The Kuumba Centre, African Dance and Bristol by Huw Jones
Last February Arts Council England announced details of its funding budget for organisations in Bristol over the next three years. Among the changes in this budget plan was the discontinuation of funding for the Kuumba Centre at 20-23 Hepburn Road, St Pauls. For over thirty years Kuumba has been the South West’s leading African Caribbean arts centre. Fittingly named after one of the seven principles of kwanzaa (in Swahili the word ‘kuumba’ refers to the kind of creativity that benefits the community) Kuumba has always had a strong community orientation. The centre offers a range of resources, including a nursery and the unique Sankore library, as well as being an arts venue that has been host to a variety of performers over the years spanning music, theatre, comedy and dance.
Only two years ago it all looked so promising for Kuumba, with exciting plans to develop the listed Old Carriage Works building in Stokes Croft into an arts centre that would reflect the city’s cultural diversity. But the £2.1 million development grant has since been withdrawn and now that the Arts Council have stopped their £110,000 annual grant as of last March, despite still receiving £38,000 a year from Bristol City Council and generating income through hiring hall space, the future of the arts department at Kuumba now seems uncertain and redundancies have already been made.
The reasons for the funding cut seem complicated and to some parties controversial, with talk of targets not being met, confidence being lost in the organisation, and even Kuumba not fitting in with plans to gentrify the Stokes Croft area. I met up with Norman ‘Rubba’ Stephenson, director of dance company Afidance and formerly dance coordinator at Kuumba, to get his thoughts on these recent changes and to find out where African dance in Bristol can go from here.
“Kuumba are happy with what they have done”
Although Rubba feels somewhat frustrated that, compared with ballet and contemporary dance, African dance receives the minimal financial support despite its great potential for having a positive impact in communities like St Pauls, he acknowledges that there may be more to the picture: “I can understand the Arts Council because they look at the bigger picture for an arts centre. It was said that Kuumba didn’t seem to be linking enough with other organisations outside the immediate community.“ Rubba wonders whether the funding crisis boils down to an unfortunate conflict of interest between fulfilling funding body requirements and providing the services which the St Pauls community really want. “I think Kuumba has its own vision of what they want to do for the Afro-Caribbean community…but they have a service agreement with their funders which they must deliver. It’s a catch 22. But Kuumba are happy with what they have done.”
Born in Redhill, Jamaica in 1957 Rubba’s family moved from the Caribbean to Easton in 1964. Now fifty years old, he has been dancing most of his life. Rubba has seen firsthand how African dance can give direction, help develop a sense of responsibility, and put people of African decent back in touch with their cultural roots - not to mention the benefits of the fitness it can bring. It’s then no surprise that Rubba expresses disappointment that despite the Arts Council’s belief in the power of the arts to change lives and communities and to create opportunities, Kuumba in particular should have its funding cut. “I personally believe that African dance serves for more than just performance reasons, it can actually become a very important part of one’s life if one was to properly take up the practice.”
“There’s a history of Africa passing through here”
Having taught African dance since the late seventies, Rubba emphasises what this art form can do for young people in communities such as St Pauls: “We can take youngsters off the street through dance alone….I’ve seen the results. But there’s still a bad situation and we need to address it so we can help the youths even more. That’s one of the most important things about this…what it can do - in particular for people in this area.”
Ruefully Rubba tells me that traditional dance is disappearing. “It’s just not supported enough”. “If it is”, he continues, “it’s supported in a tokenistic manner, and so I think it’s time, really, to address that at least, and Bristol is a very good city for that in terms of it’s relationship to the slave trade. And this area, St Pauls, has had hundreds of years of slave history. There’s a history of Africa passing through here.”
Now that the dance coordinator post at Kuumba has ended, Rubba faces several challenges. He won’t have the funds that allowed him to pay the numerous drummers to drum for the dancers. Without being subsidised by funding, the price of lessons will have to increase which may discourage some. But most importantly, Rubba needs a new venue to continue teaching. So it’s encouraging to hear that Rubba has been motivated by the funding cut to start up a new project in Bristol, to establish a place where African dance can flourish.
Rubba is now very much looking forward, and is already in the process of forming a committee, to be known as the ‘Afidance Collective’, to realise the vision of having a venue in the St Pauls area to encourage awareness, interest, and proud involvement in African dance. An important part of this project will be to establish strong and active connections with other organisations around Bristol; in particular, developing the work that Afidance has already done with local schools.
Moreover, Rubba is confident that he has the right people for the job. Rubba and drummer Stephen ‘Blaggy’ Blagrove have been working together for over 28 years and are two of the very few people in the UK with their skills. “We can use these skills to help the community. Part of our vision is to develop more teams.” Rubba is keen to stress that it is the bigger picture that the Afidance Collective will have in mind; the long term goal of imparting the knowledge to others who in turn will be able to teach the art form. Earnestly he tells me that “this skill takes so long to learn, and there are so few people who know it. That’s part of my remit ??" how are we going to keep it going? You can’t get a drummer that knows what Blaggy knows. Simple as that. It takes years of training. After Blaggy and after me and one or two others scattered around in London, in twenty years time if there isn’t a master drummer then you wont have African dance being done properly in this country. It’ll fade out. We need to get people proud of their roots, wanting to learn it, and wanting to pass it on. It’s urgent.”
