Last night I got to see the South African Dance Festival at Zellerbach Hall. Lower Sproul looks quite nice at night all lit up. There were a couple of dance groups practicing their routines. Other students were busy with their laptops inside the MLK building - studying hard, one presumes.
The performance inside Zellarbach featured 2 dance companies from South Africa. The first was a musical dance drama about the trials and tribulations of miners; how they miss their families, their wives, the bonds they form with each other and the joy that they strive for in their life underground. All this was told through the vibrant, heady and rhythmic beat of gumboots pounding on the ground. One of the troupe members rendered an amazing serenade to the love he'd left behind. Gumboot dancing or Isicatholo originated in 1880s when young black men were sent off to gold mines by European settlers in South Africa. The miners wore gumboots and rattled their foot chains to communicate with each other. The Stimela Gumboot musical by the Gumboots Musical company was very novel and quite heart-stirring. The second performance by the Pantsula Dance was more contemporary addressing many of the unemployment and social problems of young men in modern day South Africa. The Pantsula dance originated as a sort of protest dance against apartheid and other injustices. It had a a lot of electronic and pop elements in addition to some pretty nifty footwork. Very catchy and quite entertaining. (Below are some youtube videos of the dances)
Overall a very entertaining night!
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