts Speakeasy</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This measured synchronicity creates a comforting rhythm – until it gradually begins to slip. </p>
<p>The sound and action become out of sync. The crunching accompanies walking. The walking sounds like water being poured. The artificiality of the sound’s relationship to the action is disturbingly laid bare. </p>
<p>The pace picks up as Jensen and Endean interact with the objects, each other and as animated dancers projected on the back screen.</p>
<p>An energetic and intellectual work, Slip keeps the audience holding on by a thread, never letting up or settling in.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ballet-dancers-in-sensor-suits-new-research-explores-how-dance-is-used-as-a-form-of-communication-200870">Ballet dancers in sensor suits: new research explores how dance is used as a form of communication</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Us and All of This</h2>
<p>In our era of social dysfunction, environmental disasters, pandemics and war, Us and All of This is choreographer Liesel Zink’s meditation on human connectivity. </p>
<p>The sound of loud humming white noise accompanies the 100 very slow-moving quiet bodies as one by one they fill the Arts Centre Melbourne forecourt. </p>
<p>They stand separate, motionless, facing different directions and gazing to the distance. They represent the breadth of our society: all ages, races, genders and abilities. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of people stand with their hands outstretched." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/519164/original/file-20230404-26-16rzvc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">These dancers represent the breadth of our society: all ages, races, genders and abilities.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mark Gambino/Arts Centre Melbourne</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A few begin to breathe their arms gently and slowly up and down like wings. They are joined by a few more until everyone is breathing together. Changes to the movement starts with a few and gradually ripples through the whole 100 dancers. </p>
<p>As momentum builds, the synchronicity breaks down. </p>
<p>Different intense movements are now distributed randomly through the crowd: a highly energetic arm winding, a desperate curling in, a spinning with arms fully stretched and a pushing down hard towards the ground. The dancers are engrossed.</p>
<p>Sometimes they move closer to each other, sometimes further apart. And while they do not acknowledge each other until the very end, in this immersive experience we as the audience are drawn in from the start with a sense we are all in this together. </p>
<h2>Exposed</h2>
<p>Directed by Michelle Ryan, Restless Dance Theatre’s diverse dancers take us on an exploration of the physical, mental and emotional vulnerability exposed in the face of global upheaval. </p>
<p>A huge screen becomes translucent and we make out the seven dancers beyond it scattered across the stage slowly getting dressed. </p>
<p>They begin to look up as if there is something there they cannot see but are afraid of; something invisible but menacing. They start slowly turning. The screen transforms into a lung breathing over their heads. Only now do they start seeing each other. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Six bodies look up at a blue sheet above their heads." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518930/original/file-20230403-3178-uf3nlb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">We see the vulnerability exposed in the face of global upheaval.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Roy Vandervegt/Arts House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They are jumpy, afraid of each other and of other things we cannot see. This fear develops into an emotional desperation in some. Others become violent. Still others show signs of physical suffering. </p>
<p>They begin to attempt to help each other. </p>
<p>The screen moves once more to become a backdrop. The dancers now move with each other, connecting, smiling, learning to give and accept care. The motifs of the breath and physical turning and rolling throughout the work, together with a serene and repetitive score, create a sense of continuation and inevitability, of a human condition that insists on struggling on, that has no choice. </p>
<p>This tender work closes as it began, the dancers separate and turn inward once more as they slowly and quietly undress.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/guttered-a-joyful-immersion-and-subversion-of-expectations-between-the-bowling-lanes-156204">Guttered: a joyful immersion and subversion of expectations between the bowling lanes</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Somewhere at the Beginning</h2>
<p>Known as the mother of modern African dance, Senegalese French dancer Germaine Acogny moves us through the continual returns of inescapable pasts in a haunting post-colonial epic. </p>
<p>With direction by Mikael Serre, this multimedia bricolage shifts from the intimate corporeality of the weight of a stone on a foot to the museum-like objective formality of 20th century film footage and documentary voice over. </p>
<p>A beaded curtain which divides the stage into back and front is traversed throughout, representing the movement between different worlds, past and present, African and European. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A Black woman dances surrounded by feathers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518931/original/file-20230403-3782-y1wzv3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Germaine Acogny is the mother of modern African dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Thomas Dorn/Arts House</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In a long, grey dress, Acogny moves deliberately and heavily with only a book, a stone, a pillow and a chair to accompany her. We are confronted with a variety of stories: some deeply personal, some culturally shared and some highly academic. </p>
<p>Themes around identity relentlessly recur throughout the work imitating the insistence of the colonial legacy they illustrate. The same story of powder used to whiten faces manifests at different times in projection, voice and in its sprinkling around the stage. </p>
<p>Without lightness or relief, Somewhere at the Beginning demands we bear witness to its account of the tragedy and persistence of cultural and colonial trauma.</p>
<h2>NEWRETRO</h2>
<p>Lucy Guerin’s three-hour marathon 21st-birthday celebration is a director’s cut of 21 works reenacted by 21 dancers who, along with their audience, move in and out of all four galleries of the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art. </p>
<p>In this shift from blacked-out theatre to white cube, Guerin shows us a version of her works we have not seen before. We encounter the dancers on and off stage: close-up, sweaty and raw. As the audience we not only see, but are also seen. </p>
<p>The larger main gallery exhibits a built-up remix of vocabularies with different groups of dancers simultaneously performing excerpts clearly drawn from different Guerin works. The movement is at times hyper-energetic, pounding with unexpected grunts and screams, and at other times minimal, quiet and pedestrian. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A white room, an audience around the edge, a mass of dancers in black." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/518967/original/file-20230403-16-bhn2vb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Close-up, sweaty and raw where we encounter the dancers on and off stage and as audience.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Gregory Lorenzutti/ACCA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The more intimate and darker corner gallery has a schedule of five duets, while the other two galleries show original footage of all 21 works and a demonstration of the process undertaken by the dancers working with footage to learn the choreography. </p>
<p>With a cast of some of Melbourne’s most beloved dancers including Lilian Steiner, Deanne Butterworth and Melanie Lane, NEWRETRO is a landmark event in its memorialisation of a local woman choreographer who has not only produced 21 works in 21 years but has also supported and mentored many others as both dancers and choreographers. </p>
<p>It felt like a very satisfying way to end my FRAME journey.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-motion-picture-dancers-drive-a-cinematic-story-onstage-39105">In Motion Picture, dancers drive a cinematic story onstage</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199779/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yvette Grant works as a lecturer in Dance at The Victorian College of the Arts and as a graduate researcher and receives some funding from The University of Melbourne and a Commonwealth government scholarship.</span></em></p>Some offerings were political and academic, some were celebratory. Some told us personal or cultural stories, some had 100 dancers, some had one.Yvette Grant, PhD (Dance) Candidate and dance history tutor, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1984122023-02-03T10:58:00Z2023-02-03T10:58:00ZThe incredible story of how East African culture shaped the music of a state in India<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507583/original/file-20230201-18-ejchji.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Siddi children performing Dance Dhamaal in Ahmedabad in Gujarat, India.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Sayan Dey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The term <a href="https://minorityrights.org/minorities/siddi/">Siddi</a> refers to Afro-Indians – Africans who mixed with Indians through marriage and relationships. Africans crossed the Indian Ocean and arrived in India during the 1200s, 1300s and 1400s. They were transported by Islamic invaders and Portuguese colonisers as enslaved people, palace guards, army chiefs, harem keepers, spiritual leaders, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Sufism">Sufi</a> singers, dancers and treasurers. </p>
<p>Today, the majority of <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003111962-9/killing-kindness-sayan-dey">Siddis</a> are found in the west and south-west of India, in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Telangana states. As they settled, they preserved and practised their African ancestral sociocultural traditions – and also adopted local Indian traditions. </p>
<p>This interweaving of African and Indian cultural values gave birth to various <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/creolisation">creolised</a> (mixed) food, music and spiritual practices.</p>
<p>As a diversity studies scholar, I have been <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003111962-9/killing-kindness-sayan-dey">researching</a> Siddi culture for some time. Working within this community in Gujarat and Karnataka, I found that their creolised cultural practices emerged as a resistance to colonisation, racialisation and victimisation in postcolonial India. </p>
<p>My most recent research – which can also be seen in a new <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaEnwQoGFzE">documentary</a> – has focused on the music and dance performances of the Siddi community in Gujarat, called Dhamaals. </p>
<p>The story of Dhamaal performance traditions reveals the rich and complex mixing of cultures in a world shaped by human movement and history.</p>
<h2>What are Dhamaals?</h2>
<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4098523">Dhamaal</a> is a mix of Sufi and African (mostly East African) musical and dance traditions. It refers particularly to the spiritual practices of the Siddis of Gujarat. </p>
<p>The Siddis begin almost every Dhamaal song by blowing into a conch shell. This is often followed by the slow playing of East African percussion instruments like the musindo and the slow thumping of feet that marks the onset of the singing and dancing Dhamaals. The ritual of foot thumping is a crucial part of spiritual East African dance and musical traditions.</p>
<p>The Siddis are followers of Islam and arrived in India from Muslim communities in East and Central Africa. Dhamaals are performed in <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/25472979">memory</a> of their spiritual leaders, among them Bava Gor, Mai Misra, Baba Habash and Sidi Nabi Sultan. According to Siddi <a href="https://cogentoa.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10999940802523836?journalCode=usou20">folklore</a> they arrived from Ethiopia through the Nubian Valley, Syria and the Indian Ocean to the coast of Kuda in the Bhavnagar district of Gujarat. </p>
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<p>Usually, Dhamaal songs and dances are performed to celebrate the anniversary of the birth and death of spiritual leaders. They are performed in two ways – Dance Dhamaal and Baithaaki Dhamaal. The <a href="https://youtu.be/1tw2hokk7DM">Baithaaki Dhamaal</a> is performed in the sitting position and the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enJnkfqjS9I&t=12s">Dance Dhamaal</a> is performed in both sitting and dance positions. </p>
<p>During the performance of Baithaaki Dhamaal the focus is more on the lyrics and less on the musical instruments. During Dance Dhamaal the focus is more on the sounds of the instruments. These are often played in a frenzied manner and accompanied by frenzied dance movements. The spiritual songs that are sung during the Dhamaals are known as zikrs.</p>
<h2>A mixing of cultures</h2>
<p>The creole cultural aspects of Dhamaals are broadly reflected through the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">Swahili</a> Creole language used to sing the zikrs, the Indian and African musical instruments used to perform them and the Afro-Indian body movements of Dance Dhamaals. </p>
<p>Historically, the Swahili Creole language in India emerged among the Siddis through the mixing of <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-story-of-how-swahili-became-africas-most-spoken-language-177259">Kiswahili</a> from East Africa with Gujarati, Hindi and Urdu languages from India. As an example, these are the lyrics of one <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHPAOw4_JRs">zikr</a>:</p>
<p>Ya bolo sabaya hua wey</p>
<p>Ya bolo sabaya hua wey</p>
<p>Hu sabaya</p>
<p>Salwale Nabi Sultan</p>
<p>This zikr is sung in the praise of Siddi spiritual leader Nabi Sultan, believed to have arrived in Gujarat from the Nubian Valley. The Swahili words that have been used are “hu” (a common expression of consent) and “sabaya” (meaning that everything is alright). The zikr means that with the blessings of Nabi Sultan no evil can befall the Siddis of Gujarat.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of people sit in a circle, some drumming on large drums. The doorway to the room is crowded with young observers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/507580/original/file-20230201-20-5u9lnx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Siddis performing Baithaaki (sitting) Dhamaal in a shrine in Gujarat.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Sayan Dey</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The musical instruments used to perform the zikrs are East African percussion instruments. The musindo, for example, is a cylinder-shaped, two-sided drum from Kenya. The misr kanga is a small, funnel-shaped instrument from Ethiopia, containing small stones. The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=404cN3HjrVg">mugarman</a> is a large, cylinder-shaped, one-sided drum from Tanzania. These are played along with traditional Indian musical instruments. These include the harmonium (a keyboard instrument) and the dholak (a two-headed hand drum). The intermingling of Indian and African musical instruments generates creole rhythmscapes which are traditionally African and Indian at the same time.</p>
<p>During the Dance Dhamaal, the hand and the body movements of the Dhamaal dancers in Gujarat are very similar to the <a href="https://www.academia.edu/20951308/Ngoma_Memories_A_History_of_Competitive_Music_and_Dance_Performance_on_the_Kenya_Coast">Ngoma</a> dancers of East Africa. The Ngoma dancers thump their feet and swing their arms sideways to the rhythm of drums. The Dhamaal dancers also swing their arms sideways, but the thumping of feet depends on the context of their dance. During religious occasions, for example, the foot thumping is slow. This is because the Siddis follow many spiritual aspects of the <a href="https://intellectdiscover.com/content/journals/10.1386/pi.1.1.73_1">Sufi tradition</a>. For Sufis, heavy and frenzied feet thumping is prohibited when worshipping spiritual leaders.</p>
<h2>Transoceanic roots</h2>
<p>These creolised musical and dance performances allow the Siddis in Gujarat to maintain their African ancestral practices. They do so in collaboration with Indian practices so that they do not forget their historical roots yet can respect local traditions at the same time. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/DaEnwQoGFzE?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The author’s documentary Afro-Indian Creole Rhythms: Siddi Dhamaals of Gujarat.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These creole practices have allowed the community to build a transoceanic identity (one which crosses the oceans). This is done in a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/366838188_The_Creolizing_Turn_and_Its_Archipelagic_Directions">collaborative, reciprocal and diverse</a> way. </p>
<p>The Dhamaal tradition of the Siddis has socially, culturally and economically empowered the community as well. Several community members, through the assistance of government and private organisations, travel across India and the world to perform at cultural festivals. This encourages the Siddis to share their creolised cultural values across the globe.</p>
<p>This in turn invites audiences to consider history through an interracial and intercultural lens.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198412/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sayan Dey receives funding from NRF SarChi Chair of Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of Witwatersrand. He is also a Faculty Fellow at Harriet Tubman Research Institute, York University, Canada. </span></em></p>Dhamaal music and dance reveals a rich and complex mixing of cultures that is shaped by history.Sayan Dey, Postdoctoral Fellow at Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, University of the WitwatersrandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1890922022-10-06T13:44:24Z2022-10-06T13:44:24ZUganda: an ancient circumcision ritual is key to imparting communal knowledge<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/482802/original/file-20220905-18-etse8a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Amirr (centre) parades though his village ahead of the imbalu circumcision ritual. Imbalu begins with dance and music, as initiates visit relatives and friends to receive gifts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Drey/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Music, dance, drama and poetry are important elements of ritual in African societies. Imbalu, the centuries-old circumcision ritual of Uganda’s <a href="https://www.insidemountelgonnationalpark.com/bagishu-bamasaba-people-culture.html">Bagisu people</a>, is no different. When Bagisu boys between the ages of 16 and 22 undergo this initiation into manhood, they learn the ancient meaning of the practice through music and dance.</p>
<p>Imbalu takes place every even year in August in the remote districts of eastern Uganda close to the border with Kenya. Imbalu ceremonies are not only staged in homes, but also in public spaces. Here, a broader audience witnesses the special dance and music performances.</p>
<p>In <a href="http://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/Bagisu.pdf">previous</a> <a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MZJMlaisYmwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA71&dq=Dominic+Makwa&ots=optoAgyHI6&sig=XPwA4-uosT3jegD6CRqAhA3xFTc&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Dominic%20Makwa&f=false">studies</a>, I have examined these performances. Music and dance are integral from the moment a boy declares he is ready to be initiated until he performs inemba, a final dance marking his return to society.</p>
<p>My most recent <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/yearbook-for-traditional-music/article/abs/musicking-and-dancing-imbalu-at-namasho-enacting-indigenous-education-among-the-bagisu-uganda/47BBFBE5A253EC18B97BA2EA0113B864">study</a> looks at how imbalu music and dance performances act as platforms where boys are tutored about their society’s gender ideology, history and ritual practise. The public performance of these rituals at a sacred place called the Namasho Cultural Site is like a communal classroom where community members attending also share what they know of their history, identity and values.</p>
<p>But imbalu, like other cultural performances among the Bagisu, has been affected by fewer and fewer boys undergoing initiation. Hospital circumcision has become more common, and Christianity, Islam and western education have negatively impacted uptake. Many Bagisu who have adopted western religious practices look at imbalu performances as something of a cult and consider these rituals to be “backward” and “primitive”. </p>
<p>As a result, there is a risk that the music and dance created, performed and transmitted through cultural sites like Namasho at ceremonies like those staged for imbalu will be lost to future generations. However, they are valuable to the community since they transmit social histories, help form identity and teach social values. They should be documented and archived without delay to preserve traditional knowledge for use by future generations.</p>
<h2>Imbalu at Namasho</h2>
<p>The initiate and his family and community members all take on different roles during imbalu performances at Namasho.</p>
<p>The site, in Bududa District, stretches from the local school to the confluence of the Manafwa and Uha rivers. It is known as a place where wars were fought, and where fetishes of medicine men and women were dumped during the precolonial period. (Fetishes, in the form of calabashes or gourds, are objects kept by diviners or traditional healers to give them supernatural power. When they didn’t have successors, such objects were disposed of.) These histories are part of what is taught in the rituals performed at this sacred site.</p>
<p>Different forms of music are played during imbalu. Khukhubulula is one form. The boy, surrounded by friends and relatives, sings songs praising himself, his family and his clan. These are usually composed by him some months earlier. Some songs will praise his girlfriends, as marriage is the phase that follows imbalu among traditional Bagisu.</p>
<p>Then there are bibiwoyo, coaxing songs usually led by men. They use titles like umwami (chief), umukoosi (the one with respect) or umusani (man) to encourage the boy to go through with the circumcision. The community demonstrates to the boy that he will become a “powerful” person in society if he gets circumcised.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Four people against a backdrop of dark pink sheet. They are colourfully dressed in traditional attire, a man holding a guitar." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/483203/original/file-20220907-12-ap277n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of Yoyo Toto Wambale music group pose for a photo before performing at an imbalu ceremony.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Badru Katumba/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Then there is kadodi music and dance. Accompanied by five drums, kadodi is performed to accompany initiates as they visit cultural sites and relatives. At Namasho, it entertains initiates and visitors besides also enabling some initiates to meet and interact with girls who may be future marriage partners. Kadodi is so popular at Namasho that bands come to play just to advertise themselves. Moreover, although the isonja dance is displayed earlier in the year, it is sometimes brought to this sacred site to give expert singers an opportunity to advertise themselves to future candidates who hire them to learn how to compose and sing songs. </p>
<p>Lastly, groups congregating at Namasho play prerecorded imbalu songs, produced in a studio or recorded live at the event in previous years. This is meant to entertain candidates but also remind circumcised men about the vows about manhood they made during their own ceremonies, including the need to defend and provide for themselves, their families and the broader community.</p>
<h2>Communal classroom</h2>
<p>Music and dance turn Namasho into a communal classroom for imparting indigenous knowledge and history. Some performances, for example, tell the story of <a href="https://thisisafrica.me/lifestyle/nabarwa-marking-200-years-circumcision-uganda/">Nabarwa and Masaaba</a>, the woman and man who are believed to have introduced imbalu among the Bagisu. Mythical narrative has it that Masaaba, who met Nabarwa and asked for her hand in marriage, was asked by her to be circumcised before they could marry since she came from a circumcising community. When the Bagisu refer to themselves as Bamasaaba, they explicitly mean that they are children of Masaaba. The relationship between Nabarwa and Masaaba is used as testimony that women and men in this community should play complementary roles.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-sacred-sites-act-as-living-archives-in-a-ugandan-community-140571">How sacred sites act as living archives in a Ugandan community</a>
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</em>
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<p>Another song is about Lutseshe, a famous forefather. In singing this song, the community reminds the initiates about the need to produce children to fill Lutseshe’s land. As boys sing, some spectators will advise them to be assertive and objective if they are to manage their households well. </p>
<p>Through the interaction between women and men as they perform these rituals, their mutual roles in society are underscored. For example, as an initiate sings, his sisters and other female relatives are at the centre of responding to the songs, symbolising the need for women and men to work together on daily activities.</p>
<p>Acts like being smeared with clay from the sacred swamp are a reminder of the history of those who came before. </p>
<h2>Preserving cultural identity</h2>
<p>In the face of the threats to traditions like imbalu from social change, it is crucial that this knowledge be preserved for use by future generations. </p>
<p>Stakeholders like the Uganda Tourism Board, Bududa District local government and academic archives, like Makerere University’s <a href="http://musicarchive.mak.ac.ug">Klaus Wachsmann Audio-visual Archive</a>, need to work together to record and preserve these musical and dance materials. </p>
<p>Imbalu will then continue to offer its lessons to the Bagisu and help maintain their rich cultural identity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/189092/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic D.B. Makwa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The ritual site becomes a communal classroom where songs and dances teach history, impart values and preserve cultural identity.Dominic D.B. Makwa, Lecturer, Makerere UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1665232021-08-23T15:06:06Z2021-08-23T15:06:06ZAfrica’s oldest dance festival evolves to overcome the pandemic<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417227/original/file-20210820-25-41yoel.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Bernardo Guiamba (aka Pak Ndjamena) from Mozambique has created an inspirational new dance film.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Mariano Lopes Silva</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Now in its 23rd year, <a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za">JOMBA!</a> is a contemporary dance festival housed at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s <a href="https://cca.ukzn.ac.za/about/">Centre for Creative Arts</a>, one of five festivals run by the Durban-based centre. It connects South African dance makers to the rest of the continent for performances and workshops, expressing the need to open artistic borders within Africa. And because of the COVID-19 pandemic, JOMBA! is also pioneering the online festival space. The award-winning Dr Lliane Loots is a dance lecturer at the university and the festival’s founder, artistic director and curator. We asked her what to expect from the latest edition, and how the pandemic is shaping it.</em></p>
<h2>What excites you about the 2021 festival?</h2>
<p>When the festival began in 1998, I wanted to create a space that put the artist and dance maker at the centre. I believed that if we do that then the audience, funding and everything else would follow. Today the festival has evolved to offer one of Africa’s most serious platforms for contemporary dance, and it’s now the longest-running dance festival on the continent. At 23 it has become a beacon for navigating long-term partnerships, training and collaborations that sit at the core of growing African dance makers. </p>
<p>In 2021 JOMBA! remains totally online and totally free. Last year was our first digital iteration after various levels of COVID-19 lockdown, social distancing, and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/nearly-half-of-south-africas-live-music-workers-may-quit-the-industry-for-good-151484">closure</a> of theatres. Given that South Africa is still in <a href="https://www.gov.za/covid-19/alert-level-3-coronavirus-covid-19-lockdown">level 3</a> lockdown, and that theatres are not fully opened, the festival remains 100% online. The impulse is to continue to keep this vital art form alive in these new and innovative ways that are emerging. So while the festival will feature dance work originally made for stage, there is a big push to look at the interface between film, cinema and dance – there has been a move from a stage art to screen dance. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="a woman's face with ethnic make-up smears in tan and white, a brightly coloured scarf in her hair matches her jewellery." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=469&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417398/original/file-20210823-14-naogfq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Gaby Saranouffi (Madagascar) tackles gender in her dance film.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Gaby Saranouffi</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Tell us about the new dance films</h2>
<p>Choreographers are thinking about camera angles and edits instead of exits and entrances. It is not a transition that all dance makers can or want to make but it has certainly offered a new and evolving dance form that is very interesting. Artists on the line-up will be filming in their own countries and contexts. Often place and space become important political and aesthetic markers for these dance films. On the programme is Pak Guiamba’s new work from Mozambique called <em><a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/african-crossings/pak-ndjamena/">IN-BOX!!</a></em>, for example, where he skilfully films his own dancing body in the streets of Maputo. He navigates loss, memory and hope for a war-ravaged country. </p>
<p>The films are often shorter than a live work. A screen dance film of 20 minutes is considered a big work, while perhaps on stage this would be a smaller offering. It’s exciting to watch new territories unfold and we’re <a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/2021-programme/">hosting</a> dance work from 11 countries. There are also creative webinars and an industry support programme to help choreographers with publicity ideas and things like how to apply for music rights. And there’s our digital blog <em><a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/khuluma/">JOMBA! Khuluma</a></em> that has 45 participants from all over the world to focus on dance writing reviews.</p>
<h2>What are some of the pros and cons of digital festivals?</h2>
<p>While there is still a lot of dis-ease around the <a href="https://www.africaportal.org/features/covid-19-implications-of-the-pandemic-for-the-digital-divide-in-africa/">digital divide</a> in Africa, we are excited to have found ways to also offer low-fi delivery that allows some of our platforms to be viewed on cell phones. Support from funders means that we do not charge for viewing or tickets. It is important to us that the dance work is still commissioned, that dance makers are still working and that their work still gets to be seen. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GViNeOMn0Us?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">African productions at this year’s festival.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The digital delivery of JOMBA! has also meant that we have bigger global reach. In past years our main performance venue was the <a href="https://www.sneddontheatre.co.za">Sneddon Theatre</a> in Durban which seats 400 people. So for a live festival we could host a maximum of about 7,000 audience members. In 2020, we got 1.3 million views – this is an interesting opening! The downside, of course, is that we are not sitting in a theatre, we are not breathing with the dancers, we are not a witness to the labour and exertion of the art making.</p>
<h2>What are some works that shouldn’t be missed?</h2>
<p>JOMBA! 2021 has used the provocation “Border Crossings” as its theme. Within this we have set up various curated viewing platforms and events that feature what we are calling “crossings”. We have, for example, a platform called Indian Crossing that features a collaborating with a Calcutta-based organisation called <a href="http://picklefactory.in">The Pickle Factory Dance Foundation</a> who have curated eight short contemporary Indian screen dance films that will be <a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/jomba-collaborates-with-india-based-the-pickle-factory-dance-foundation/">shown</a>. For me personally, I am very excited about our African Crossings platform that will feature four new screen dance works from artists across our continent. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man at a construction site, his hair a cascade of dreadlocks, he is wrapped in a cloak made of multiple sheets of white paper." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/417225/original/file-20210820-13-1omxcvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Robert Ssempijja (Uganda) has created a critical dance journey through Kampala.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Robert Ssempijja</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One of JOMBA!’s key mandates continues to be to offer partnerships and collaborations with some of Africa’s most prominent, cutting edge and inspiring dance makers. For this edition we have commissioned four screen dance films – from Marcel Gbeffa (Benin), Gaby Saranouffi (Madagascar), Robert Ssempijja (Uganda) and Bernardo Guiamba aka Pak Ndjamena (Mozambique). </p>
<p>Gbeffa’s <em><a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/african-crossings/marcel-gbeffa/">In My Mind</a></em> enters a dream landscape that borders the awake and sleep state. <a href="https://www.instagram.com/sylar_robert_ssempijja/?hl=en">Ssempijja</a>’s <em>Alienation</em> asks the hard questions about colonial architecture and how we situate our contemporary selves. Saranouffi’s <em><a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/african-crossings/gaby-saranouffi/">Face(s) of Basadi</a></em> looks at the gendered borders of young African women and the hold of tradition. And in Ndjamena’s <a href="https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/african-crossings/pak-ndjamena/">film</a> the dancing body reflects memories of the past and present and human resilience with a message of hope.</p>
<p><em>JOMBA! runs from 24 August to 5 September 2021. Each work will be available for view for 72 hours after its premiere on the festival’s YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/Jomba_Dance">channel</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/166523/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lliane Loots works for the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) and is the artistic director/curator of the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance festival </span></em></p>Durban’s Jomba! festival is now 100% online and free, and there has been a move from stage art to screen dance.Lliane Loots, Lecturer, University of KwaZulu-NatalLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1641672021-07-14T14:27:46Z2021-07-14T14:27:46ZWe used performing arts to map out gender violence in Sierra Leone. What we found<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411203/original/file-20210714-13-13xczmd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">About 62% of Sierra Leonean women aged 15-49 have experienced physical or sexual violence.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>It’s been more than two years since Sierra Leone <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-47169729">declared a state of emergency</a> over sexual and gender-based violence. The declaration followed a public outcry over a spate of high profile sexual attacks in which minors made up one in three victims. </p>
<p>Though unconstitutional, the state of emergency led to <a href="http://rogee.sl/docs/ROGEE-Sierra-Leone-Act-Sexual-Offences-2019.pdf">significant legal amendments</a>. The minimum sentence for rape was increased from five to 15 years for adults. New provisions also <a href="https://theconversation.com/taking-stock-one-year-after-sierra-leones-gender-violence-emergency-130487">criminalised</a> informal out-of-court settlements for sexual assault and rape. </p>
<p>These amendments have generally been welcomed as a positive step. But some have criticised the emphasis on sexual violence, particularly of young girls, at the expense of other types of gender-based violence.</p>
<p>According to the 2019 demographic and health survey, about 62% of Sierra Leonean women aged 15-49 have <a href="https://sierraleone.unfpa.org/en/topics/gender-based-violence-11">experienced physical or sexual violence</a>. Everyday violence within marriage is rife but receives less attention in legislation and political discourse. Women are also quite reluctant to discuss violence in their own marriages for a variety of social and cultural reasons. </p>
<p>Our research <a href="https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=AH%2FV005480%2F1">project</a> sought to examine how different performing arts mediums can open up discussions about this sensitive issue. While various performing arts techniques have long been used to mobilise social transformation, we simply sought to start conversations about violence. </p>
<p>We found that people (particularly women) were much more active in discussions around violence when these were linked to a performance. We were able to access information much more quickly, primarily based on audiences seeing themselves in the performances. This approach also helped us to learn about the everyday experiences of women and the different ways they feel and address physical and emotional pain in these communities. </p>
<h2>Performances in rural Sierra Leone</h2>
<p>Traditionally, theatre for development or applied theatre is interventionist. Performance techniques are used to achieve <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-theatre-project-explores-collective-solutions-to-saving-the-ocean-135229">behavioural change</a> and to promote messages around public health or education. </p>
<p>Our project diverged from this approach by using performing arts as a tool for understanding, or creating spaces for discussion, rather than to change behaviour. We explored the extent to which different modes of performance – comedy, theatre and dance – could open up conversations around everyday experiences of sexual and gender-based violence. </p>
<p>We worked across three communities in Bombali District, in northern Sierra Leone. Two different performance workshops – each focused on a different type of performance – were delivered to each community. The goal was to establish whether different performative modes led to different kinds of conversations around sexual and gender-based violence.</p>
<p>Working with local comedians, the comedy workshops created scenes which addressed local gender stereotypes in an overtly humorous manner. For the interactive drama we drew upon participatory performance techniques such as direct address and “hot-seating” – meaning the character could field and respond to questions from the audience. </p>
<p>For the dance workshops, we collaborated with the community Sampa, a female folk dancer. She led dances while women from the community took turns to introduce a childhood favourite song or lyrics they created themselves in the moment.</p>
<p>Following each performance, we conducted focused discussions with small groups of men and women in the audience. Observations and remarks that emerged from the audience in the first workshop then informed the content of the scenes we delivered when returning to that community.</p>
<h2>Findings</h2>
<p>Conversations sparked by the performances confirmed that issues such as domestic violence, infidelity, abandonment and polygamy were all recognisable and prevalent in communities. Both men and women spoke of lack of communication in marriage, tensions over financial strains or sexual dissatisfaction. These ultimately resulted in infidelity and violence. </p>
<p>Many men believed that the payment of a bride price gave them a right to sex freely offered or, if not, taken by force. For women, withholding sex was one of the few acts of power and resistance they felt they had in the marriage. Yet it carried the risk of an unsatisfied husband seeking sex elsewhere. Many women spoke of the rejection and desperation they experienced when their husband took a new wife or girlfriend.</p>
<p>Much of the content and themes discussed were similar across all three of the performing art forms we explored. But we did notice a different quality to the conversations depending on the performance style. The <a href="https://www.nottinghamfreeschool.co.uk/data/uploads/homework/files/Drama_KOs/Theatre_In_Education_Augusto_Boal.pdf">interactive drama techniques</a> we employed are designed to promote critical reflection in the audience. These help to identify social problems and invite participants to work through solutions. </p>
<p>By contrast, the songs that women danced to focused on the emotional and bodily pain of their husband’s betrayal. Women had various reasons for singing in everyday life: to gain the attention of the husband or family members to discuss the issue; general relief for many who felt powerless; or, at times, connection with other women.</p>
<p>The comedy and interactive drama offered an entertaining and engaging way for people to reflect upon situations they recognised. But it was evident the songs provided more immediate access to deeply felt emotions arising from personal experience. While there was a sense the group singing soothed such pains, for many women singing was a way to unsettle or even disturb. </p>
<p>A number of men expressed their unease with these types of songs in the household, referring to them as offensive or provocative. This hints at the capacity for this form of self-expression to underline women’s personal anguish, and the subtle and creative ways women express these feelings. </p>
<p>The most common and pervasive forms of pain in the everyday lives of Sierra Leone women require attention from local officials and policymakers. The insidious nature and general “acceptability” of these acts is precisely what makes them so scary, and in need of being addressed. </p>
<p><em>Juliet Fornah and <a href="https://www.artscouncil.org.uk/users/stella-kanu">Stella Kanu</a> contributed to the research on which this article is based.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Aisha Fofana Ibrahim receives funding from the. Arts and humanities Research Council, UK</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Helen Shutt receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Laura S. Martin receives funding from Arts and Humanities Research council (AHRC). </span></em></p>Theatre is able to create a space for discussion about how and why women experience physical and emotional violence.Aisha Fofana Ibrahim, Assistant Deputy Vice Chancellor 2, Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra LeoneHelen Shutt, PhD candidate, University of GlasgowLaura S. Martin, Global Challenges Research Fellow, University of SheffieldLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1567752021-05-06T13:27:59Z2021-05-06T13:27:59ZThe #JerusalemaDanceChallenge showed how Pan African styles can be forged<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/398995/original/file-20210505-19-13vr53b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fenómenos do Semba from Angola.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A year has passed since an Angolan dance troupe called <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Fenómenos do Semba</a> released a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">video</a> of themselves dancing in a courtyard in Luanda to the South African hit song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048"><em>Jerusalema</em></a> by Master KG. </p>
<p>With over 16 million YouTube <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac">clicks</a>, the <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">#JerusalemaDanceChallenge</a> swept the planet as social media users posted their own versions of the dance. </p>
<p>Its success has inspired me to offer some further reflections on the importance of the cultural meaning of this dance and its contribution to the creation of a Pan African aesthetic.</p>
<h2>How Angolans celebrate</h2>
<p>The dance video’s success is related to deep-rooted elements that might go unnoticed at first sight. But, taken together, they convey the joyous and proud expression of a collective identity.</p>
<p>Despite not being danced to Angolan music and using steps that stem from different kinetic codes, the video is still representative of the main elements of the Angolan way of celebrating: food, music, dance … and <em>brincadeiras</em> (joking around).</p>
<p>The dance takes place in a communal courtyard situated between Luandan buildings. This open but protective space in itself represents a specific way of living in a community. In the recent past of civil war, these places of mutual exchange allowed people to preserve family units, overcome collective trauma and protect local languages and cultures from the threat of colonialism. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/613A9d6Doac?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan troupe Fenómenos do Semba’s Jerusalema dance challenge.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Writing on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">Facebook</a> about their video challenge, Adilson Maiza, the leader of Fenómenos do Semba, said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>There is always a reason to be happy, always a reason to celebrate. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This same spirit of gratitude found more concrete expression in the now famous troupe’s promotion of social initiatives. They have done things like distributing food in disadvantaged areas and promoting the foundation of the Angolan Dance Association for the promotion of dance in the country.</p>
<p>In this sense the presence of food is very relevant and it has surely contributed to the video’s success. It reveals the genuine character of the reunion and the spirit of contentment through the symbolic act of eating. Indeed, in Angola, getting together with family and friends has a social, political and spiritual value. This was pointed out by Angolan writer <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Oscar-Ribas">Óscar Ribas</a> in his 1965 book <em><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books/about/Izomba.html?id=UXoKAQAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">Izomba</a></em>, about the importance of recreational centres in Luanda. </p>
<p>The value of gatherings gained even greater importance during the long night curfews that were at times common during the <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a> (1975 to 2002). During this time dance and music seemed the only remedy to soothe a permanent fear. To the people who experienced the Angolan and South African reality of those years, the <em>Jerusalema</em> video is surely a reminder of the joy of being able to celebrate togetherness under any conditions.</p>
<h2>The dance</h2>
<p>The dance displayed in the video is commonly known as <em>Dança da Familia</em> (the Family Dance). It is not a traditional Angolan dance with a semiotic code. Nevertheless, it’s frequently danced at weddings and parties. It mainly consists of a short sequence of steps, repeated within the same structure. Anyone can introduce variations and personal touches (<em>toques</em>) to the sequence. In other words, it is not a choreography but rather the repetition of a scheme. </p>
<p>The idea of a choreography does not belong to the Angolan conception of dance. Rather, dance is improvised and repeated with simple variations answering to specific rhythmic calls. It’s never linked to a specific song.</p>
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<p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/hip-hop-and-pan-africanism-from-blitz-the-ambassador-to-beyonce-151680">Hip hop and Pan Africanism: from Blitz the Ambassador to Beyoncé</a>
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<p>Angolan dance is a performative act rather than a product. It is always the result of the encounter of new movements with a traditional but permeable frame, and it represents a specific conception of society and life. </p>
<p>Angolan dance stems from the expression of a circumstance. Songs register popular dialogues and events of daily life. Gestures come from activities such as drying wheat, tilling the land or, in more urban scenarios, imitating a crippled man (<em>o coxo</em>) or defending the value of gender diversity. </p>
<p>The peculiarity of the <em>Jerusalema</em> dance lies in its sequence, proposed by one of the participants and repeated in the same way in four directions. It does so with the same steps and the same rotation at the end of any sequence, while able to be embellished with any specific groove proposed by the main dancers. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A television studio, a large camera foregrounded. In front of the cameras, a group of young men dances." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399000/original/file-20210505-13-1q72bzj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The troupe became well known in Angola, appearing on TV and working on social and dance initiatives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Fenómenos do Semba/Facebook</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The dance’s character demonstrates the focal point of the dance transmission technique in many African contexts. This takes place in a playful context, without any formal teaching. It derives from a logic of movement developed over centuries and passed on through imitation and innovation.</p>
<p>Commonly danced in Angola and South Africa, but also in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Congo Republic, Cameroon and Zambia, <em>Dança da Família</em> could be defined as a “neotraditional” cultural product, borrowing the definition of British-Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist and novelist <a href="http://appiah.net/">Kwame Anthony Appiah</a>. </p>
<h2>The music</h2>
<p>The “dance structure” of <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be performed on different rhythms. During family celebrations this pattern is danced on more traditional rhythms like <a href="https://daily.redbullmusicacademy.com/2018/12/the-roots-of-soukous">soukous</a> (or sakiss) and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/08/pantsula-dance-south-africa-via-kanana">pantsula</a>, but also on <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2016/11/30/africa/coup-decale-ivory-coast/index.html">coupé decalé</a>, <a href="https://www.redbull.com/int-en/music/a-history-of-afropop-dance-crazes">azonto</a> or <a href="https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2020/05/21/best-afrobeats-dances-lockdown/">Afrobeat</a> songs, by those who do not know each rhythm’s dance code. </p>
<p>All these music styles are appreciated by different generations in various countries. This dance structure embeds their specific vocabularies, reshaping them into a new cultural product. <em>Dança da Familia</em> can be adapted to all these rhythms, which is why it is often used at West African weddings in the south of the region, where continuous exchanges between ethnic groups have created mixed family units and multicultural traditions. </p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-angolan-dancers-who-helped-south-african-anthem-jerusalema-go-global-148782">The Angolan dancers who helped South African anthem Jerusalema go global</a>
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<p>Similarly, contemporary styles like Afrobeat or <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/lisbon/articles/a-brief-introduction-to-kuduro/">kuduro</a> travel across the globe via TV and social networks, carrying symbols and proposing modes of self-representation that drive cultural legitimacy and recognition. In this context the creation of codes is often based on the recreation of traditions – reinforcing what Cameroonian philosopher and author <a href="https://wiser.wits.ac.za/users/achille-mbembe">Achille Mbembe</a> affirmed by <a href="http://calternatives.org/resource/pdf/African%20Modes%20of%20Self-Writing.pdf">defining</a> African identity as mobile and reversible. </p>
<p>This has now achieved the dignity of specific aesthetic criteria, nourished by improvisation and by freedom of expression.</p>
<p>Through these elements, <em>Jerusalema</em>’s dance spontaneously promoted a more conscious concept of Africanity and sowed feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.</p>
<p>This reminds me of the words of <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-kwame-nkrumah-used-metaphor-as-a-political-weapon-against-colonialism-129379">Kwame Nkrumah</a>, former Ghanaian president:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>All the fair, brave words spoken about freedom that had been broadcast to the four corners of the earth took seed and grew where they had not been intended.</p>
</blockquote><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/156775/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr. Francesca Negro is an independent researcher in Comparative Literature and Performance studies. She is affiliated researcher with The Centre for Comparative Studies at the University of Lisbon while collaborating as consultant and teacher with various international institution.</span></em></p>A year later, it’s clear that the dance promotes a conscious concept of Africanity – sowing feelings of tolerance and contentment that have conquered international audiences.Francesca Negro, Associate research scientist, Universidade de Lisboa Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1405712021-03-17T15:07:14Z2021-03-17T15:07:14ZHow sacred sites act as living archives in a Ugandan community<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389617/original/file-20210315-21-5q6hks.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An initiate parades through his village in Mbale, Uganda.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Dray/Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-14050.html">Bagisu</a> people of eastern Uganda boast of special places where they gather to perform cultural rites, among them <a href="https://www.afro.who.int/news/who-guides-bagisu-community-carrying-out-cultural-norm-while-observing-covid-19-guidelines">imbalu</a>, a male circumcision ritual.</p>
<p>These sacred spaces can exist in the form of groves, rivers, thickets or even playgrounds. Namasho in Bududa District, for example, is at the confluence of the Manafwa and Uha rivers and has a sacred swamp where imbalu candidates are smeared with clay. Bumutoto in Mbale District, another important site, is a simple expanse of land designated for ritual purposes. </p>
<p>Although some of these places were made sacred through the consensus of elders, their existence is also attributed to supernatural beings. These sites participate in showcasing and transmitting these ceremonies and their music and dances to those who come to witness events. The sites thus act as archives for the community. </p>
<p>As an ethnomusicologist, I have <a href="http://2015.iasa-web.org/fr/node/99.html">carried out</a> <a href="https://catalogue.leidenuniv.nl/primo-explore/search?vid=UBL_V1&search_scope=lib_asc&query=any,contains,9939581229402711">research</a> in Bududa and Mbale over seven years <a href="https://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019.1/100427">focusing</a> on how these sites are safeguarded by the community to become places where ritual performances are archived.</p>
<h2>Rethinking the archive</h2>
<p>For over three decades now, ethnomusicologists have called for rethinking the meaning of the archive and of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263373004_Postcolonial_archival_fever_and_the_musical_archiving_of_African_identity_in_selected_paintings_by_Elias_Jengo">archiving</a>. They <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/852717?origin=JSTOR-pdf&seq=1">argue</a> that an archive should not only be seen as a physical building or digital vault. Instead the meaning of the archive should be extended to include cultural mechanisms through which material can be safeguarded for access and use in future.</p>
<p>This demands that we even consider songs or paintings as mechanisms through which artists put their ideas for retrieval and use in future; an archive. </p>
<p>The idea that archiving can only be done by societies with technologies of repetition such as audio recorders or cameras is shallow. People who rely on oral tradition have ways of ensuring that what they have is safeguarded and kept for others in future. </p>
<p>My <a href="http://www.101lasttribes.com/tribes/Bagisu.pdf">studies</a> focused on a recreational space – a playground called Bumutoto – as a living archive among the Bagisu. In this context, to safeguard such a place is to archive the rituals, musics and dances staged there. </p>
<h2>The imbalu tree</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://196.43.133.120/handle/20.500.12281/7702">Bumutoto Cultural Grounds</a> are situated in Bumutoto village near the town of Mbale. Despite serving as a playground where people relax as they drink in the nearby trading centre, this site is known for activities geared towards the inauguration of imbalu circumcision rituals. </p>
<p><a href="https://books.google.co.za/books?hl=en&lr=&id=MZJMlaisYmwC&oi=fnd&pg=PA63&dq=imbalu+circumcision+ritual&ots=oporGjzIGb&sig=7ypGDg4HW85c6fA8EKFtpr82UUo&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=imbalu%20circumcision%20ritual&f=false">Imbalu</a> initiates adolescent boys into manhood. Although many accounts exist, the history and act of imbalu remain largely a mystery. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An elderly man is bent over, using white chalk to form a spiral shape on the dirt ground." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389625/original/file-20210315-17-1kyaofq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An elder prepares the ground for a ritual.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Dray/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The most common <a href="https://search.proquest.com/openview/882b9050ab062da1f592bb5b05aef6e3/1?pq-%20origsite=gscholar&cbl=24212">account</a> is that imbalu was brought to the region by Nabarwa, a <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Kalenjin">Kalenjin</a> woman from Kenya who married Masaaba from Bugisu. Despite the Bagisu abandoning this ritual eventually, one Fuuya, believed to have lived in the present day Bumutoto, revived imbalu as a healing remedy for his sick sons. </p>
<p>Other Bagisu followed suit because they saw that imbalu was associated with supernatural powers. Interview subjects told me that Fuuya planted a sycamore (kumutoto) tree in his compound to mark where other people should be circumcised in future. As Fuuya’s clan multiplied, they became known as Bamutoto and the place, Bumutoto. </p>
<h2>Performances at Bumutoto</h2>
<p>In homage, no other Mugisu may be circumcised until the initiates from Bamutoto are. Every early August during even-numbered years, the Bagisu from all the districts congregate at Bumutoto to witness the imbalu ceremonies. </p>
<p>Initiates put on distinctive regalia – thigh bells, head gear, skins covered in cowrie shells – to perform imbalu music and dances. There are speeches by cultural enthusiasts and guests. People play music by local pop musicians on CDs or memory sticks, or there are live musicians. The three dances that guests, and particularly initiates, perform during the festivities are called isonja, tsinyimba and kadodi.</p>
<p>Isonja, also staged between January and March in initiates’ villages, provides a platform for boys to be tutored in dancing and composing imbalu songs. They bend their backs and stamp the ground, form a circle and dance in a clockwise direction imitating the movement of the sun.</p>
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<p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-music-helps-us-understand-displaced-communities-in-uganda-129390">How music helps us understand displaced communities in Uganda</a>
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<p>During the tsinyimba dance the dancer ties a metal bracelet at the wrist and knocks it with a bell (liyimba) to provide a rhythm. This dance is common among the Bagisu living in Namisindwa District, close to the Bakusu of western Kenya where it is believed to have originated. A set of five drums provides the throbbing beats for the kadodi dance, which accompanies imbalu dancing parties as they visit cultural sites and relatives. </p>
<h2>Bumutoto as a living archive</h2>
<p>As these performances are staged, they turn Bumutoto into a living archive that opens its doors to people who want to access and learn from what is kept there. These are materials related to the origin of imbalu circumcision rituals as well as the music, dance and costume associated with this ritual. Through speeches and songs, the history of imbalu is further brought to the fore. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A crowd of men, in the centre a young man holding two cow's tail whisks in the air, white clay covering his face and a shiny blue piece of headgear." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/389783/original/file-20210316-17-l95qxa.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Andrew, a 17-year-old initiate from Mbale, performing the kadodi dance.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Luke Dray/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As candidates perform, they showcase the music and dances they learned during the earlier stages of imbalu, as well as the costumes they created or received from elders. Guests can easily tell what district a group of candidates comes from by looking at what costume they wear. Additionally, Bumutoto becomes an archive which showcases the power structures among the different clans of the Bagisu. </p>
<p>Like modern Western archives, there are special people in charge of the different performances at this site. Assisted by security personnel to control the mammoth crowds, they are the ritual experts who direct the public on where to pass and which rituals to witness. These ritual experts open and close the door of this archive to users. </p>
<p>In spite of debates calling for unlimited access to material in archives, it is a common custom for archivists to regulate the access to and use of material in the custody of archival institutions. </p>
<h2>Why this matters</h2>
<p>From these discussions, it becomes plausible to argue that a cultural site can act as an archive for a community. </p>
<p>Although one may see ‘nothing’ stored in such archives on ordinary days, these places are full of materials that articulate the socio-cultural, political and historical context of the community. </p>
<p>Preserving such areas is tantamount to archiving the rituals, musics and dances performed there. Governments and conservation experts should establish ways of working with local communities to safeguard these sites for future generations.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/140571/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic D.B. Makwa does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sacred sites where rituals are performed by the community should be protected as living archives that house local heritage.Dominic D.B. Makwa, Lecturer, Makerere UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1535012021-02-02T14:53:36Z2021-02-02T14:53:36ZThe incredible journey of the toyi-toyi, southern Africa’s protest dance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380292/original/file-20210123-13-a5vl9o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">South Africa's Economic Freedom Fighters toyi-toyi at an anti-Israel protest.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">PHILL MAGAKOE/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181112-is-this-south-africas-12th-official-language">toyi-toyi</a> is a high-kneed, foot-stomping dance, rhythmically punctuated by exhaled chants and call and response. </p>
<p>It can be observed at almost any kind of protest in South Africa and Zimbabwe today. In South Africa, university students toyi-toyi when they protest against fees, while township residents might toyi-toyi when they object to the presence of ‘foreigners’. In Zimbabwe, the opposition party toyi-toyis to protest the ruling party’s abuses, while ruling party supporters might toyi-toyi when they want to evict white farmers.</p>
<p>Where did this ‘dance’ come from? Many people associate it with the South African <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/township-uprising-1984-1985">township protests</a> of the 1980s, when young men toyi-toyied as they confronted police or attended political funerals and protests. These images filled the world’s TV screens, becoming one of the most recognisable performances of the anti-<a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> struggle. </p>
<p>But its origins are in fact much further away, and they tell us about a much longer, global history of political and military struggle. This story played out across Africa, moving from north to south, all the way from Algeria to South Africa, with stops in Tanzania, Zambia, Angola, and Zimbabwe along the way. </p>
<h2>Military camps</h2>
<p>We explored this history in our <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1804123">research</a>. Our interest in the toyi-toyi did not come from its recent uses, but from our efforts to understand the liberation armies that <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Southern-Africa/Independence-and-decolonization-in-Southern-Africa">fought</a> against colonial and white minority rule in every southern African country from the 1960s. </p>
<p>These armies have an extraordinary history shaped by the alliances of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Cold-War">Cold War</a> era. They were made up of mostly young men, who left their rural homesteads and townships for training camps that might be in the Soviet Union or Cuba, Algeria or Tanzania, Angola or Zambia. </p>
<p>We wanted to understand what this experience was like and what kinds of armies it made. We focused on ‘military culture’ – that is, the ideas, practices and traditions that give an army character and meaning for soldiers – and how it was instilled through training in all these different places. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/XPuQBqNhH1M?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">TRIGGER WARNING: VIOLENCE. The toyi-toyi’s relationship with protest music.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The toyi-toyi proved a great way of understanding how these men learned what it meant to be a soldier, and how those ideas were transmitted over thousands of kilometres and through dozens of military camps. When the toyi-toyi eventually arrived in South Africa’s townships it was something very different from what it had been at the start of its long journey. </p>
<h2>Algerian roots</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03057070.2020.1804123">interviewed</a> <a href="https://readingzimbabwe.com/books/lest-we-forget-histories-of-the-zimbabwe-people-s-revolutionary-army-zpra">members</a> of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary <a href="https://www.xlibris.com/en/bookstore/bookdetails/579630-z-p-r-a">Army</a> (ZPRA, also referred to as Zipra, the armed wing of the Zimbabwe African People’s Union or Zapu). We learned that the toyi-toyi’s origins were located in the training camps set up to support African liberation movements in Algeria in the mid-1960s. </p>
<p><em>Toyi-toyi</em> was thought to be an Arabic phrase and it formed part of the songs and chants that recruits learned. For them, the toyi-toyi was a military drill – certainly not a ‘dance’ – that they associated with achieving the high level of toughness and fitness required to survive guerrilla war. Its foreign language chants and novel movements expressed the international character of the armed liberation struggle itself. </p>
<p>From Algeria, the toyi-toyi moved southward, through training camps in Tanzania and then into Zambia, and in the process it changed. </p>
<h2>Zimbabwean nationalism</h2>
<p>It began to take on a nationalist character – the Arabic slogans were replaced with slogans in Zimbabwe’s main languages and they were refocused around expressions of loyalty to the party and its leader. This was at a time when there were many divisions that threatened the movement. The toyi-toyi became a way of instilling loyalty and discipline as well as physical strength as many more soldiers started to fight inside Zimbabwe. </p>
<p>The military toyi-toyi required hours of high-kneed running in difficult terrain while carrying heavy packs and weapons. ZPRA veterans told us how they had suffered from the toyi-toyi’s demands but they also stressed that it had given them tremendous pride in their toughness and helped them to face the terrible demands of the battlefield. They remembered the toyi-toyi as an essential part of their military culture. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A group of protesters with banners; in the foreground a group appears to be marching in the same style, knees raised very high." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=428&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/380421/original/file-20210125-15-1e8xn3w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=538&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Zimbabwean protesters in Harare, demonstrating against the disappearance of a journalist.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">JEKESAI NJIKIZANA/AFP via Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The toyi-toyi had, however, a different standing in other liberation armies. We can see how the toyi-toyi tells us about how military cultures were remade over time in one army – it can also tell us about how such cultures were transmitted from one liberation army to another. </p>
<h2>The toyi-toyi arrives in South Africa</h2>
<p>The main South African liberation army, <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/umkhonto-wesizwe-mk">uMkhonto we Sizwe</a> (MK), learned the toyi-toyi from ZPRA, in <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03057070.2017.1262639?journalCode=cjss20">shared</a> military camps in Angola and Zambia and on the Zimbabwean battlefield. The spread of the toyi-toyi in MK shows how extensive these interactions were. </p>
<p>But MK soldiers had very different <a href="https://www.ifwemustdie.co.za">reactions</a> to it. Some denounced the toyi-toyi as a mindless, brutal physical exercise and blamed it for instituting a repressive military culture in MK.</p>
<p>These critical views of the toyi-toyi did not stop it from spreading throughout MK camps in Angola and from there southwards again into South Africa. One of the main routes for the toyi-toyi’s arrival in the South African townships was through <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/za/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/politics-general-interest/robben-island-and-prisoner-resistance-apartheid?format=PB&isbn=9780521007825">MK soldiers</a> who had been captured, held in the infamous <a href="https://www.robben-island.org.za/stories">Robben Island prison</a> and subsequently released in South Africa. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/politics-and-fashion-the-rise-of-the-red-beret-128333">Politics and fashion: the rise of the red beret</a>
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<p>These men were heroes to many young people in the townships. Performing the toyi-toyi was a means through which young men and women could link their protest to the glories of the armed struggle – now in the form of an at times joyous, at times menacing ‘dance’ rather than a military drill. </p>
<p>The toyi-toyi has continued to change its meanings – it has taken on many different political roles for people with no connection to the liberation struggles. By tracing its journey, we can learn how liberation movements’ militaries were made – and also how they spread into a much wider political culture which remains significant today.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153501/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jocelyn Alexander receives funding from the Leverhulme Trust, RPG-2019-198. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>JoAnn McGregor receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust</span></em></p>South Africa’s famous toyi-toyi was adopted from Zimbabwean troops, who learned it in Algeria – showing the interconnected nature of Africa’s liberation struggles.Jocelyn Alexander, Professor, University of OxfordJoAnn McGregor, Professor, University of SussexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1487822020-10-29T15:34:23Z2020-10-29T15:34:23ZThe Angolan dancers who helped South African anthem Jerusalema go global<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/365725/original/file-20201027-17-l9jbrg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan dance troupe Fenómenos do Semba.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Courtesy Adilson Maiza for Fenómenos do Semba</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In February the Angolan dance troupe Fenómenos do Semba created the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/jerusalemadancechallenge?f=video">viral</a> #JerusalemaDanceChallenge <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=613A9d6Doac&feature=emb_title">video</a> that showed off their dance moves to the South African <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/news/jerusalema-global-dance-hit-south-africa-spotify-1076474/">hit</a> song <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048&feature=emb_title"><em>Jerusalema</em></a>. Their video is set in a backyard in Luanda, where they break into a group dance, all the while eating lunch from plates in their hands. </p>
<p>In the age of coronavirus, the #JerusalemaDanceChallenge video <a href="https://scroll.in/article/975720/jerusalema-why-a-south-african-song-has-become-the-soundtrack-to-a-world-in-lockdown">generated</a> a counter-contagion. Almost overnight everyone from police departments in Africa to priests in Europe were posting their own <em>Jerusalema</em> dance videos that repeated the choreography. </p>
<p>The challenge videos were swept along in a message of <a href="https://www.theelephant.info/ideas/2020/10/16/another-now-why-the-jerusalema-dance-challenge-reveals-a-longing-to-re-imagine-the-world/">hope</a> condensed in the single word “Jerusalema” and amplified through an electronic beat that its creator, Johannesburg-based musician and producer <a href="https://briefly.co.za/32929-master-kg-biography-age-real-awards-songs-albums.html">Master KG</a>, describes as “<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWzu9REdiz8">spiritual</a>”.</p>
<p>Putting together this beat in November 2019, he invited South African gospel vocalist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/07/nomcebo-the-voice-behind-jerusalema-south-africas-global-hit">Nomcebo Zikode</a> to interpret it lyrically. The magic isiZulu phrase “Jerusalema, ikhaya lami” (Jerusalem is my home) arose through their jamming. Then the Angolans provided an irresistible choreography, and the rest is history. </p>
<p>The Angolan dance routine is both just repetitive enough to be picked up and just varied enough to tease. Videos flew around the world on <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/tag/jerusalemadancechallenge?source=h5_m">TikTok</a>, <a href="https://www.instagram.com/explore/tags/jerusalemadancechallenge/?hl=en">Instagram</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2653686454852808">Facebook</a>. Like the urge to dance to “the earliest Ragtime songs” described by Ishmael Reed in his novel <em><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2017/aug/01/mumbo-jumbo-a-penguin-classic-2017-ishmael-reed">Mumbo Jumbo</a></em>, the dance challenge, too, “jes grew”. </p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/613A9d6Doac?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Angolan troupe Fenómenos do Semba’s Jerusalema dance challenge.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The gift of moving collectively</h2>
<p>So how did it “just grow”? </p>
<p>“We are happy to bring the joy of dance to the whole world through this marvellous dance,” (Estamos felizes por levar a alegria da dança para o mundo inteiro atraves desta dança maravilhosa) Fenómenos do Semba declare in Portuguese on their Facebook <a href="https://www.facebook.com/fenomenosdosemba/?ref=page_internal">page</a>. </p>
<p>What they call “alegria da dança” (the joy of the dance) can also be read as “alegropolitics” or joy pressed out from trauma and dehumanisation. Historically, enslavement, colonialism, commodification and a continuing threat to Black life brings forth Afro-Atlantic <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14788810.2019.1708159">expressive culture </a>. </p>
<p>This is seen from <a href="https://www.riocarnaval.org/rio-carnival/what-is">carnivals</a> to the viral <a href="https://medium.com/@travelinghopper/what-is-dont-rush-challenge-7bb392c7095b">Don’t Rush Challenge</a>, started during coronavirus lockdowns by a group of <a href="https://techpoint.africa/2020/04/17/interview-with-nigerian-co-creator-of-the-dont-rush-challenge/">African heritage</a> women where each dances to a hip-hop song and uses technology to “pass” a makeup brush to another. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-viral-song-jerusalema-joined-the-ranks-of-south-africas-greatest-hits-148781">How viral song Jerusalema joined the ranks of South Africa's greatest hits</a>
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<p>This gift to the world is the secret of moving collectively. Not in cookie-cutter unison but through individual response to poly-rhythmic Africanist aesthetic principles that are held together by a master-structure. Dancing in this way is resistance, incorporating kinetic and rhythmic principles that circulated initially around the Atlantic rim (including the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean and Africa). It connects and revitalises by enacting an embodied memory of resistance to enslavement. </p>
<p>The <em>Jerusalema</em> dance challenge is an example of how dance enables convivencia (living together). It is a line dance (animation in French, animação in Portuguese, animación in Spanish) that enlivens parties through simple choreography that makes people dance together. Routines involve directional movement enabled by switching of feet, with dancers turning 90 degrees to repeat the choreography. Syncopated steps create enjoyable tension, and more and more people can join as the routine repeats itself till the song ends.</p>
<h2>Viral African line dances</h2>
<p>Many internet-driven <a href="https://www.redbull.com/za-en/music/a-history-of-afropop-dance-crazes">line dances</a> have emerged in response to songs such as <em>Jerusalema</em>. Created by popular music producers in Africa, they are often operating with limited resources and responding to national music trends that also have a pan-continental appeal. Think of Ghanaian <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/sep/03/ghana-azonto-dance-craze-world">azonto</a>, Nigerian <a href="https://www.wonderlandmagazine.com/2020/05/21/best-afrobeats-dances-lockdown/">Afro-beat</a>; Angolan <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/12/26/167628341/kuduro-the-dance-that-keeps-angola-going">kuduro</a>; South African <a href="https://www.okayafrica.com/south-african-house-songs-10-best/">house</a>. </p>
<p>The dances that develop from the music start out local but can spread from country to country. Choreographies to Ghanaian azonto hits, for example, are taught by dance instructors from Accra when they’re visiting dance clubs in Cotonou in Benin – as I experienced during years of <a href="http://www.modernmoves.org.uk/ouidah-memory-movement-pythons-mermaids-ananya-kabir/">dance research</a> in West Africa.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">The official Jerusalema video, viewed over 200 million times to date.</span></figcaption>
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<p>Videos shared via WhatsApp also enable such “urban” dance styles to jump borders. This is how a member of Fenómenos do Semba received a sample of <em>Jerusalema</em> from South African friends and shared it with his team. According to group leader Adilson Maiza, they loved it as soon as they heard it. To create a line dance choreography to a song from Johannesburg, these dancers from Luanda dipped freely into the vast reservoir of different African accents of dancing to Afro-beat music.</p>
<h2>Angola’s rich dance culture</h2>
<p>These accents include their own. Angola’s rich social dance culture has gone global through the couple dances <a href="https://medium.com/dance-card/what-is-kizomba-b6700eaa063d">kizomba</a> and the more upbeat <a href="http://socialdancecommunity.com/9-reasons-you-should-be-dancing-semba/">semba</a>. A DJ will periodically break up dancing couples with a track that unites the crowd through line dance routines that gesture to the Angolan music and dance style <a href="https://theculturetrip.com/europe/portugal/lisbon/articles/a-brief-introduction-to-kuduro/">kuduro</a>: hyper-exaggerated, angular, dexterous, sardonic. Kuduro steps are hard. To make the routines easier to pick up, they’re mixed with generic Afro-beat dance steps.</p>
<p>Maiza asserts that the <em>Jerusalema</em> choreography mixes kuduro and Afro-beat. Others in the Angolan dance scene disagree, pointing to videos of South African <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/oct/08/pantsula-dance-south-africa-via-kanana">pantsula</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/aug/11/kwaito-south-africa-house">kwaito</a> that reveal similar footwork. Master KG himself <a href="http://www.novojornal.co.ao/cultura/interior/jerusalema-tornou-se-um-fenomeno-musical-planetario-gracas-a-um-video-feito-por-jovens-angolanos-reconhece-o-autor-94679.html">declared</a> that what the Angolan group made viral was a South African dance style popular at celebrations. <a href="http://www.novojornal.co.ao/cultura/interior/jerusalema-tornou-se-um-fenomeno-musical-planetario-gracas-a-um-video-feito-por-jovens-angolanos-reconhece-o-autor-94679.html">Citing him</a>, magazine <em>Novo Jornal</em> observes that the <em>Jerusalema</em> choreography nonetheless transmits an undeniable Angolan touch. It’s what Maiza interprets as signature “ginga e banga Angolana” (Angolan sway and swag).</p>
<p>Ginga, banga, kizomba, semba, kuduro: all Angolan words for dance styles and attitudes that, like line dances, emerge from long circum-Atlantic conversations. Line dances criss-cross the Atlantic, complicating the line between recognition and appropriation. The Danza Kuduro dance was set to a Spanish-language song responding to a Puerto Rican hit. There was the Macarena dance (Spain and Venezuela) and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jun/11/how-the-electric-slide-became-the-black-lives-matter-protest-dance">Electric Slide</a> (US and Jamaica).</p>
<h2>A way to build community</h2>
<p>Instead of understanding the <em>Jerusalema</em> dance challenge as an intra-African phenomenon, it’s maybe more useful to understand it in terms of ongoing <a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/c/creolisation">creolisation</a> processes – a mixing of cultures – that spiral around the Atlantic rim. Multi-directional, unpredictable, but always innovative, creolisation is the motor of the “alegropolitics” of African-heritage music and dance. If the Angolan video popularised the South African anthem, this is a collaborative and competitive creolising phenomenon.</p>
<p>As Fenómenos do Semba morph effortlessly from eating together to dancing together, they draw on deep and resonant reservoirs of Afro-Atlantic survival through joy. The dancers’ hangout is the Angolan quintal or backyard, a hub of activity during long, curfewed nights of unending <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/angolan-civil-war-1975-2002-brief-history">civil war</a>. However, they are eating cachupa, a typical Cape Verdean dish frequently used as a symbol for creolisation. </p>
<p>Like the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2020/jun/11/how-the-electric-slide-became-the-black-lives-matter-protest-dance">revival of line dances</a> during the Black Lives Matter protests, <em>Jerusalema</em> went viral during the coronavirus pandemic because the dance challenge enacted a simple way to connect and build community: especially at a time when people were hungering for these possibilities. </p>
<p>A South African singer’s call, “Zuhambe nami” (join me) was realised through an Angolan dance group’s brainwave to use cachupa to demonstrate that, in Maiza’s words: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>It is possible to be happy with little: we party with very little.
(É possível ser feliz mesmo com pouco: com pouco fizemos a nossa festa.)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And, with just the resources of the body, the locked-down world partied too, for the duration of the dance.</p>
<p><em>Obrigada to Nikolett Hamvas, Adilson Maiza, Rui Djassi Moracén.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/148782/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ananya Jahanara Kabir receives funding from the European Research Council, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and King's College London. </span></em></p>During the coronavirus pandemic the Jerusalema dance challenge enacted a way for communities to connect - repetitive enough to be picked up and varied enough to tease.Ananya Jahanara Kabir, Professor of English Literature, King's College LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1116952019-02-28T22:44:18Z2019-02-28T22:44:18ZCollective of Black dancers created lasting impressions in Canada<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260471/original/file-20190222-195873-8e8xh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Collective of Black Artists (COBA) has been supporting African and Caribbean dance in Canada for 25 years. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">COBA/Yosseif Haddad</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Skin <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Kendrick_Brown/publication/254616468_Skin_Tone_and_Racial_Identity_Among_African_Americans_A_Theoretical_and_Research_Framework/links/570e82c208aecd31ec9a7e19/Skin-Tone-and-Racial-Identity-Among-African-Americans-A-Theoretical-and-Research-Framework.pdf?origin=publication_detail">symbolizes identity</a> — its colour, shade and texture influences cultural currency and, by extension, self-identity. When we know who we are, we can honour where we come from and we can dance in our own skins with pride and passion. </p>
<p>The Collective of Black Artists (COBA) is a Toronto-based professional dance company that works to extend this pride and passion through performance, education and research.</p>
<p>I was one of four Black dancers with roots in the Caribbean who birthed COBA in 1993 to perform our physical and social realities. We worked to create a platform for Black dancers who were under represented in mainstream professional dance companies in Canada at the time. My fellow co-founders and dancers were: Bakari I. Lindsay (formerly Eddison B. Lindsay), Charmaine Headley and Mosa Neshama (formerly Kim McNeilly).</p>
<p>COBA injected new artistic blood into the dance scene in Toronto. It was the ‘90s, during the time <a href="http://publications.gc.ca/collections/Collection-R/LoPBdP/CIR/936-e.htm">multiculturalism was actively promoted within the city</a>; it was the city’s response to the federal government’s attempt to promote unity within diversity by encouraging people to learn about other cultures despite differences in ethnicity, religion, social class. This government mandate helped to create an audience for COBA both in schools and in theatres. </p>
<p>COBA positioned itself as a diasporic family within the Canadian dance establishment. As a cultural membrane, COBA embraced over 50 dancers, drummers, singers and artists from Africa, the Caribbean, Canada and Europe in the rigour necessary to perform appropriate representations of African and Caribbean dance traditions. </p>
<p>With <a href="https://www.cobainc.com/history">reviews</a> in <em>The Globe and Mail,</em> which said it was “a company that makes you sit up and take notice for all the right reasons,” COBA was a hit. </p>
<p>I am a dancer and PhD candidate in education and I am interested in artistic vulnerability. As part of my research, I conducted interviews with some of the COBA founders and members on the significance and history of COBA. On a personal level, I wanted to explore the idea of COBA as a cultural life-line to African and Caribbean dance heritage in Canada. What does it mean to have been part of this dance company? </p>
<p>It means remembering, reclaiming and honouring my ancestry and working with peers who took ownership of their history with boundless energy. </p>
<h2>COBA’s challenges</h2>
<p>COBA faced challenges as an under-resourced collective.</p>
<p>Initial funding applications were denied because an appropriate <a href="https://www.toronto.com/community-story/60914-collective-of-black-artists-making-african-dance-mainstream/">funding category for COBA’s dance form was non-existent at that time</a>. After years of petitioning and convincing arts councils of COBA’s artistic relevance, the arts councils eventually revised their funding categories. COBA was finally able to secure grants. Still, hiring dancers full-time, year round was not an option. Dancers still had to earn a living outside the company.</p>
<p>However, working within a collective is not easy. The reality in collectives is that conflicts arise amongst members. Personalities clash. Egos bruise. Some performers anchor and stay a while. Others move on to different artistic ventures, and professional pursuits. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=965&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/260295/original/file-20190221-195892-tlc2cz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1212&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A 2003 poster for a COBA event, celebrating its first decade.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">COBA Photography, David Hou. Graphic Design, Eric Parker</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>However, despite personnel changes and professional challenges that surfaced within the group, COBA persisted and maintained its integrity and mission. The key principles we followed were: Knowledge, co-operation, authenticity and endurance. </p>
<p>Artistic director, Bakari Lindsay described the COBA process as challenging: “Robust work demands a certain amount of consistent authority — with flexibility — in order to sustain a vision.” </p>
<p>The repertoire, created by Lindsay and Headley, allowed dancers to work with contemporary dance vocabularies, strengthening dancer’s physicality and technical ability. International guest choreographers were invited to stage work allowing the company to expose dancers to new movement aesthetics and fuelling COBA’s artistic growth. </p>
<h2>Honouring African History Month</h2>
<p>Rehearsals began in a humble studio. We carted costumes, props, drums on buses and subways enroute to perform at school assemblies, most notably throughout the month of February, <a href="https://www.tdsb.on.ca/News/Article-Details/ArtMID/474/ArticleID/1270/February-is-African-Heritage-Month-at-the-TDSB">when teachers and principals needed to fulfill the national African History mandate</a>. </p>
<p>Canada is a diverse country and breaking down social and cultural barriers between communities makes a difference in how we see each other and respond to each other’s differences. </p>
<p>COBA’s performances sparked student’s imagination and raised student’s social awareness.</p>
<h2>Keeping stories alive</h2>
<p>When the drummer’s rhythms split the air and heat of the spirit rises in the performers, dances take on a life of their own, as if driven by spiritual powers. The energy of warrior spirits in the West African dances, <em>Doun doun ba</em> and the healing shaman in the <em>Kakilambe</em> come alive and transport the dancers beyond the physical realm. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/261529/original/file-20190228-106365-b0hurh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A dance performance of ‘Saraca’ by COBA.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">David Hou</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The social and historical significance of dances COBA performs demonstrates the importance of remaining flexible and adapting to new environments. Keeping stories alive through dance and drumming provides connection and memory for the things we leave behind either by choice or urgency.</p>
<p>While COBA’s current repertoire includes a wide variety of contemporary dance work, earlier dances were the foundation for the quality of COBA’s social and artistic exploration. </p>
<p><em>Saraca</em> (1994), a thanksgiving ritual pays homage to the African nations who settled in the Caribbean and contributed their rites and dances to the cultural mosaic. </p>
<p>Non-traditional dance performance such as <em>Portrait</em> (1994), addresses themes of race and the human condition, underlines the problem of colourism. <em>Griot’s Jive</em> (2002) draws attention to gun violence which remains an acute social problem. </p>
<h2>African perspectives for youth</h2>
<p>The company established COBA Youth Ensemble (1994) for older/elite dancers in the children’s dance program. Together COBA and Ballet Creole created <a href="https://www.cobainc.com/about-us">Nu-DanCe Training Program</a>, a diverse professional dance training program grounded in an Africanist perspective.</p>
<p>Educating the younger generation in Africanist dance culture preserves the culture. That said, in a fast-moving dance-world social relevance is key. The invasion of hip hop and other urban dance styles commanding the global dance younger generation of dancers within the African diaspora and outside the community must know the origins of the dances they perform. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mFcEwS_HNI8">Gwara Gwara dance,</a> for example, performed in Childish Gambino’s video hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYOjWnS4cMY"><em>This is America</em></a>, is originally from South Africa.</p>
<p>Classes in Hip Hop and Afro-beat COBA provides, ensures a new generation of dancers enjoy the dances that endorse their social relationships while promoting self-discipline and positive self-image. They will understand that the urban dances they learn and love stand on the shoulders of African dance traditions, allowing students to make connections between their past and present.</p>
<h2>Skin imprints</h2>
<p>Although all of the other original founders are no longer part of COBA, Bakari Lindsay and Charmaine Headley have led COBA for the past 25 years, blazing a trail from its humble beginnings to chart new ground within Canada’s dance milieu. Touring across Canada, the U.S. and the Caribbean, COBA touched, even transformed many people’s lives.</p>
<p>Currently COBA’s adult dance company is on hiatus. The younger generation is at the helm charting a new course for the youth. I feel privileged to have been a member of COBA. It was my diasporic family. It taught me when we dance in our own skins, we radiate our personal, spiritual and social currency.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111695/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Junia Mason does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>COBA, the Collective of Black Artists has been working to introduce Canadian audiences to African and Caribbean dances for 25 years.Junia Mason, PhD candidate, Department of Education, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.