Allie TedoneUT was treated to a rare exhibition when The Baccalaureate Office presented: “Kuumba Dancers” in the Fletcher Lounge on Wednesday, Sept. 13.
“Kuumba Dancers,” or Creativity Dancers as ‘Kuumba’ means creativity in Swahili are local African dancers that travel around to schools and events sharing many native African dances and stories. During the show UT students were mesmerized by the many different drums played, dances performed and costumes worn.
The show started out with an introduction by one of the dancers, and told a bit about the dances they would see and where they originated from. The first dance was performed by one woman twirling, stomping and frolicking about the stage in such a graceful, yet powerful way. She stopped twirling only to allow two more women to step onto the stage and continue more dancing, as the drums pounded away behind them, in the simplest but most powerful beat. The women, dressed in colorful native African skirts and dresses had such a look of joy on their faces.
After the first dance, students were able to join in. One of the dancers, grabbing the microphone, asked the audience to get up. After the audience was standing they were asked to repeat a short poem, about a farmer and his various farming:
“The farmer comes out everyday
He looks at the sun and what does he say?
The sun, the sun, the sun, the sun.
It hits: the earth, the earth, the earth, the earth,
He plants: the seeds, the seeds, the seeds, the seeds,
And then: he waters them, he waters them, he waters them, he waters them.
During the poem, at the parts of the sun, the earth, the seeds and the watering the audience mimicked various African dance moves. When the audience yelled “the sun,” they were asked to lift their hands to the sky and back down for every sun. At “the earth” they threw out their hands to the ground and back up again. At “the seeds” students threw their hands out to the side as if they were throwing seeds into the soil, and at the part where the farmer “waters,” they were asked to shimmy, their hips back and forth. Soon enough, as you can imagine with many University students trying to shimmy their butts back and forth, the whole audience was roaring with laughter.
After this amusing attempt at African dancing, the audience was treated again to more dancing, this time, the conga. Again, the audience was mesmerized as the women came out onto the stage, gyrating their hips and bringing themselves lower to the ground than any dancer at an Ybor club can. True to tradition, the conga dance ended with a conga line. It is important to note that this conga was mostly made up of beautiful and colorfully dressed women who made the very clich