'Unganisha' showcases the African roots behind popular dance genres
The Homestretch radio space was transformed into a pop-up dance studio Friday, when two of the creative forces behind a unique African dance-theatre showcase sat down with host Rob Brown to tell him about 'Unganisha.'
That's the name of the uniquely theatrical dance theatre showcase that will be performed Saturday afternoon at 2 p.m. and then again at 7 p.m. at Wright Theatre at Calgary's Mount Royal University.
Artistic director Chibie Okoye and producer Wunmi Idowu explained the dance-theatre concept to Brown.
"[We'll be] talking about the history of some of these dance forms that are popular today," Okoye said. "Jazz, tap, salsa, capoeira, Afro-Caribbean, samba, Afro-Cuban, step dancing — they all have some sort of roots tracing back to Africa.
"'Unganisha' celebrates that. It educates us and entertains us."
The "educate" part of the story comes because the duo felt there was a gap between the knowledge of various dances and their origin stories.
Tap's roots are in Africa
"Tap has a lot of Igbo roots in Africa," said Idowu. "We dance with our feet a lot, barefoot and without any shoes. We do that to feel the rhythms of the soil beneath us — and I see a lot of movements of tap in that same context."
"It demystifies where African dance has brought [to] the modern dances," said Okoye. "There's a lot of tap and jazz in more mainstream dance, but you don't know where they came from — and that's not being educated [taught] when you go to dance class.
"They will just teach you the specific choreography, [but not] the roots of where it came from — so it was very important to showcase where it came from, so then people would have a better, more educated idea [of its musical and cultural roots].
New York Salsa recipe
Even a popular dance form like salsa — commonly thought of as a Latin dance form — has its roots in Africa, said Okoye.
"Salsa really is rumba and rumba is Congolese," she said. "A lot of us when we come here, we start understanding the influence. When you're in Africa, sometimes you don't realize these things. When you come out here and see how much it has spread, you have a new appreciation for it — salsa is rumba. The salsa that we know today as New York salsa today is rumba fused with jazz."
Where an art form comes from matters, she said, and as an example, pointed to Bob Marley.
"Remember what happened with Bob Marley being exposed to the global market?" she said. "It was really scat music in Jamaica. People didn't know much about that, then he put a spin on it and took it out [to a new place].
"The story has to come along with it," she said. "We don't just get the music. [When] we got Bob Marley, we got Jamaica — now, [when]we get Afrobeat, [or] Afropop, we get Nigeria. It comes with the package.
"It's important for that story not to be lost in translation, so that we appreciate the roots and heritage of where ever certain songs and dance form genres are coming from."
With files from The Homestretch
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