MDD get lesson in West-African dance

Jan 23, 2003

Fingers point up, torsos pump hard and necks roll from side to side. Four steps in front, four backwards and two sideways.

By Titus Kakembo

Fingers point up, torsos pump hard and necks roll from side to side. Four steps in front, four backwards and two sideways.

Then the thunder of the drums punctuates the songs. Bare feet rhythmically slap the floor. Give the energetic 20 dancers three minutes and their faces shine with sweat.

As the atmosphere is electrified they stretch arms to supplicate the gods. Limbs vigorously move to the new drumbeat. Forget larakaraka from northern Uganda and nankasa from Buganda.

This is the West African dance called coucou. Ojeya Crus Banks, the ambassadorial volunteer scholar from South America, is here for 10 months to have the MDD (Music Dance Drama) class of Makerere Univeristy perfect the brand new dance. She has studied this music, dance and drama for seven solid years.

“This is partially a Mali and New Guinea traditional dance that was sung during the harvest season in the past. That is why we dance pulling reeds, mimicking the cutting of the rice seeds from the plant.

Then we shove them in an imaginary basket,” says Banks as she gasps for breath.
“Keep a distance between each other. You might poke an eye out of its socket,” warns Banks.

By the flip of an eyelid Banks’ husband Martin Klabunde starts banging the djembe drum. It sounds like hard metal, then like hard wood. Then the song, called apartheid, follows.

Banks gets cool. The song is sombre. It has a mournful tone. Then her head falls back, scattering her thick dreadlocks in rebellion. She bunches up her right hand into a fist and throws it at an imaginary opponent. Then a shield is grabbed and a spear shoved with the left hand.

During the five-minute break, the students sprawl on all fours before falling down like sacks. Their moist chests rise and fall as they gasp for breath. It is a high-energy dance.

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