Gumboot dance

The gumboot dance (English: gumboot dance, US-American: welly boot dance, derivative of " Wellington boots" ) is a modern, African dance, the more common of dance groups (eg in the tourist centers ) in South Africa, but also globally is danced on tours of dance groups. The gumboot dance is considered one of the forerunners of tap dance.

Origin

The name of the dance ( " isicathulo " ) comes from the shoes that are worn at the dance, the rubber boots. It developed from about 1880 among black miners in the gold mines around Johannesburg in South Africa. Their living and working conditions were catastrophic and the dance was a response to the racial oppression of apartheid and unbridled exploitation of black labor. Other theories suggest that the dance is, caused by the dances of Russian sailors in the port of Durban or by German missionaries who had the black instead of the unwanted tribal dances taught the Bavarian Schuhplattln.

The Dance

Thus evolved from the African heritage with the only " instruments " that had remained the miners, namely their bodies and their boots, their own language of rhythm and music. Even the whites developed with the colored people in the mines a seven languages ​​lingua franca, the Fanakalo. The miners were forbidden to talk to each other. To be able to communicate with each other underground, developed the blacks - similar to the " talking drums " or the Morse code - by rhythmically beating with hands on her rubber boots, stamping and chain rattling own musical language. The dance reminded by pounding on the boots to a Schuhplattler. This caused underground form of communication sat down slowly over days and by and evolved into a social and cultural expression.

On one hand, the dance should give the young men of courage and strength. Same time they were concerned about a kind of secret language in the seemingly innocuous texts, movements and dance figures about the funny policeman who guarded them. You like this parodied the movements of the officers and guards, without that they could notice it.

Some entrepreneurs would permit the best dancers, the peaceful entertained the men to form their own dance groups. These groups sang encrypted by the miserable life, poor wages, bad boss, but also of family, nostalgia and love in their home language (mostly Zulu, Sotho or Xhosa ) or metaphors. The whites listened with amusement, but understood nothing. These groups were not only used for entertainment of its own people, but were also used as a PR measure, for example, with visitors to the mines. The dance was aptly called " literature in motion" ( Literature in motion). Slowly all mining companies formed her own dance troop who entered in the company's own amphitheatres against each other. At the weekend, these groups practiced their dance performances, often was also very much alcohol consumed, of which some songs that were sung to dance tell. The song topics are always taken from the oppressive life and often enriched onomatopoeic.

Breakfast was the gumboot dance, as well as traditional dances, then used on the festivals of the whites or a tourist attraction. The ankle bracelet today are usually symbolized by a stack rattling Kronkorkendeckel on the outer sides of the boots. For the first time appeared the gumboot dance in film 1956 in Zonk.

The dance today

The gumboot dance is today, performed in South Africa, but also the world as a living and an independent part of South African culture. Youth groups show it off on the streets of the cities to collect some money. Today, the bound rubber boot bells remind us of the shackles of black slave labor. Rubber boots - like backed with foam - can also be painted in color (eg zebra crossing ), the groups, certain clothing ( eg school girl uniforms or helmets ). Thus, the historical tradition is preserved, but the themes and forms of musical expression, the dance fits like other folk forms and the modern circumstances of the youth of South Africa to. Comedy and slapstick elements are emerging.

Paul Simon took her to his album Graceland Gumboots on the title, in the style of South African Mbaqanga ( township jive ) is held.

A dance group under the director Zenzi Mbuli are the Rishile Gumboot Dancers of Soweto, which are known throughout South Africa, but with its 1999 developed show Gumboot - Rhythm is a language at festivals in Edinburgh ( 1999), Austria (2004), USA, Montreal in Canada and France (2005) have occurred. You have a CD and a DVD released ( Gumboots ). The Rishile group is created after the Soweto uprising by the use of Maggie Makhudu that brought the boys from the street and offered them a target with dance and theater in Thabisong Youth Club of Soweto.

A youth group from the township Ratanda, a suburb of Heidelberg in Gauteng Province (South Africa), is the dance group of corroboration Cultural Group, the corroboration Gumboot Dance Company. This group came under the young choreographers Mandoza Radebe on their first European tour in the fall of 2006 to Germany. They appeared in Münster, in Stuttgart Theater in the South African Embassy in Berlin and also in its sister city of Heidelberg on the Neckar. The troops of the township youth combines style elements of traditional dance with hip hop, play joke with African rites.

Black Umfolosi is a well known folk dance group from Zimbabwe.