It has been almost five years since I was fortunate enough to receive an ADAD trailblazers fellowship grant. The grant enabled me to continue to explore the fusion between street-dance and African dance movement, and also gave me the support I needed to develop the vision of Mulamu Creatives, which amongst other initiatives provides creative dance projects for young people in disadvantaged communities in Zambia, where I was born. [mulamu.co.uk]

Exploring the fusion between street-dance and African dance movement began with the opportunity to train with the Zambian based Nomakanjanie Dance company who encapsulate sub-Saharan movement but focus a lot of their
repertoire around the war fare dance of the Ngoni tribe of north eastern province (who are incidentally descendant of the Zulu tribe of South Africa) I have used this experience as the basis for my own repertoire that explores fusing the tribal and the urban. To help me explore the link between the more African-American polyrhythmic based Stepping movement and the Gumboot dance, I travelled to Washington and volunteered and trained at Step-Afrika’s summer school. Stepping is a unique dance tradition created by African American college students. In stepping, the body is used as an instrument to create intricate rhythms and sounds through a combination of footsteps, claps and spoken word. The tradition grew out of the song and dance rituals practiced by historically African-American fraternities and sororities in the early 1900s. Stepping comes from a long and rich tradition in African-based communities that uses movement, words and sounds to communicate allegiance to a group.

I am driven by a belief that dance and creativity can be constructive tools for self-expression. Regardless of social and economic contexts, everyone should have opportunities to create, explore, and express, especially if you are normally defined more by the fact that you live on the streets (and are therefore a ‘social nuisance that’s bad for tourism’), and less by the fact that you are just a child. I also think that engaging with disadvantaged communities through brief, time specific arts project brings little long term, sustainable benefit, and in its most vulgar form, can come across as colonial, and arrogant.

In 2007, I founded Mulamu Dance-Africa to facilitate creative projects that connect disadvantaged communities in Zambia with UK based youth dance platforms while raising awareness and funds for the self-help initiatives connected with those disadvantaged communities. The ADAD Trailblazers grant enabled me to invest time in developing the vision of Mulamu through the provision of a mentor and the opportunity for life-coaching sessions. I was also able to travel to Zambia to continue to build relationships and partnerships with host organisations (specifically with the Chisomo Street-Children Drop in Centre), as well as local artists and practitioners who will be key to ensuring the sustainability of delivered projects.

Five years later, Mulamu Dance Africa sits under the umbrella of the UK charity CRED foundation. It has delivered four creative projects in Zambia and has two short films documenting its creative projects within disadvantaged communities. For 2013, Mulamu Dance Africa has been invited to work with Barefeet Youth Arts Festival in Zambia and has partnered with Portsmouth based Hip-Hop dance company, Most Wanted [mostwanteddance.co.uk]. Three young people from the dance company have been selected to collaborate on a site-specific hip-hop theatre piece for the Barefeet Youth Arts Festival in August.

 

Looking back at what has been achieved over the past five years is encouraging but I am particularly excited about the next year as I know that the talented young people we are taking out with us are tomorrow’s Linda Jasper & Kenrick Sandy and I feel strongly that our future leaders and decision makers should be exposed to different cultures and ways of life. They should be given the opportunity to sit alongside young people who face extreme, at times de-humanising poverty and watch them emulate grace, abundant creativity, and contentment with the little that they have. Then perhaps we will see a generation of leaders that want to harness their creative expression to dance over injustice.

Roni is a Trailblazer 2008/09 award recipient

Photos: Young person performing at a Mulamu Dance Africa workshop in Zambia by Christian Cheesman; Two of the young people chosen to travel to Zambia along with Carly-Ann Purcell, Most Wanted artistic director by Roni Cheesman